When you think about the narrow streets of Paris at night, under the glow of the sparkling Eiffel tower, with a chilly summer breeze blowing down the promenade that sends lovers close together, you might find it romantic and enchanting. But pan out, to a 12-year-old boy…sitting alone on a bench, shivering from the chill and shaking from hunger and you would have a different story… but even the small boy would have no way of knowing that the story that happened that night would change his whole life. He is my brother. And this is his story.
To say we grew up poor isn’t entirely fair. We were, in fact very poor. But I didn’t know better. My parents were extremely resourceful. Both were good with their hands, and both worked hard. My mother could cook beans in varied and tasty ways so it didn’t even feel like we were eating the same thing. Summers were spent canning and foraging and preserving the free fruit of our land. My dad built us toys, my mother sewed us clothes…and we didn’t feel poor…That was until we went out into the world. I remember whispers from others, the cool girls of the 80’s would size up my homespun clothes and snicker “prairie girl”. But most of the time I didn’t mind because we were rich in things they knew nothing about…
My Grandparents were missionaries for 50 years, 25 years in Rwanda Africa, and as my parents were always believers in experiences instead of things, we were rich in those and I’m certain that was the reason behind my parents letting my brother travel to Rwanda… the spring my brother turned 12 my Granny and Grandpa sent him a ticket to spend the summer with him. This being the 80’s before the birth of modern terrorism and 911, airlines were much more lax on the restrictions of unaccompanied minors. Stevie had a 24 hour layover in Paris France. Being of Wallace blood and adventurous of spirit. My 12-year-old brother decided he wanted to see Paris and not just the airport. So he exited the airport into the streets of Paris, using his very meager spending money, that would have covered a small meal or two, given to him by my parents, for transportation. It’s hard to wrap my mind around it now as a parent…how I would feel if I knew that my child was alone in the world somewhere, without resources, in such a vulnerable state…but then again, my parents did know and my brother is a tough cookie.
My mother very genererously has passed on to my oldest brother and myself a very fragile state of being when we reach a critical point of time between meals…the modern term for this is Hangry I believe…but I always call it unstable. Dustan knows that if I reach that level of instability its time to find food. For I’m no fun at all to deal with until I get some. Stevie is also like this and recalls sitting on a bench and looking down at his shaking hands and crying. He hadn’t eaten for nearly 20 hours. To distract himself he got up to walk and found himself very much in something like a scene out of Les Mis standing outside a lighted bakery window. Filled with crusty sweet-smelling French baguettes and rounds of red wax wrapped cheese. His stomach groaned and he reached into his pockets one more time…to pull out nothing…but a ticket on the public train back to the airport. He stood there a very long time and if you were to ask him today, how he felt, he will tell you, there was a clear thought in his mind. “I am very hungry, I am poor and I have no money. I am afraid. Someday, when I am grown…I will make so much money, that I will never have to fear this feeling again.”
There are in each one of us, those things that threaten to define us. Those moments of helplessness in the circumstances and sometimes even the mistaken choices of our lives. The things that those who do not protect us, use to describe us…the names our own gremlins of shame repeatedly play in our own head….words like poor. selfish. calloused. Timid. Hard. Weak. bulldozer. Manipulative. Insensitive. Easily offended. Lier. Addict. Hypocrite.
For the man born blind it didn’t matter much which one it was…for it was likely assumed it was all, or a linage of deep seeded sin that was then passed on to him through his parents. The justice of God required punishment…so if you were suffering it was because you had disobeyed. They had a very strong message of prosperity woven through their teachings that the good came to the good and the bad came to the bad. Somehow, they had drastically missed the boat on the concept of sin and suffering in the nature of man and the world as a whole, which impacts both the innocent and the guilty…but then again that isn’t surprising as they missed the salvific sacrifice of Jesus for that very reason.
So here is a man. Isolated from birth, not only because he couldn’t see…but because he was deemed a lesser human because of the curse placed on him for his or his parents sin. Which of course is somewhat true…as we all live in a world where sin senselessly picks it victims at random but no one is immune from being the reason for sin. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It is just that in his culture some held themselves more righteous then others if they didn’t have any outward evidence of the curse in their lives. But he would never be allowed to rise above his condemnation because he would always be blind. Good thing that never happens today…but wait. It does…all the time. Our culture deems the circulation of certain kinds of sin unacceptable while we allow others to be the driving force behind governances we make and standards we keep. Like prejudice, hypocrisy, control, possessiveness, ungratefulness, gossip, and greed. I want you to know that I speak for myself in this matter…for I like control and comfort, I have been to self-focused to be open hearted, and I have spoken when I should have not. I have been hypocritical and judgmental. I have been guilty of building my own worth by diminishing that of another. I have been a pharisee. Unable to accept the evidence of change in someone’s life because it was to much a mirror for my own lack of excuses.
But I am not Jesus. Jesus is grace. Jesus is the creator and the re-creator. Jesus is the transformer.
We find if we turn back to verse 2 a conversation between Jesus and his disciples in passing the blind man…Rabbi who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? I want to pause and remind you that this man was blind, not deaf…and certainly heard the question. It was such a widely accepted thought that the disciples didn’t even allow a plan c. it was a or b…and certainly didn’t even think about being careful with it around the man as he surely had also accepted it without fight long ago. So acclimatized to the hopelessness it was a simply a way of life. So I want you to imagine the way the words Jesus spoke must have sounded to this man. “it was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him”…Jesus is grace. Freeing a man from shame…giving him purpose. Stating that the bigger the problem…the bigger the God. There is no lead up of things needed to become whole, there is only one need. Need for Jesus. Jesus is grace.
And then Jesus did perhaps one of the strangest things he ever did in a healing. He spit into the ground and made mud and placed it on the eyes of the man. But perhaps, it isn’t strange at all. Not to Jesus…for he has done this before…thousands of years earlier. When He as the God head created man. “and the lord God formed man from clay of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And Man became a living being.” Gen 2:7. This is not a random act of magical mud healing someone’s eyes. This is the creator of man recreating a broken man. This is what God is…and what he does. This is love. Jesus is the creator and the re-creator.
And then the man washed and came back seeing. We are all blinded…we all live in the darkness of our human weakness. It is only by the grace and re-creative power of God that changes and transforms us. All that we know that is real and true enough to share stems from that transformative moment where Jesus recreates our sight. It is possible to have much knowledge and no sight. Helen Keller was once told. “what a pity you have no sight, she answered, yes, but what a pity that so many have sight but cannot see.” The pharisees were as blind as the man, but had no knowledge of their blindness so could not be transformed. They did not know who they were, so they could not know who Jesus was. When the man was questioned on the authenticy of Christ…his reply was the only one that cannot not be argued. “so the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give Glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I can see.” The critical need, created the transformation. Until we are honest with who we are…and what we need…we will not know who He is, nor will we have any knowledge or truth to share.
My brother retired this year at 40. He owns the largest Academic editing company in Asia. He has successful companies in Taiwan, India, China, and Dubai. He is the largest privately-owned rental property owner in Berrien Springs, MI. His quiet retirement endeavor is 50 acres of hard wood truffle farming in Renoke West Virginia. He never fears being hungry again. But he makes sure anyone of those in his circle of influence don’t feel it either. He is kind hearted and generous. He is well loved by his employees who will tell you stories of his practical aid and the food he provided for their table when they had none of their own. His hunger so many years ago on that chilly night in Paris, directed his entire life, his transformation…and the results of that transformation is the value he has to share with others.
We love, because he first loved us. We were lost but now are found. We cannot take credit for the knowledge that transforms both our lives and through that, the lives of others. There are many times we do not have the answer, and even more that the answer just isn’t to be found…but our most powerful knowledge and our most compelling answer is simply. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.
