June 22, 2008

“How Is Our Vision?”

TEXTS:  Genesis 21:1-19

 INTRODUCTION/ILLUSTRATION:

            I love the Andy Griffith Show, mostly because of Barney.  Barney always seems to think that he knows best and has all the right answers.  Such was the case in the episode where Barney decided to become an amateur psychiatrist.  He sends off for an amateur psychiatric kit.  When it arrives, he tries it out on Otis.  Using the classic inkblot test, Barney shows Otis one of the ink blots and says, “Look at this, Otis, and tell me what you see!”  Otis answers,  “I see a bat.”  Well, Barney gets all upset and says, “That’s the difference between you and me Otis!  You see a bat and I see a butterfly!”

            Actually Barney was pretty much on target, even if he didn’t know it.  The difference between people is often times most clearly demonstrated by the way that we see things.   Let me give three examples:  The first one is about a man driving in the country one day when he saw an old man sitting on a fence rail watching the cars go by.  Stopping to pass the time of day, the traveler said, “I never could stand living out here.  You don’t see anything and I’m sure you don’t travel like I do.  I’m on the go all the time.”    The old man on the fence looked down at the stranger and said, “I can’t see much difference in what I’m doing and what you’re doing.  I sit on the fence and watch the autos go by and you sit in your auto and watch the fences go by.  It’s just the way you look at things.”

            The second example is biblical.  When Goliath came against the Israelites, the solders looked at him and thought, “He’s so big we can never kill him.”  David looked at the same giant and thought, “He’s so big I can’t miss him!”  And finally, a shoe manufacturer who decided to sell shoes in the Congo market sent two salesmen to the undeveloped territory.  One salesman cabled back:  “Prospect here is bad.  No one wears shoes.”  The other salesman reported enthusiastically, “Market potential terrific!  Everyone here is barefooted.”

            The way that we see things is important in life.  It makes all the difference in how we live, how we react, how we succeed in life.  The same is true in our faith journeys too.  How we see things religiously makes all the difference to us too as we travel along in our relationship with God.  Harold Kushner, in his book, Who Needs God?, expressed it this way:  “Religion is first and foremost a way of seeing.  It can’t change the facts about the world we live in, but it can change the way we see those facts, and that in itself can make a real difference.” 

MOVE TO THE TEXT: Last week, Emily very beautifully reminded us through God’s Word how God sees us.  God sees past our limitations, handicaps and weaknesses.  And so we are blessed, reassured and oh so loved by a God who says over and over:  “I see you and I love you!”  She used Hagar’s example from the Old Testament, reminding us of how God saw her in a different way than Sarah or even Abraham saw her.  God saw her heart.  God saw her deepest needs.  God saw her and God provided what was most important for her, just as he did the paralytic man lowered through the roof to Jesus.

            Interestingly today our lectionary text for the Old Testament has us focusing more on Hagar’s story, perhaps as a reminder of God’s Word to us last week, but also perhaps as a challenge for us to not only learn about how God sees, but also to learn about how we see, or don’t see!  So this morning, I ask us a question that I want us to focus on for a few minutes:  HOW IS OUR VISION?  I’m not talking about our physical vision.  I’m not asking you to tell me if you have 20/20 vision.  What I’m asking about is our spiritual vision.  How do we see spiritually?  Is our vision as God wants it to be or is our vision clouded or blinded in some way?

            In the passage of scripture just read, we see two women, Sarah and Hagar.  Both are important in the history of God’s people.  As their stories intertwine we hear words that indicate an emphasis on vision or sight, words like “Sarah saw…” or “Hagar watched…” .  Their physical sight was fine, but what about their spiritual sight?  Well, from the story we find out that it’s not so good.  They were actually blinded spiritually.  That is, they had their eyes closed to what they really should have been seeing or how they really should have been looking at things.  One was blinded by jealousy or envy and the other was blinded by fear.  It took God opening Hagar’s eyes for her to finally be able to see, really see, that what she needed was there all along.  For Sarah, we don’t know.  Not much more is said about Sarah after this chapter in Genesis, except that she later died.  Perhaps her eyes were opened later to see that God had indeed provided for her too, not just a son, but the lineage of God’s people through that son.  We don’t know.  And since we don’t know, then maybe Sarah should be where we start today. 

Do we know about ourselves?  How is our spiritual eyesight?  Are we blinded by jealousy or envy or fear?  And if we are, then are we willing to let God open our eyes so that we can see spiritually the way God wants us to see?  Hagar was, Sarah we don’t know about.  But we can learn from both of them enough to make sure that we DO indeed have good spiritual eyesight or that we need to let God improve that spiritual eyesight.  So let’s take a quick look at these two women and how they were blinded.  Let’s get a spiritual eye check up for ourselves!

FIRST, ARE WE BLINDED BY JEALOUSY?:

            We’ll start with Sarah.  Looking back at the scripture we hear these words again:  “But Sarah SAW that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”  Even though the scripture says that Sarah “SAW”, Hagar and the son she bore, Sarah’s eyesight wasn’t really all that good.  Her physical sight may have been ok, but her spiritual sight was poor.  In fact, she was blinded spiritually, blinded by jealousy. 

            She looked literally at Hagar and her son and saw them only as a threat to her own family.   She saw them as people who could perhaps get what she thought she and her son deserved more.  She saw them as people who might end up being more important than her and her son.  She saw them as a threat because she was blinded by jealousy and envy.  And because of her blindness, she missed out on the beauty that was a part of the lives of those she felt so threatened by.

Jealousy can blind us all at times, can’t it?  Like Sarah, we feel threatened at times by others.  We feel threatened that someone else might get something we deserve…..like recognition for something we did, like more pay for doing the same job we did, like the relationship we think we should have with someone.  We feel threatened that someone else might be right when we think we deserve to be right.  We feel threatened that someone else might be accepted more into a circle of friends or associates, taking a place we feel we deserve.  The list could go on and on, the results are all the same.   When we feel threatened that someone will get something we think we deserve, we become blinded spiritually and can no longer see the person in the way God would desire we see them.

 And worse yet, when we’re blinded by jealousy, our actions that follow are often way off from what God would have us do, how God would have us treat them.  Sarah’s actions that came from her jealousy were to cast this woman and her son away…send them out into harm’s way…just get rid of them!  Perhaps our own actions at times are similar.  When we’re jealous of someone, we cast them aside, have nothing to do with them, talk about them to others, ostracize them from the group.  Yes, being blinded spiritually by jealousy is not a good thing for us or for those around us.

Let me share a fictitious story to illustrate the point.  Two shopkeepers were bitter rivals.  Their stores were directly across the street from each other and they would spend each day keeping track of each other’s business.  If one got a customer, he would smile in triumph at his rival.  One night an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said:  “I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your competitor will receive twice as much.  Do you want to be rich?  You can be rich, but he will be twice as wealthy.  Do you wish to live a long and healthy life?  You can, but his life will be longer and healthier.  What is your desire?”  The shopkeeper  frowned, thought for a moment and then said, “Here is my request:   Strike me blind in one eye!”

Being blinded by jealousy can be very harmful to us AND to those who we feel so threatened by.  Sarah was blinded by her jealousy of Hagar and so she demanded that Hagar be cast out from a place of security and provision to a place of scarcity and fear.  That’s how Sarah saw Hagar.  But we know that God didn’t see Hagar that way.  And because of that Hagar often comes out smelling sweet in this story, looking like the one who does what’s right.  Now, while she may have been a victim and may have eventually come out alright and good, we have to note that Hagar’s spiritual eyesight was also not too good.  So we turn to her part in the stroy to see what she was blinded by and how we can learn from her example.

SECOND:  AER WE BLINDED BY FEAR? :

            Listen again to the scripture.  “Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar.  He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy.  She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.  When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes.  Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, I cannot watch the boy die.”  And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob.”

            Hagar may have had the physical eyesight she needed, for we know she didn’t want to watch or see her boy die.  But her spiritual eyesight was not too good.  You see, she was blinded by fear!  Now you might say Cindy, of course she was afraid.  She was out of water and food and cast out from Abraham and her family, out in the middle of nowhere…..of course she was afraid.  I’d be afraid too!  And indeed we probably would and are often afraid when we face difficult situations in our lives. 

            But listen as the scripture continues:  “the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, What is the matter, Hagar?  Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.  Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.  Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.”  You see, Hagar’s blindness had caused her to forget, to forget the promise from God that he would make her son also into a great nation.  And if God had promised to do that, then surely he would not let the boy die here in the desert.  Her fears blinded her to God’s ability to provide for her and her son.  And it took God to open her eyes again so that she could see that all that she needed was right there before her. 

            How often do we also get blinded by fear?  How often do we allow the bad circumstances in our lives blind us enough that we forget God’s promises to us?  How often do we need for God to open our eyes so that we can see that his provisions were there all along, if only we’d look to him and not at the problems all around us?  Oh yes, we might be blinded by fear, but God, if we will let him, will also open our eyes so that we can see him, so that we can see his promises to us, so that we can see his provisions for us!  

            We need to have our eyes opened like the farmer who lived on the same farm all his life, but now, as he grew older, felt he needed a change.  So he decided to sell the place and move to another of his liking.  He listed the farm with a real estate agency, who looked over the property and prepared an ad for the newspaper.  The agent then read the ad to the farmer for his approval:  “Beautiful farmhouse, ideal location, excellent barn, good pasture, fertile soil, up-to-date equipment, well-bred stock.  Near town, near church, near school.  Good neighbors.”  The farmer listened, then asked the real estate agent to read it again.  When he got through with it the second time the farmer smiled and said “Changed my mind.  I’m not gonna sell.   All my life I’ve been looking for a place just like that!”

            If we are blinded by fear or by jealousy, then perhaps we need to hear God read out to us again and again his promises to us, his calling to us, his teachings to us, his way of seeing us, so that we can see ourselves AND others in the same way!  CONCLUSION:

 In closing, let me share one more story.  In a biography of St. Francis, G. K. Chesterton describes the conversion of St. Francis in an interesting way.  He said that “Francis, having spent two weeks all alone in a cave, came out of the cave walking on his hands.  He now saw everything from a different perspective.  When you are on your feet, castles and trees seem to sit solidly on their own, as if they existed in their own right.  But when you stand on your head the same things appear literally to be hanging, the way a chandelier hangs by its chains.  What Francis of Assisi discovered you see is that everything hangs or depends on God.  His eyes had been turned from self to God, from arrogance to humility, from greed to grace, from egotism to service. “  And I might add, from fear to boldness and courage too!

  God’s desire is to take our eyes off of ourselves, which will help us to see things differently.  When this happens then we can see that everything DOES indeed hang on God.  Our self –worth comes from or hangs on God.  And when we look at it that way, then how can we be jealous of anyone else, for we are a child of God!  All our provisions come from or hang on God.  And when we look at it that way, then how can we be afraid, for God will provide for our every need. 

My friends, how IS our vision?  The good news today is that no matter how good or bad it is, God desires that it be better.  And God, God himself, can and will open our eyes so that we can see, so that we can see spiritually all that he has for us to see and know.  Thanks be to God.

 

As we reflect on God’s Word to us, our desire is to hear again and again God calling out to us, God reminding us of who we are and what he promises to us.  When God opens our eyes, then we can see this, we can see that all things hang on God.  And we can stand, with all certainty, on his promises, no longer needing to be jealous or afraid.  So let us turn in our hymnals to page 374 and stand as we sing, Standing on the Promises.

 

 

 

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