Not the Commodity Jesus – A Sermon, 2 June 2019

Thanks to two recent funerals I had the chance to talk with people from other churches. The story is the same everywhere: shrinking participation in Liturgy and in church activities and projects. But not quite everywhere. St. Catherine Church in Naples FL is flourishing, bursting at the seams. Not because it is full of Greeks who have moved to Florida from the cold north, but because that church has embraced Orthodox people of all nationalities and languages. Which we also have done; but we are definitely not bursting at the seams.

The crisis is not limited to Orthodox churches. Catholic churches have been closing for many years now. It sometimes seems that only those evangelical churches that specialize in hi-tech entertainment are growing. And yet there too, according to one prominent evangelical study, young adults ages 23-30 are drooping out of churches at the rate of 70%. 86% of those who are unchurched see nothing spiritually necessary in church.

Here is something to catch your attention. Evangelical author Tim Keller writes in one of his books: The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches…. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. That’s coming from an evangelical leader!

The situation is just as dire in our Orthodox churches. Those who have left an Orthodox church will probably not come back. They might go to one of these evangelical churches that are everywhere, stay for a while, until the novelty wears out, and join the 70% who drop out for good.

The man in today’s Gospel reading is representative of most Christians. I love this quote from Saint Maximus the Confessor, who lived in the 7th century and is one of the greatest theologians of the Orthodox Church.

Ἀλλὰ μυστικῶς τῷ ῥητῷ τῆς ἱστορίας τὸ τῆς θεωρίας ἄρρητον ὁ μέγας ἐξέδωκε διὰ τοῦ Πνεύματος εὐαγγελιστὴς Ἰωάννης, ἵνα τὸν ἡμέτερον νοῦν διὰ τῶν ἱστορουμένων ἐπὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν ὁδηγήσῃ τῶν νοουμένων.  Maximus the Confessor, Ad. Thal. 4.2

(English translation:) To be sure, the great Evangelist John, through the Spirit, mystically gave the literal word of the narrative the wordless character of a contemplation, so that through it he might guide our intellect to the truth of its intelligible meaning. 

Okay, that’s almost as hard to understand in English as in the original Byzantine Greek. Maximus is saying that in the literal words of John’s Gospel, our minds are opened to contemplate deeper meanings. So I look at the man born blind as more than a miracle story. The miracle story is the narrative, but if we open our minds to contemplate deeper truths – what Maximus called “the truth of its intelligible meaning” – we see this man’s journey to faith as very much reflecting our own life journeys to knowledge of Christ.

He was born blind. We are all born blind – not in the physical sense but in the spiritual sense. Our eyes are opened – or begin to be opened at our baptisms. Whether we are baptized as babies or small children or adults, baptism is only the beginning – just as the opening of the man’s eyes was the beginning of a struggle with family and figures of authority, with doubts, with all the challenges of life. Confronted with the challenges thrown at him the man grows in understanding through his own powers of responding to the attacks thrown at him. But he still does not know the one that he needs to know. So Jesus comes to him at the end and asks him the question that makes all the difference: Do you believe in the Son of Man? Who is he, sir, so I may believe in him? The one speaking to you is he. Just like with the Samaritan woman last week. When Messiah comes…., she said. I who speak to you, I am he.

He still asks that question, because at the heart of the apostasy from faith is that Jesus has become a commodity, and it’s an uphill struggle to come to know him for who he really is. One book I saw recently is titled: Your Jesus is Too Safe: Outgrowing a Drive-Thru, Feel-Good Savior. If you want a feel-good savior, there are plenty out there, and many of them are on television. Jesus is not one of them. Back in the 1970s the Doobie Brothers sang “Jesus is just all right with me.” The Pharisees in today’s Gospel reading would disagree. He wasn’t alright with them and he’s not alright with the commodity sellers who peddle easy-believism “sweet Jesus.”

Perhaps what most clearly represents the Jesus of American culture is the Grammy Awards – or any award show, but especially the Grammys. Some of the worst music gets to share applause with Jesus. Acceptance speech after acceptance speech by winners who look to heaven and thank their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for helping them write their songs full of sex and violence, obscenity and profanity! At one award show, Bono, the lead singer of U2, came to the podium after a few of these acceptance speeches and said something to the effect, “I bet God is looking down and saying, ‘Don’t thank me for that.’”

John is rightly called the Theologian in the Orthodox Church. If you want to be challenged by Jesus – not the commodity Jesus – read John’s Gospel. The church reads it in the Paschal season because it is the Gospel that most fully reveals who it was that rose from the dead and reigns now for all eternity.

“Lord, I believe” the man born blind said. And he worshiped him. Every one of us is the man in today’s reading. If we are here today it is either because we are struggling with the challenges thrown at the faith we received at our baptism – just as the man in today’s Gospel struggled with what happened after his healing. Or it is because we have been found by Jesus and we worship him – just as the man did. Worship is the only appropriate response to being found by Jesus. Worship him today!