Sermon | Lisa Levy, Outreach Coordinator | March 19, 2023

My name is Lisa, and I am the Outreach Coordinator here at Trinity. Much of my time here is spent coordinating Chapel on the Green; for those of you who already know what that is, I beg your patience as I take a moment to explain it to those who might not:

Chapel on the Green is a unique worshiping community, open to all, that centers the experiences of our unsheltered, unhoused, or precariously housed neighbors. At Chapel on the Green, we try to meet people where they are: many of the folks who attend spend much of their time outdoors and find an outdoor worship space more accessible—mentally, emotionally, and physically—than a traditional church building. So every Sunday, we hold our service outside on the Green behind Trinity, rain or shine, sleet or snow. The drum circle begins around 1:00. Volunteers from area congregations arrive with sack lunches, and sometimes hygiene supplies, or handwarmers, or socks, around 1:30. The service starts at 2:00. Each week, we begin worship with the words of Jesus: “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” We recite the serenity prayer—“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”; we read a psalm; we read and reflect on the Gospel lesson; we pray together; we praise, we celebrate, we lament, we testify. We sing “This is the Day that the Lord has Made,” and “Amazing Grace.” We try, with God’s help, to create a safe place, a community that can be a spiritual home for those who might not have had a place to call home in years.

A few months ago, one of our Chapel on the Green parishioners—I’ll call her Sofia—arrived in obvious distress. With tears in her eyes, she asked me if I had any gloves. I didn’t. Throughout the service, she asked questions—quietly at first, then more audibly, until she was almost shouting: “I am so cold; where is Jesus when I need gloves?” “Where was Jesus last night when I needed a blanket?” “My phone was stolen when I was sleeping at the train station. It was my only way to be in touch with my mother. Will Jesus help me talk to my mother?” The subtext to all her questions was, I believe, “Where is Jesus when I need him the most?” I admit that I was wondering the same thing. I was trying, and failing, to understand where God was in these circumstances. Her questions were poignant and painful, and there were no easy answers.

Sofia came to mind when I was reading today’s Gospel. Because this is a text filled with difficult questions.

Jesus heals a man born blind. As is so often the case in the Gospels, others are suspicious of the healing. His neighbors, we are told, bring him to the Pharisees for examination. The Pharisees challenge the man with questions: “How did you receive your sight?” “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” “What do you say about who Jesus is?”

When he tells them what happened, they don’t believe him; so they call his parents before them. “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”

His parents have no explanation, so the Pharisees call the man in for questioning a second time. They ask him different versions of the same questions that they’ve already asked and he has already answered: “What did he do to you?” They ask him. “How did he open your eyes?” And, unable to accept his explanation, they throw him out of the temple.

In my own life, more often than I’d like to admit, I am these Pharisees. They are trying to understand the mechanics of it all, the how and the why of it, before they buy in, before they can accept it. All my life, I’ve been conditioned to use my intellect to understand, to learn, to know. Like the Pharisees, and like Sofia from Chapel on the Green, I have so many questions: I want to know why some are healed and not others; I want to know how I got lucky and why some of our Chapel on the Green parishioners did not; I want to know where God is in the midst of all this suffering.

But not only is this an inadequate framework for attempting to comprehend the incomprehensible; it misses the point.

Because Jesus heals the blind man in the strangest, most intimate way: he spits into the dirt. He uses the dirt and the saliva to make mud. He smears the mud over the man’s eyes like an anointing. (At this point, the questions immediately begin to pop into my mind: Why? Why this man, and why this method, when from the myriad healings in the Gospels we know that Jesus can simply touch someone or say a word and they are healed? What does it mean?)

But a fundamental shift in my heart needs to take place: because while I’m trying to grasp the how and the why of it—this man, the man born blind, is experiencing the deep and beautiful mystery of the Gospel. Jesus literally puts a part of himself, his saliva, on this man’s eyes. When all is said and done, I am left with my questions, and he has a tender and transformative encounter with Christ. I am clinging to my questions, and he bears the mark of the Good News on his body.

Let’s return to Sofia at Chapel on the Green. As she finished asking her questions and began to weep, one of the other parishioners approached her and put his hand gently on her shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “I’ve been there. You can get through this.” People nodded in agreement. Others began to shout encouragement to her. Another parishioner took off his own gloves and put them in her hands.

Maybe, just maybe, Chapel on the Green is the healing mud Jesus puts on OUR eyes.

My eyes were certainly opened that day when I began to understand: This is the Good News, if I am open enough and humble enough to receive it. While I’ve been busy looking for answers that will never satisfy, the Chapel on the Green community is not just proclaiming the healing power of the Gospel—but embodying it. Through God’s grace, we can be Gospel to one another. In the end, when we let the questions fall away, what we are left with is a profound experience of intimacy and the love of God. Amen.