Heavenly Vision

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church for June 14, 2014.

Psalm 87, NLT

Luke 7:36-50

Synopsis: Sometimes it takes keen vision to discern the glory residing in human beings. That glory can be obscured by mental and physical disabilities, by addictions or social dysfunction. God sees through all this obscuring fog. God sees the glory created in every human. God invites us to participate in the divine vision. Central to the mission of the church is practicing looking at people through godly eyes.

Children's Story

Some years ago, I was weeding the vegetable garden. I was working around a huge zucchini plant, scarcely looking at the little bits of green I was yanking from the ground. I reached under the spreading leaves for the few weeds that had managed to sprout there in the shade. I noticed one last weed way under the zucchini. As I reached for it, I hesitated. The weed looked like a tiny orange tree. It was no more than two inches high. I don't think I would have given it the slightest through, but we lived in Thousand Oaks, California, for a few years and had orange trees in our yard. And even at a mere two inches and three leaves, this plant reminded me of those trees.

I looked closer. The leaves had the peculiar widened stem characteristic of citrus trees. It didn't look like any other weed I had seen in Washington, so I left. I would let it grow a little longer. If it really was an orange tree, that would be really cool. It was too close to the zucchini to dig up without disturbing the zucchini's roots. So I figured I'd leave it for now. If it survived until the fall when the zucchini was finished, I'd transplant it.

Periodically, I'd check on my "weed." I didn't know how it would handle the dense shade there underneath the zucchini plant. But it survived quite nicely, adding a few more leaves. It looked more and more like an orange tree.

That fall, when the zucchini was finished, I dug up the little tree, put it in a pot and brought it inside. Over the next few years, it kept growing, eventually it was over four feet tall. It never produced flowers or fruit, but it made a lovely addition to my plant collection in the living room.

Eventually, the “weed” grew too large for the living room, and I gave it to a friend who had a large green house.

Orange trees don't sprout in Washington. I hadn't planted the tree. It was impossible that an orange tree could be growing under my zucchini plant. But it was. I figured it must have been a seed that got tossed in the compost and somehow managed to retain its viability. I'm glad for the momentary pause, that instant of hesitation, that allowed me to see the weed under the zucchini for what it really was.

Sermon

I was driving in the hinterlands of Nevada. I came to a highway junction where I turned left, headed north. Standing there beside the highway, a man I guessed to be in his fifties or sixties, his thumb raised. Driving past, I noted the ragged bag at his side. His hair sticking out at all angles from under a beat-up hat and his sign, Spokane. A loser. I didn't feel like keeping company with an ex-con or shyster. I had stuff piled in the front passengers seat. The back of my car was jammed with camping gear for a month. I didn't have room without rearranging things.

A half mile down the road, I pulled over, checked for traffic and did a U-turn. I could rearrange things. I wouldn't cost me anything to let a loser ride along.

I drove back past the hitchhiker, did another U-turn and pulled over. He came up to the car and opened the door. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Let me get stuff moved.” A minute later, he climbed in, settled his bag between his feet and buckled up. We headed north. Up close he did not look cleaner or any sharper than he did in my first quick glance when I had driven past.

He said his name was Wade. He had a car in Bishop, California, he said, but it was broken, so he was hitchhiking around. He had just spent a few days in Death Valley, told me of some of the places he had explored there. Now he was headed north to Spokane, which he did every spring. I asked what was in Spokane, but could never quite make sense of what he said.

He asked what I was doing and I was equally evasive. I mentioned I had spent a week hanging out with a geologist. He asked some very specific questions about what we were doing, and I began revising my opinion of this unkempt stranger.

He made a rather light-hearted remark that he was lazy. That's why he didn't have a regular job. But I was suspicious. Most lazy people I know don't thing of themselves as lazy.

So I asked, “What do you do to keep from being bored while you're being lazy?”

He laughed off my question, but I asked it again.

“This winter I created a computer-based celestial navigation program. Using this program, if you the exact height of stars above the horizon and have precise chronometry, you could determine your position on the earth's surface with a few feet. All you would need is precise measurements of the elevations for three stars. For each of those stars' positions, there is a corresponding circle on the earth's surface. Your position is the intersection of those circles.

I was impressed, but who needs such a program in today's world when we have GPS.

Wade explained his program could provide the precision of a GPS without using satellites. In some doomsday scenario where the satellites are out of commission or out of communication, you could still determine very precise coordinates. Or maybe you would want to avoid detection by the GPS system.

This did not sound exactly like my image of a lazy person.

I mentioned a curious-looking mountain we were passing. He launched into a detailed discussion of the geology of the area. Then mentioned that another project he had been working on beside his celestial navigation computer program. Traditional classification systems group mining environments according to the familiar categories of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. He was reworking those traditional classifications in light of more recent work which identified many significant mineral deposits as deep sea hot spring deposits. He was almost finished creating a new guide to mineral locales in the state of Nevada.

It turned out that he had been a geology professor back east. Had met and married a beautiful woman who was also a geologist. He followed her to the west coast when she got a good job offer. It didn't work out so well for him. Eventually she divorced him. He had received an inheritance from his grandfather that gave him enough money to feed himself. So he didn't have to work, at least not in the conventional sense.

He mentioned his ex-wife a number of times. Never a hint of animus. Life had gone well for her. He was glad for her. She had been his light, his world. Without her, he could not muster the motivation to plug into regular life.

Near the end of our time together he said to me, “You want to become a billionaire?”

“Sure, of course.”

He outlined his theory about the distribution of gold. It made geological sense. “Map those deposits.” he said. “Buy the mineral rights and dig for gold.”

All I would need was a few hundred million in capital.

About this time, we reached Austin, Nevada. He was continuing on north. I was headed east. We had lunch together, his treat (his thank you for the ride) and parted company.

People are not always obvious.

Jesus and his entourage were invited to a feast by a devout religious leader. During the feast, a woman sneaked in the back door. Luke writes that she was a “sinner.” Most commentators assume this is a euphemism for prostitute or slut.

This woman had heard Jesus was in town. She had heard about the feast. She came in through the back door, found her way around to Jesus' feet and began kissing them. She was crying. Her tears fell on Jesus' feet. She then let down her hair and wiped his feet with her hair. Then she pulled out a little stone container of fabulously expensive perfume, dabbed it on his feet.

By this time Jesus was famous. He had performed miracles and changed lives and everywhere he went, he created a stir. In response to his ministry and his fame people did weird things. This was just another of those weird displays of admiration and affection that Jesus evoked. Still, it was over the top. The most scandalous thing was that Jesus did nothing to stop it. He didn't scold the woman. He didn't pull his feet away. He accepted it.

The host, someone who took religion with great seriousness was incensed. “Surely,” he muttered to people around him, “if Jesus knew who this woman was he would not tolerate any touch from her, much less, this gushing, emotional kissing and hair-wiping.”

“Simon,” Jesus said, “I have something to tell you.”

“I'm listening,” Simon said.

“A pay day lender had two customers. One owed five hundred bucks. The other owed five thousand. Both faced a payment deadline on the same day, and neither had a dime in his pockets. In gesture of grand generosity, the lender forgave the debt for both of them. Now, which of these guys do you think would have the most appreciation?”

“Well,” Simon said, “I suppose the one who had the most debt.”

“Yes, of course,” Jesus said.

Then Jesus turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?”

I love this question. “Do you see this woman?” For the last fifteen minutes, Simon had been fuming about the woman, muttering about her, fretting about her. But Jesus challenges him. “Simon, do you see her? Look! No not at me. Not at the people sitting next to you. Look at her! Do you see her?

Jesus wasn't asking if Simon was aware that a female was in the room. He was asking something far deeper.

“Simon, when I came into your house, you gave me no water for my feet (a failure in courtesy), but she has washed my feet with her tears. You gave me no ointment. She has perfumed my feet. You gave me no kiss (a really serious breach of etiquette), but she has not stopped kissing my feet.

“Her sins which were many are forgiven. Her lavish love is proof she has been forgiven. But someone who has received little forgiveness, loves little.”

Jesus saw something Simon missed. Note, in this story, Jesus did not read dark secrets. He said the woman was a sinner. But that was no secret. Simon knew all about that. Everyone in the room knew all about that. What was the special seeing Jesus demonstrated?

Jesus saw her goodness. Jesus saw she had experienced forgiveness. She had been transformed into a great lover.

Why didn't Simon see that? He wasn't looking for it.

Jesus turned to the woman and said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

She left blessed, celebrated, elevated.

Objectively, the woman's behavior was socially gauche. She was misbehaving by all social norms. She violated multiple dicta of etiquette. But by the time Jesus has finished his interaction with the woman, her behavior had been transformed from faux pas into sublime theater. Her awkwardness had been recast as one of the most artful moments in all Scripture.

That's the power of the vision of Jesus.

Some of you are wasting your lives in extravagant love. Over the past few weeks, a whole group of Green Lake members practiced seeing with the eyes of Jesus. They were made aware of a mother whose son had received a hopeless diagnosis in Peru. From somewhere she managed to scrape together enough money to buy plane tickets for herself and her children and brought her son to Children's Hospital. An Adventist friend called the church and Holly and Ellen and Veronica and Darchelle and Ken spent hours taking care of the siblings, providing spiritual and social support for the mother.

The best medicine eventually proved insufficient. John died.

So now, in the face of this heart-breaking failure to obtain healing how do we regard all the extravagant attention to this sick boy and his family? Seen through the eyes of Jesus, it was a demonstration of the very essence of heaven. John's mother's relentless drive to pursue even the most remote possibility of healing for her son perfectly mirrors the intentions of God. The service given by the care team also expresses God's purposes.

When we see through the eyes of Jesus, we see the goodness resident in people, the beauty, the value inherent in every human being.

People are certainly capable of doing evil. This month's newsletter includes an article warning against the dangers of various scams that target especially senior citizens. I beg our senior citizens, if someone calls your or emails you about a great investment opportunity or about an urgent need for financial assistance, please talk to one of the elders or one of the pastors before you give anybody, and information or any money.

It takes no special spiritual insight to spot evil. The special vision of Jesus was not insight into evil. It was insight into hidden goodness. This woman who was publicly known as a great sinner was een by Jesus as a great lover who had been transformed by forgiveness. Would you have seen that? Can we practice that kind of vision among the people we live with or associate with at school or work?

Here in our congregation we have a couple of very public, dramatic demonstrations of the vision of Kingdom of Heaven. I think of Claire's care for her son Alex and Carrie's and her girl's care for Quinn. If we looked at Alex or Quinn through the standard eyes of capitalism, they are worthless. They have no potential of producing goods and services with a significant monetary worth.

If we measure them using academic yardsticks, we will never find their value. They are not going to help any school district improve their aggregate standardized scores.

If we measure them using the common language of revivalist religion, we will never see their value. There is no realistic expectation that they will become missionaries or philanthropists or health reformers.

Alex and Quinn and their caregivers help us understand the unspeakable beauty of the vision of Jesus. Jesus sees value in people because they are people.

This applies to you. We are at the end of a school term. Some people will get their grades and experience a rich sense of validation. Others will get their grades and experience a sinking feeling. They will feel like failures. Maybe they will feel shame. If that is you, let Jesus look at you. Then watch his face as he watches you. In his smile you will see your real value.

Some of us here today struggle with a nearly crushing sense of moral inferiority or unworthiness. Watch Jesus watching you. Jesus sees what even you may not be able to see. You are forgiven. Let Jesus persuade you of that fact. Let the joy of forgiveness flow through you.

You may look like a weed. You might be famous as a sinner. You might be demonstrably incapable of contributing to the wealth or pride of society. Still, seen through eyes of the kingdom of heaven, you are priceless. And all of us are called to help one other know this. We are called to practice looking at each other and the whole world through the lenses of the kingdom of heaven.