"Every Woman, Every Man"
A Sermon Preached by The
Rev. Thomas C. Leinbach
March 2, 2008 - Harwich, Massachusetts

Preaching Text: "They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind." (John 9:13)

Time is taking us closer and closer to Jerusalem and the cross. The light that came into the world first as a fragile flickering flame is now steadily gaining strength and luminosity.

Consider the seasons. In late December, during the winter solstice, we experience the shortest day of the year. Darkness is everywhere and dominant. We light a candle in search of the coming light, and welcome eagerly the divine spark that comes to us at Christmas.

But now, with each passing day, as he sun grows steadily stronger, it's as if a war is going on. The intensity of the resurgent sun battles daily the darkened cold, creating, at least for now, a kind of stalemate. One day appears bright and cheerful, only for the next to bring a return to the brooding dark.

More than that, this juxtaposition of light and dark sets up a turbulent clash between two opposing, unyielding forces. It's as if the sun is preparing to defeat and overwhelm the regnant dark and cold, though the darkness does not yield so happily or easily.

Thus the stage is set for a huge, almost cosmic struggle between the ascendant light and the intransigent dark, the outcome of which shall be fierce.

Though I'm no meteorologist, the violent storms this time of year, at least as I understand it, are due largely to clashes between warm and cold air masses, between the air warmed by a strengthening sun and the chilled and lifeless arctic air. From such clashes come the violent storms of spring.

Having lived through many a spring, however, we know the way things will end up. Eventually the sun will overwhelm the cold and dark, bringing discernable change and a bright, new beginning.

Images of day and night, light and darkness, sight and blindness are themes running throughout the gospel of John. In its prologue, in fact, we are told that the Word, Jesus, has come, the light of the world, a light, we are assured, the darkness cannot overcome.

And now as the drama of the gospel unfolds further, we see the forces of darkness, which at first seem implacable threatened by the power of the emergent light, of the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.

We, of course, know something those who first encountered Jesus didn't. We know how the story ends. We know that, like spring, the light is inevitable, that it shall overcome, that the powers of darkness shall yield, just as the rising sun each morning vanquishes the night.

From birth, the blind man in today's gospel has only known darkness. But then his eyes suddenly are opened. In the midst of a surrounding dark, he SEES. And he sees not just with his eyes, but he sees who Jesus really is, and the mission he is on.

Unlike those around him, he understands experientially that God has sent this Messiah to banish the surrounding dark and replace it with light, with grace, with life. He is given a glimpse into God's secret plan for this world, of bringing all of life into the mystery and grace of God's steadfast and unyielding love.

Even, that is, as the religious authorities simultaneously appear unmoved, confused, truly blind. The people who otherwise have dedicated their whole lives to God cannot see what this simple blind man sees clearly. Perhaps their eyes have adjusted all too well to the surrounding dark, and are rendered blind to the new thing God is doing. Their dim eyes, unaccustomed to the light, cannot focus. They have accommodated too much to pragmatic thought and diminished expectation.

The Chinese have a wonderful proverb, one I've quoted before. "If you want to know about water," it reads, "don't ask a fish." Which is merely another way of pointing out how easily we take for granted our surroundings.

In a Pew study that came out this past week, chronicling the changes in the religious landscape of the United States (which you may have read about it in The Cape Cod Times), one particular statistic jumped out. The study found that the so-called Mainline Protestant churches (UCC, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal, American Baptist, Presbyterian, etc.) soon may find themselves in the minority for the first time ever.

When the baby boomers left the church in the late sixties and early seventies, disenchanted with the what they perceived as the "establishment" (of which the church had become a part), the mainline churches suffered major losses.

Our response at the time was to circle the wagons and continue doing what we had always done, hoping that the storm would pass and those who had left would someday return. But, alas, they never did. Instead, they left church altogether, and provided their children (and their children's children) with little or no exposure to Christian teachings and beliefs. Something had changed in the religious landscape, and we're still trying to come to terms with it.

What new thing, we now must ask ourselves, has actually taken place? And what should our response to it be? Should we do certain things differently? And if so, in what ways? How, in other words, are we to remain vital in the future?

The response of the religious leaders of Jesus' day was to do the same things over and over again, and ignore the new opportunities God was offering.

When most of us were growing up, we went to church, and learned, in one fashion or another, the basic norms and values of Christianity. Not only that, but the culture we lived in generally supported the church and its mission. As a case in point, a few months ago, I found a church scrapbook with newspaper clippings, including a 1974 article in The Cape Cod Times announcing this church's Annual Meeting that year, complete with the names of all the newly elected board and committee chairs! Today such a thing is unthinkable.

Since the late sixties and early seventies, and for the first time ever, our culture moved self-consciously toward secularism. Our message no longer is being heard "out there."

As a result, our culture has become (or so it seems to me) ever more dysfunctional, with generations of young people not having the benefit of religion. And in the aftermath of societal breakdown, many today find themselves "at sea," unsure how to navigate through this challenging world of ours, unsure how to choose wisely and rightly.

How, then, should we respond to them, as the church of Jesus Christ?

The same Pew study, curiously, found that the only Christian churches currently growing tend to be the evangelical ones. Which makes me at least wonder: is it because they teach a kind of "meat and potatoes" religion, offering guidance and direction to those who've otherwise known little?

Perhaps it's time for the Mainline Protestant churches to think seriously about these and other questions.

Yet though we face serious challenges in this age, even as we struggle to understand the new thing God is doing, we have the Easter assurance that God's will shall not be thwarted and that the light of Christ will be quenched.

As we struggle to make sense of our world, it is worth considering that Christianity worldwide is booming - in Central America, South America, Asia and Africa. It is outpacing, in fact, Islam by leaps and bounds.

In those days of uncertainty and confusion, when the clouds hang low, it often is hard to realize just how radiantly the sun shines above them.

Christ, the light of the world, has come into our world, and the darkness, we are certain, shall not overcome it.

Amen.