Living in an in-between place

On Sunday, March 19, Holy Trinity welcomed Rev. Anne Dwiggins as guest preacher while Pastor Polk was traveling. Before retiring, Pastor Anne served at St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Silver Spring, Maryland for over fifteen years. She and her husband Paul are currently members of Christ Lutheran Church in Washington, DC.

As some of you know, after years of visiting back and forth, my husband Paul and I took the plunge and moved up to the beautiful state of Massachusetts just before Christmas, to the town of Norton.  A lot of pluses to this move –  we are now close to 2 of our 3 children, David in Mansfield, and Daniel in Waltham.  Plus – let’s get our priorities straight – a quick drive to 3 of our 4 terrific grandchildren!  We bought a house with a view of a lake.  The lake has swans!  The house is all on one floor!  We’re near Crescent Ridge Dairy and Hillard’s Candy.   What more could you possibly want? 

But . . . as everyone who has ever moved knows, moving is not all sweetness and light.  Born and bred in the D.C. area, both of us, we had lots of friends.  We brought our babies home from the hospital to our home at 7218 Minter Place, and we lived there for 49 years.  We lavished a lot of love on that house, and had just recently completed an addition.  We were rooted in the Lutheran milieu, and had dear family members in Christ throughout the Metro Washington, D.C. Synod.  Our doctors were in place . . .  they knew who we were.  You get the picture.

So now, I find myself in an in-between place.  Not there anymore.  Not exactly here . . . not yet.  Packing, moving, shedding stuff was chaotic – 3 months later, the chaos continues, alive and well.  Tons of boxes in the garage, and we haven’t even begun with the junk the movers hid in the attic.  Driving with the phone always at hand.  Learning new grocery stores.  Casting around for new doctors and finding a plumber.  Learning to read The Washington Post on a tablet.  And I have to say, I’m aghast at my National Grid bill!

But on the good side, we’ve found you, and you have been light to us!  Thank you!

Being in that awkward “in-between place” is something that we have all experienced.  Starting a new school.  A new job.  Moving from a home to homelessness.  Enjoying good health, then a diagnosis of illness.  Moving from your home to nursing care.  Losing a belief system, with nothing there to anchor you anew.  Losing a spouse or a dear friend or the worst, a child – death is the ultimate “in-between” place.   

You might even say that in this season of Lent, we’re also in an in-between place – between the admission that we “are dust and to dust we shall return,” and at the other end, the glory and joy and light of Easter Day.  In fact, overall, the Christian life is described as an in-between existence, living between “the already and the not-yet.”  The resurrection has happened in human history . . . yet we wait in an imperfect world for the “not yet” – for the full and final culmination of the resurrection promises.  

In-between places.  Between the familiar and the unfamiliar.  Between the darkness and the light.

That’s where the man in our gospel this morning finds himself.  In the darkness, born blind.  This wasn’t something that had happened to him later in life, after years of viewing the world.  He’d never seen his parents’ faces, what his brothers and sisters looked like, the lilies of the field around him or the sheep on the hills.  He’d never seen the pool of Siloam.  His world was enlivened by voices, but it . . . was dark.

And there are a lot of voices in our story this morning – a lot of voices.  So much talking (not with each other, but mostly past each other).  It’s chaos!  Noise!  Everything’s loud and opaque.  

Jesus spies a man, a blind man, and the disciples are the first up with a question.  Is this man blind because he was sinful?  Or maybe his parents are the sinners?  Why, Jesus, why?  Jesus addresses them:  neither one sinned, Jesus answers, but then he goes on.  It is necessary that we do the work of God, that God’s works might be revealed in this man.   God has sent me; “‘I am the light of the world.’”  And Jesus took dirt and spit and spread the mess on the man’s eyes, and sent him to the pool of Siloam to wash.  And the man came back, able to see!  From blindness to seeing.  From darkness to light, through the lIght of the world.

This truth is buried quickly – by compounding layers of questioning and false speculation.  What a dither!  Everyone has an opinion.  Everyone quick to speak, and all too slow to listen. 

The “rubbernecking neighbors” are the first in line.   Who is this guy?  He looks like the beggar we’ve always known, but he can see.  They are 2 different people! – despite the man himself saying over and over, “It’s me;  it’s me!”  

When he did not satisfy them, well . . . they called the police! – the synagogue authorities, the Pharisees.  They would know the answer.  A little self-righteous, maybe, but they knew the rules.

Before the crowd, the Pharisees nailed Jesus.  He’s a sinner, of course.  You saw it yourself!   He did this work – well, yes, it was healing – but he did it on the sabbath!  Some people nodded, but there were others who wondered:  If this Jesus is a sinner, how could he make this guy see?  And there was chaos and division.  They were shouting.  Fist fights were beginning to break out.  

So they went to the parents.  They’d certainly known him forever, so the authorities demanded, “‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind?  How then does he now see?’”   

What did they do?  Here was their son, in this in-between place between blindness and sight, and they put him out to dry.  “‘How then does he now see?’”  Ask him – he’s a big boy!  He can answer for himself!  

Gee, thanks, Mom and Dad, for all the support! 

So they went back to the man himself.  “‘Give glory to God!’”  Not to this guy Jesus who is a sinner, and who knows where he’s from anyway?!  Give God the glory for this miracle!  No matter that Jesus had previously told the Pharisees, just one chapter before, chapter 8 of this gospel, that he had come from the Father.

By this time, the in-between man has had it!  Why don’t you listen?  I’ve told you and told you!  You’re so fixated on this Jesus; do you want to become his disciple?!  This Jesus made me whole.  He took me from darkness to light.  “‘If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’”  

The blind man’s realization was not immediate – it was a slow thing.  The man grew in understanding as the light brightened before him.  At the beginning, he says “‘I do not know’” when asked where Jesus was.  Later, in verse 17, the now seeing man says about Jesus, “‘He is a prophet.’”  Then verse 33, the confession, “‘If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’”  Finally, verse 38, complete understanding – full faith.  “‘Lord, I believe.’  And he worshiped him.”

From darkness to light.  From no faith, or little faith . . . to growing faith, to mature faith.

In the early church, this story of the blind man was often read as a baptismal text, as new converts were brought into the church.  We get the connection!  The blind man washes in the pool of Siloam!  He receives new sight!  Perhaps you can look on your life – as I can on my own – and identify with this man born blind, as he incrementally begins to understand who Jesus is and slowly responds to the overwhelming grace of God in his life.  In our baptisms, we become this sighted man or woman, washed with water, our mind opened, our eyes able to see the light of God in God’s Son Jesus and God’s glory in our own lives, even in this imperfect world.  Our sight . . . slowly . . .  becomes insight – what we call faith – and even in those dark, in-between places, we see Jesus.  We bathe in that light – that light shines out from our very selves.

The Book of Ephesians puts it this way:  “Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.”  In our baptism, we begin to see as the Lord sees.  We look beyond outward appearances – we see the heart.  We see beyond our own smallness and our own Pharisaic viewpoints.  Our world enlarges.  As commentator Melinda Quivik puts it, in the light we can see other people.  Community becomes possible.  We can step with confidence, even into the unknown.  We can see the big picture, no longer missing the forest for the trees, as did the Pharisees.

And we live the light!  “Now in the Lord you are light.  Live as children of light,” the author of Ephesians challenges us.  Do what is pleasing to God.  Expose the works of darkness, because “everything exposed by the light becomes visible.”  We shine our lights on the increasing problem of homelessness.  We shine our light on children who are living in cars and who don’t have internet, or clothing, or food to succeed in school.  We shine our light on a lack of grocery stores in poorer neighborhoods, and on a problematical immigration system.  We shine our light on those who are living in basements as bombs go off overhead.  We shine our light on half-truths, or outright falsehood, that divide and sour our national life.

And we don’t just shine the light of a single candle, we bind together, and as the church, we shine an industrial strength spotlight on all these situations that cause weeping in heaven.

Our baptism directs our path.  The promises made at our baptism are milestones in our journey.  Maybe your parents made these promises for you as an infant, and you later affirmed them at the time of your own confirmation.  We live among God’s faithful people.  We hear the word and share in the Lord’s supper.  We proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed.  We serve all people, following the light of Jesus.  And we strive for justice and peace in all the earth. 

And in our baptismal service, the congregation, the light around us, promises to support us and pray for us and shine their light on our path if our own becomes dim. 

Are we going to hide our light under a bushel?  Certainly not.  Are we going to let our light shine?  Say it with me!  Yes!

As we age – and I’m right there! – we look ahead to the most in-between place of all, the in-between of death.  But we are light!  And Jesus the light leads the way.  In a recent, beautiful commentary in The Washington Post about President Jimmy Carter’s decision to undertake hospice care at age 98, columnist Robin Givhan says this:  

“As a culture, so much energy is rightfully focused on the ways in which life can be prolonged just a little bit longer . . . . The focus is on fixing the physical . . . . Carter reminds us that the spirit requires care and concern, too.  He reminds us that sometimes the spirit needs to take precedence.

“Hospice care is . . . . a decision to shift our efforts from shoring up a body on the verge of the end to providing solace to a soul that’s on the cusp of forever.  The choice seems of a piece with the way in which Carter has lived in the aftermath of the presidency.  His attentions were focused on ending suffering and enabling peace.”  

Yes, even in the ultimate “in-between,” we can see.  We are in the Light. 

So, go in peace.  Walk in the light.  Be that light!  Let your light shine.  Amen!