Lent IV A Grace Lockport How Dirt 'n Spit 'n Love Lead to Amazing Grace

[This is a recast of a sermon given three years ago. But it was, once again, what I wanted to say, so with a few tweaks, here it is]

+Theologian Rick Morley refers to the story of the Man Blind since birth as the "Dirt n' spit n' love Gospel." He's right, it is a dirt n spit n love Gospel...written about a dirt n spit n love savior who established this, our dirt n spit n love faith.
 Being Christian is far from neat and tidy. It's a messy business following this Savior of ours, the one born in a barn, the one who violated the mores of the day, who pushed the temple authorities to their limit, who got down in the dirt and the spit of life in order to show that everyone, everywhere, forever, is loved. Ours is a very real, very accessible, very dirty, messy and muddy faith.
That’s been the message these past few Sundays, that without the dirt ‘n spit ‘n love of God as given to us through Jesus Christ, we don’t live, we simply exist. Without the dirt ‘n spit ‘n love of God our eyes may be open but we don’t really see. Without the dirt’n spit ‘n love of God we may hear the noise, but never listen to the message. That without the dirt ‘n spit ‘n love of God our thirst—no matter how much we drink-- will never be quenched.
Today, John continues this message of dirt n spit n love with the story of the blind man who is healed on the Sabbath.
As Jesus is walking along he sees the blind man, he notices him. The man isn’t asking for healing, he isn’t, as far as we know, drawing any attention to himself. Nothing we read today tells us that this man, in any way, was seeking Jesus out. All we know is that Jesus, realizing it’s a healing moment… a teaching moment … a ministry moment, takes action-- regardless of the fact that it’s the Sabbath, a day no observant Jew worth his salt would be doing anything akin to work—. There’s healing to do and love to spread, and Jesus didn't care what day it was.
Now Jesus could have healed the man without the mud and the washing ……all he needed to do was say the word and the man would have been healed…..but for Jesus, it wasn't about the healing of one, it's about the healing of all. And so Jesus and his companions stop.
The disciples immediately step in it by asking a numbskull question about whose sin caused this man’s blindness---as if any of us deserve to be blind, or deaf, or disabled in any way! Instead of rebuking them directly for assuming that God is some sort of spiteful hateful Deity—Jesus says, “watch, listen, and learn. What I'll do for this man I'll do for everyone. "
Through the love of God, as given to us in Jesus Christ all of us, everyone, everywhere, will be cured of blindness, all of us, everyone everywhere who are lost will be found, and all of us, everyone and everywhere who are thirsty will be quenched with living water. And that all of us, everyone and everywhere who feel unlovable will, indeed, be loved.
So Jesus prepares his healing paste, with dirt ‘n spit ‘n love, slathers it on the man's eyes and lo and behold, after a quick wash, the man can see!! Of course, the dirt didn’t heal him. It wasn’t the mud, it wasn’t even Jesus’ touch, or the man’s desire ….it was something else.
Something unquantifiable and indescribable.
What happened was beyond the blind man’s comprehension, it was beyond his neighbors’ comprehension, it’s beyond our comprehension.
And for Jesus, that’s the point—it’s not about practicing religion in a certain "right way." It’s not about crossing the t's of our faith and dotting the "i's". It's about moving from simple belief to deep knowing. It’s about that shift from simply professing faith to living it: lock, stock and barrel.
 That transition, that transformation requires something more than dirt, something more than spit and something even more than love. It requires grace. Amazing, miraculous and incredible Grace.
      The miracle of the man who once was blind and now could see, the miracle of that dirt n spit n love of God that Jesus formed into a healing paste was in a word, Grace.
Grace--it’s what’s been coursing through our readings these past few weeks. An amazing, limitless, grace.
It’s what gave Nicodemus the courage to go and see Jesus, it’s what gave the woman at the well a voice to be heard, a strength to convert those who once shunned her. It’s what caused Jesus to see the blind man, it’s what carried the man to the pool to be washed free of darkness, to be bathed in light.
It’s what makes firefighters run into a burning building, it’s what led Keith Palmer, a Parliament police officer, to stand between a knife-wielding lunatic and the people Keith had sworn to protect, it’s what makes all first responders go toward disaster while everyone else runs from it.
It’s what allows us to forgive those who’ve hurt us so deeply, it’s what compels us to reach to out to those with less, it’s what peaks the longing we feel for justice, what makes us fight for causes others have long forgotten, what keeps you working to make this church—your church…Grace church—a place of healing and hope for all who enter.
It’s what makes us be better people than we ever thought we could be.
It’s called Grace.
It takes us from blindness to sight, from wretchedness to worthiness, from darkness to light, from lost to found.
The work of God, the work of Jesus, is full of the dirt ‘n spit ‘n love that leads us to Amazing Grace.
A grace which when we believe it, when we trust it, when we embrace it, always leads us home.
Amen.
[Please stand and turn to Hymn 671.]

Lent 1 Yr A March 5, 2017

So, I had a sermon written for this morning. There was nothing wrong with that sermon at all. BUT ever since Ash Wednesday, something has been nagging at me. And then two separate Bishops got involved. First I read Bishop Audrey Scanlon's (Central Pennsylvania) weekly blog (http://compasspointsmappingtheway.blogspot.com) in which she shared Jan Richardson's poem Rend Your Heart: A Blessing for Ash Wednesday (more on that in a bit). Second, our Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, visited the diocese this weekend. As I said  good bye to him on Saturday night, he put his hands on my shoulders and said (referencing today, Sunday), "Preach well, my sister." As my seminary professor the Rev. John Colacino was fond of saying, his words convicted me. I could take the written sermon and preach it. Or I could stand in the midst of you and preach. Preach that which was on my heart and in my soul. And so...here we go. [what follows is my memory of what I said, since I did the two sermons at 8 and 10 , without notes, except for the Book of Common Prayer and the text of Jan Richardson's poem.]
Lent is not a time for dreariness, and wretchedness. Lent is a time for tearing open our hearts, reaching deep into our souls and laying all that weighs us down in front of our Creator. It is a time to get honest with ourselves--really honest---and to shed light on those things that linger deep within us, things that cause us shame, things that disgust us, things that sadden us, things that embarrass us.
Lent is time for freeing up space and time for God to enter in--some of us do this by removing (giving up) something for Lent, some of us do this by adding a practice (reading morning prayer or evening prayer, or some other devotional). I doesn't matter how we do it, it matters that we are intentional about doing it.
So...why do this? Why take this time to "change things up?" Well, it all began with the scene in the Garden of Eden. Our reading from Genesis this morning is commonly referred to as the Fall of Humankind. People tend to think that Adam and Eve's behavior surprised and angered God. Well I don;t think God gets surprised...and while God may get angry I don't believe that our God exacts revenge upon us in response to that anger. I think God knew that we--humanity--had the capacity for free will...I believe that God knew we would be drawn toward doing things on our own instead of partnering with God. Was God surprised at how quickly we succumbed to the cravings of THIS world? Perhaps. Was God saddened, was our Creator grieved at our turning away from God and TOWARD power and immediate gratification? Yes, I believe God grieved (and grieves) deeply at our insistence on doing things our way instead of God's way. I think God is horribly grieved when we hurt one another. And I think God is especially grieved when we hurt ourselves.
Why do we rend our hearts and souls open before God during Lent? Not because we need to be forgiven (but of course we always need forgiveness), not because God likes to see us suffer (no God NEVER wants us to suffer), not because it is good to deny ourselves. No we rend our hearts and souls open to God during Lent as a cleansing act to free us, to lighten us, to open ourselves up enough to fully receive the new life presented to us on Easter morn. In the ancient church, Lent was a time for those who desired baptism to study and pray as a way to ready themselves for receiving new life in Christ through baptism. We only get baptized once, but Lent, for us, allows us a time to be ready to be born again at the empty tomb. Lent is a time to free up space within us to receive the glory and the wonder and the awesomeness of resurrection life. The more room we open up the more glory has room to roam within our hearts and souls.
You see, my friends, this is why I actually think Lent is awesome, because a well-done Lent allows for an incredible Easter. A well done Lent guarantees us a depth and breadth of joy on Easter morn beyond anything we've ever experienced.
A well-done Lent opens us to a Love that is stronger and a Peace that is greater than we can ever ask or imagine.
A well-done Lent opens us up to the fullness of God. And the fullness of God? Well that is all that God has every wanted for us, the fullness of Love itself. The fullness of Peace itself.
A well-done Lent leaves us empty of resentments, empty of guilt, empty of shame and empty of despair.
A well-done Lent leaves us empty enough to be filled---absolutely FILLED---with resurrection light, resurrection love and resurrection life.
So as we are invited to the observance of a Holy Lent, remember that Lent is not something to endure, it is something to participate in--fully and completely--not because God is making us, but because we are sick and tired of hiding, of denying, of shunning the darker parts of us. Through the observance of a Holy Lent we take all that weighs us down, those things we've stuffed into the recesses of our hearts and lay it down.
The observance of a Holy Lent requires that we dig deep.
To do this we must Rend our Hearts as described by Jan Richardson in the poem,
Rend Your Heart: An Ash Wednesday Blessing
To receive this blessing,
all you have to do
is let your heart break.
Let it crack open.
Let it fall apart
so that you can see
its secret chambers,
the hidden spaces
where you have hesitated
to go.

Your entire life
is here, inscribed whole
upon your heart’s walls:
every path taken
or left behind,
every face you turned toward
or turned away,
every word spoken in love
or in rage,
every line of your life
you would prefer to leave
in shadow,
every story that shimmers
with treasures known
and those you have yet
to find.

It could take you days
to wander these rooms.
Forty, at least.
And so let this be
a season for wandering
for trusting the breaking
for tracing the tear
that will return you
to the One who waits
who watches
who works within
the rending
to make your heart

whole.

May God bless our rending, our emptying and then our receiving. Amen.