This passage from the letter to the Ephesians contains what scholars believe is one of the oldest Christian statements around, namely: "sleeper awake, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you." This notion of illumination or enlightenment early on took hold in this Jesus movement and it is embodied in that text. The Letter to the Ephesians was probably written around 60 and this is already part of the tradition. And we can see from the three readings today that the people who picked them clearly had this notion of light and enlightenment in mind. Right before it, in 9^th chapter in the Gospel of John and in the longer version of the passage, John has Jesus saying: "I am the light of the world". And then Jesus cures this blind man. There is a virtual certainty that the historical Jesus never said anything like "I am the light of the world". And that is not just a little pedantic bit of trivia. The reason we have that line in the Gospel of John is because this is exactly the way that those people who encountered the Jesus movement felt about Jesus: this man really does enlighten me. This man really does show me what is real. I would like to propose that, from this scene of the healing of the blind man that one of the things that is illumined, is just how blind I am. Strangely enough in this paradoxical way, the illumination that Christ provides is to enable me to see that I don’t see. And that is illumination. We have an adumbration of that in this famous passage from David and his beefy brothers. We get this pip-squeak David, the youngest, chosen as the second King of Israel. And the writer gives us the line that God sees differently than we see. The world looks different to God then it does to us. And as I said, trying to come to seek God more earnestly, that I discover I don’t see very well.

What don’t I see? I don’t see the need for repentance, really. I mean we all make mistakes don’t we? I have had dysfunctional parents like everybody else. So I am obviously a bit screwed up. Since I am, what is there to repent for? Regret maybe, that I didn’t get the right genetic endowment. But repentance? That seems a bit excessive. And this is what I normally do believe. I have a very hard time with this notion of repentance, although the texts say it over and over again. This near hysterical thing that we just sang: "have mercy on us for we are sinners before you". Oh really? I don’t think that is a bone deep conviction for me. I think that there is a kind of obtuseness And if I look I find I am no better nor worse than anyone else. So what is the problem? And so one of the things that comes out Jesus’ illumination is that I see that I really do not see. This is the beginning of a new vision.

To illustrate what else don’t see, let me give you another example. Recently I was talking to a native person, a student here. They were telling me their background: ghastly. Alcohol has driven people crazy. There is suicide, murder, abuse. And of course, Indians did not invent alcohol. When that person left my office I thought: My God, how blind am I to what is really going on in the lives of all kinds of people and I am part of a society that engendered this kind of social chaos. But do I see that? And the answer is no, I don’t. So I walk around in this great funk for the rest of the day. No I don’t see that. I don’t see myself as brother to the marginalized and dispossessed in this world. I’ve got my agenda, I’ve got stuff to do. I have a position to maintain and in the doing of that, I don’t have time even to see whether I see.

And that is why these readings are so important. And that is why trying to pray is so important, as it brings me again to the sense that I really don’t see very much. And yet, what is Jesus about, as the light of the world? Opening us not just to see ourselves but to see ourselves precisely in the world, with the world.

So there is a puzzlement. And push it a little further and you ask, " What is the big obstacle here?" I think part of it is an inner resistance, because usually when someone comes up to me and says: "Trojcak don’t you see"? I see that underlining that question is some kind of accusation of my ineptitude or deficiency, beyond that there is the fear that seeing the way this person is suggesting, is going to be paralyzing to me. And even if I did see I couldn’t do. Such is the way that we operate with each other much of the time. The prospect of seeing more simply overwhelms me. So I don’t want to see and I don’t want to be object to somebody else’s obloquy. And I certainly don’t want to fit into a world the difficulties of which are simply too much for me.

We talk about compassion fatigue. I love that phrase, "compassion fatigue". For a Christian, it ought to be as oxymoronic as breathing fatigue, or heart beat fatigue. But it is not. So how can we even want to see more without being terrified at the prospect. If it is God who wants us to see, if it is Jesus who is the light of the world, then a whole bunch of things fall together. Then I don’t have to work under what I have come to know as the Atlas complex: that the world is solely on my shoulders for me to ameliorate, under my own steam. No, the world is still God’s. I am still in the world that is God’s world and my job is to cooperate with God in humanizing this world. But Jesus finally helps me see what God, in her mercy and tenderness, and warmth, will somehow enable me to do.