St. Andrew’s Pictou, March 6^th 2005 LENT IV

 

Blind Bureaucracy

 

1 Samuel 16:1-13

John 9:1-41

 

Jobs need to be done. Tasks need to be completed: people need to be educated, roads and bridges need to be built and maintained, produce needs to get to market, government business needs to be carried on, stocks need to be traded, and financial deals need to be transacted.

 

One way or the other, there needs to be a mechanism to get all of the jobs done.

 

We human beings have always had bureaucracies to carry out these various tasks.

 

Sometimes the bureaucracies do a good job, and sometimes they are bad beyond belief. I recently heard of one of our federal government agencies spending 50 million dollars to administer the giving away of 51 million dollars. This is why government subsidizes church agencies like our PWS&D in helping people in third world countries, because church bureaucracy in this case is more efficient than government bureaucracy.

 

We vote for politicians to run our country and they have a government bureaucracy to conduct the business. We presently have the Gomery Inquiry to investigate whether the bureaucracy did a good job in using taxpayer money to sell Quebecers on the benefits of staying in Canada.

 

In the reading from the book of Samuel, the job that needed to be done was the finding of a new king. The old King Saul was no longer functioning very well, and the Lord wanted a new king for the people and the priest Samuel was the one man bureaucracy team he had to get the task completed. (Maybe you have heard that committees of one are the most efficient?)

 

Time is passing and the Lord is getting impatient for the job to be done. Saul is no longer functioning as an effective king. Samuel is lamenting over that, but he isn’t moving on.

 

“The Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill you horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a new king among his sons.’”

 

The task sounds simple enough, but Samuel is scared that the old King Saul will get wind of being unseated, and Samuel will be in deep trouble: Saul will have him killed.

 

But the Lord has a solution. He tells Samuel to set out as if he was on a religious observance and that way he can get the job done:

 

“Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’

Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.”

 

So the priest Samuel did just that. Each of Jesse’s sons starting with the oldest, Eliab were presented to Samuel but the Lord did not instruct Samuel to anoint any of the sons as king.

 

In confusion, Samuel found out that the youngest son was not there. David was out tending the sheep, and Samuel forcefully asked that he be brought to see him.

 

It is rare in the Bible that we are ever given a physical description, but we are given a description with the shepherd David: “Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome.

The Lord said, ‘Arise and anoint him; for this is the one.’ Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.”

 

As we have this direct example of the Lord choosing David to be anointed King, we have another direct action of God’s anointing in the healing of a blind man by Jesus as we find the story in the Gospel of John. Instead of Samuel anointing David with oil from a horn, we have Jesus making a paste using some of his own spittle mixed with sand which he then spread on the man’s eyes. Jesus then instructs him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam.

 

“Then he went and washed and came back able to see.”

 

Here we have another example of God’s one man committee, Jesus and his power to heal.

 

We may think that this story is simple, wonderful and great to behold.

 

Not so, when the religious bureaucracy got a hold of it. (They were known back then as “the Pharisees.”)

 

First of all the problem took hold because the people observed this healing. When all the man’s neighbour’s and those who knew him as a beggar see him well, a problem is presented for the Pharisees who are the religious bureaucracy and they are supposed to be in control of the teaching and learning of what the people are supposed to believe. Jesus was a threat to their power.

 

Instead of “the Gomery Inquiry,” back then they had “the Pharisee Inquiry.”

 

The man who was healed is now brought to testify at the inquiry. Remember the healing was done on the Sabbath and good Jews do not work on the Sabbath and so an investigation was needed. The Pharisees asked the man what happened.

 

“He said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed and now I see.’”

 

Now the fighting starts: some of then Pharisees say that Jesus can’t be doing God’s work because the healing was done on the Sabbath, and others think he must be a man of God or how else cold he do such miracles?

 

They question the man further about Jesus. “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened. He said, ‘He is a prophet.’”

 

As in any inquiry those trying to hide the truth try to discount the evidence of the healing;  they had to have it verified by the man’s parents.

 

The parents are intimidated; they don’t want to get involved with bureaucratic wrangling and get thrown out of the synagogue; “you play with fire, you get your hands burnt:”

“His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that he now sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age. He can speak for himself.’”

 

“Passing the buck” is an age old tactic.

 

So they call the healed man back again and tried to bureaucratize him into their thinking:

“Give glory to God! We know that this man (meaning Jesus) is a sinner.”

 

But the man wouldn’t take the bait:

“I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing that I know, that though I was blind, now I see.

 

Now the real fight begins:

They insult him by asking him the story again, and he calls on them for their manipulations because they wouldn’t accept what he has already told them.

Sarcastically, the man even asks if the Pharisees want to become one of his disciples, too.

Playing out the party line with indignation, they say that they are disciples of Moses.

 

Finally, the man loads both barrels, points to the bureaucracy and pulls both triggers:

“Here is an astonishing thing!

You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.

We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.

Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

 

The Pharisee Inquiry now in full rage at being theologically corrected by this former beggar, and gave their venomous verdict:

“You were born entirely in sins, and you are trying to teach us”.’

And they drove him out.”

 

Who was blind in this story and who was really able to see?

 

It is an obvious foible of the human condition that the bureaucracies that we create become masters of the very thing for which they were created to serve. The situation is reversed: bureaucracies created to serve become the masters.

 

Whether it is the government made to serve the people, or the church created to serve God, the essential issue is “to serve.”

 

It may look totally obvious to us that the bureaucratic Pharisees got in the way of the God’s healing action through Jesus to give this poor man back his life, so that he can live and make wages, have a life, and be whole.

 

But we in the church have bureaucracy: we have sessions, boards of managers, presbyteries, synods, and general assemblies, but they are only there to serve God’s purposes of bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ and his healing love to all people.

 

Any bureaucracy that does not serve is blind to its purpose; blind to the needs of people.

 

The kindom of God is in opposition to the way that the world works. The man Jesus healed believed in him and Jesus went on to say, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

 

The lesson was not lost on Pharisees standing close by. They said, “Surely we are not blind are we?

 

Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

 

They witnessed the healing love of God in giving this man back his life right in front of their eyes, but were blind to actually see it.

 

May God grant us all grace that our eyes may be open and that we might see the healing power and action of his love and will for humanity.

 

AMEN                     Rev. Alan Stewart