4th Sunday in Lent
John 9:1-11
As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of the one who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”
May God bless us with understanding for these readings of our sacred text.
Being Woke
I was out for a walk near my parents’ house one day, when I crossed a bridge over a ravine. I couldn’t see down into it because the trees and bushes were growing so thickly that the bottom was completely obscured. After crossing the bridge, I began to walk alongside the ravine, and I noticed a path going into the bushes, and I’m assumed down into the ravine. I was curious, so I decided to check it out. Once I got past that initial wall of leaves, the whole space just opened up in front of me. The canopies of the trees and the bushes growing along the sides basically turned the ravine into a tunnel, and there was so much room down there that someone had turned it into a paintball arena. For those who don’t know, paintball is a game, usually two teams playing against each other, where you shoot these little pellets of paint at your opponents, and if you get hit you’re out. The object of the game is to tag all of the members of the opposing team.
When I was in youth group, we went paintballing a couple of times, but it’s kind of expensive, and we had to go pretty far to get to the nearest paintball field, so it makes sense that if some kids that liked paintball found this secluded ravine, that they would take advantage of it. There were all of these barricades and hidey holes, with paintball splatters everywhere. I could see the paths that had been worn down through the boulders and tree trunk, that would have been created as they ran around, chasing each other.
It felt a little bit like an invasion of privacy to be poking around their secret place while they weren’t there. And, I knew that I had indeed stumbled across someone’s secret. Not a bad secret, but a secret nonetheless, this little world that they thought was just theirs, that no one else knew about.
As I walked around the ravine, exploring this quiet secret place, I realized that there must be countless secret worlds that I didn’t know about, hadn’t ever thought about, and I was filled with wonder and curiosity. Until that moment, I could not have conceived of such a place existing, it never crossed my mind to even consider it. But, after being awakened to the possibility, I realized that I had been asleep, in a sense, living with my eyes closed, unaware of what was actually going on around me.
Last week, when I used the word “woke”, I could not have imagined it would have gotten the response that it did. To me, it seemed so ubiquitous, it’s all over the news and social media, I just kind of assumed everyone knew what it meant. But, I was wrong, and after having so many people ask about it, I decided that I needed to give you all a definition for “woke”.
Woke is one of those new, up and coming words that’s being used in a way that it hasn’t historically be used for, so I turned to UrbanDictionary.com, to see what the masses had to say about it. If you’ve ever been on Urban Dictionary, you know that the masses are not the most reliable source of information. So, rather than give you one of the definitions of “woke” presented there, I decided to edit and compile what I thought were the best definitions that Urban Dictionary had to offer.
Woke. Noun. A state of enlightened understanding, particularly related to issues of race and social justice.
Woke. Adjective. Being aware of issues of injustice and inequality.
Commonly used as an insult for people with progressive ideals, someone who pretends to be open-minded, or someone who attempts to show positive depictions of women and minorities in the media.
Being woke is the opposite of being asleep, which metaphorically speaking, is a synonym for being blind. Today’s gospel reading is about a man who was born blind. Jesus performs a miracle by mixing some mud out of his saliva and some dirt. And, he puts this mud on the blind man’s eyes, and tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam. And, when the man does this, he is able to see.
To see and to wake up are often used as metaphors for understanding. This story of the man who was born blind is itself a metaphor for Jesus life. His identity is questioned, just like when everyone begun asking about Jesus, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” In answer to the questions of his identity, the man who was born blind says, “I am he,” just like Jesus’ repeated claims of “I am.” And, when he is brought before the pharisees, and is questioned and talked down to, it reminds us of Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, before he was brought to Pontius Pilate.
The man who was blind was given sight. He was able to see the truth of who Jesus really was. He was woke, and the people around him, who wouldn’t listen to him, couldn’t see the miracle. They couldn’t see who Jesus was. Their eyes were closed to the truth.
It’s not unlike the people today who use the word woke in a derogatory and disparaging way. It’s a defense mechanism used when someone doesn’t want to see the truth, or acknowledge that anything is wrong. It’s easier to hold to what’s familiar, to hold on to power, than admit when we’re wrong. To admit that maybe it’s not an even playing field, that it never has been. In order to really see what’s really happening in the world, we need to accept how limited our personal experiences and understanding of the world actually is. We have to start listening to and validating people who have experienced the world in a different way, and accept that we may have been living with our eyes closed. That we may have been asleep.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” He is the light that wakes us up. He is the light that allows us to see. We don’t have to walk around blind and uncaring anymore, because Jesus has given us the ability to see.
There are secret worlds all around us, even if the keepers of those secrets never intended for them to be secret in the first place. There are invisible systemic injustices at work all around us, even if we never agreed to participate in them and don’t want to participate in them. Sometimes, secrets are imposed upon us without our consent, and we have to decide if we are going to keep those secrets, or expose them to the light of day. It’s impossible to know everything about our world, and we don’t need to know everything about our world. We only need to accept the fact that we don’t know everything, and be open to those who may know more than we do. That’s all it means to be woke. There are people who will try to make being woke sound like it’s a bad thing. It’s no different from how people have always behaved throughout human history. Don’t be ashamed to be woke. Being woke means that you are part of a community, and that you are allowing Jesus to open your eyes and to be your light. Let Jesus guide you to the truth. Let Jesus wake you up. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
