The Reverend Mike Riggins 7/9/23

Eyes Wide Shut

Genesis 24:34-38
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

I am old enough to have missed a whole generation of excellent singer-song

writers. More than half of whom are women. I have in mind names like Sara Bareilles,

Ingrid Michaelson, Colby Callait and Sarah McLachlan. I had never heard of any of

them. I do listen to the afternoon jazz program on WFIU FM out of Bloomington. A

couple of years ago, host David Brent-Johnson played a live recording of Sara

Bareilles' live recording of her song Many the Mile. I was driving, but I loved the song

so much I literally pulled over into the entrance to Deming Park to listen to it. It is now

on my mandatory Turn It Up list. I love singing harmony during the chorus but don't

worry, I won't make you listen now. Bareilles has another song, Between the Lines,

about a romance that never quite gets started. Its chorus has the lyric,

“Leave unsaid unspoken

Eyes wide shut, unopened
You and me
Always between the lines
Between the lines”

Or as the old proverb has it, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

This song speaks of how two people who might be wonderful for each other just

cannot see each other as potential partners. (Yes, I know about the Tom Cruise/Nicole

Kidman movie Eyes Wide Shut. I have not seen it, but I am aware enough about its

sexual content to know that is all I can say about it in church.) According to the
Gospel of Matthew quite a few people who should have recognized Jesus as the

Messiah had their eyes wide shut. He checked all the boxes except one: he did not

look like the Messiah they expected. He came from the wrong zip code. He hung out

with the wrong people. He offended the “right” people, the Pharisees and the

Sadducees. He picked fights with powerful Jews and showed kindness to Samaritans,

for God's sake.

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” Jesus prayed out loud in front of

his followers, “because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent

and have revealed them to infants...” From the perspective of the Jewish upper

classes, he appealed to all the wrong people. And he confused all the “right” people.

In tennis, when players hit an unexpected shot in an unexpected direction they are

said to have wrong-footed their opponents. Those opponents may be well within

reach of the shot, but because it's on the “wrong” side they cannot return it. Jesus

wrong-footed people all the time. Take care not to be among those people.

The subject of this statement from Jesus was his cousin, John the Baptist. An

unspecified time before Jesus began preaching, John began preaching and baptizing.

He lived an ascetic life, denying himself the pleasures of fine food and nice clothing.

And man, did he preach. He called out politicians and religious leaders. He named

names. Of course, his nation found him irresistible. He became the latest rage. Who

does not like hearing the rich and pompous getting roasted? Hoards walked down the

steep, steep road from Jerusalem to Jericho—the same road on which Jesus set his
parable of the Good Samaritan—to hear John and to get baptized by him. Many

speculated he was the Messiah (though not the rich and powerful, of course).

But John the Baptist would have nothing to do with such speculation. “One is

coming,” he said, “whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” In a culture that despised

dirty feet this statement left no doubt of John's seriousness. Our verses, from Matthew

11, describe the latest—and I mean the latest—chapter in John's life. Herod has

ordered his execution. Jesus has just learned about it. Quoting the prophet Malachi,

Jesus tells his followers that John was actually Elijah who would reappear to alert the

world to the Messiah's appearance. Jesus essentially tells the crowds, “Hey, if it helps

you to understand, consider John the return of Elijah.” All of which points to Jesus'

understanding of himself as that Messiah. But let us not miss the grief in his words.

And the anger, which forms a significant part of grief. John appeared as the ascetic,

the self-denier, and they said he had a demon. Jesus has wined and dined with the

rich, and they say he's a drunk. Truly, there are none so blind as those who will not

see. When we move through life with our eyes screwed shut why does it surprise us

when we have difficulty seeing God at work?!?

The old story has it that a man got caught in a flood. He had to climb up onto

his roof to stay above the raging waters. He was a devout man and he prayed to God

to deliver him. Before long a man in a canoe paddled up. “Get in and I'll paddle you to

safety,” he said. Our man said no, God will deliver me. The canoeist shrugged, said

okay, and paddled away. A man in a speedboat came barreling into view. “Get in and
I'll get us out of here,” he said. Our man said no, God will deliver me. The boater

shrugged, said okay, and motored away. Finally, a helicopter pilot brought his craft to

float over our man, stranded on his roof over the rising waters. “Grab the rope and I'll

lift you out of your trap,” he shouted. Our man said no, God will deliver me. The pilot

shrugged his shoulders and sped off.

Our man drowned. God met him at the pearly gates. “My son,” God said, “why

are you here?” Our man said, “I believed you would deliver me.”

“Fool!” God said. “I sent the canoe and the boat and the helicopter!”

We really must take whether we see God at work to deliver us with the utmost

seriousness. If a songwriter can compose a beautiful lament about a romance that

never quite happens because of eyes wide shut, we must admit that our willful inability

to see God at work threatens our relationship with God. So let us recount where we

can see God at work. A number of us have within the past couple of years welcomed

newborns into our families. When we look at those cherubic little faces do we not look

into the face of God? A number of us have had to bid farewell to loved ones. When

we say goodbye do we not consign them to the mercies of God? We have witnessed

acts of generous service to the last and least, not least with the successful effort to

resettle Afghans into America. We have endured a pandemic—and recently, an

extended blackout—with surprising grace. (Those of us who remember the

Depression may be less surprised.) But we've done it. Was God not in the midst of all
these, and many other, experiences?

What does it take for us to open our eyes? Jesus concludes his discourse, and

our passage, with words about his yoke. A yoke is a heavy wooden contraption that

joins the pulling power of beasts of burden. In Jesus' time and place those animals

would have been donkeys. Yokes are heavy but efficient means of joining the power

ot the team doing the work. The rabbis of Jesus' day often spoke of the “yoke of the

law”. Obey God, they said, and you will walk with God. Here, Jesus claims his yoke is

light, and his burden is easy. He means that to follow him requires that we accept the

constraint of joining the team. We have to pull together, not each in our own

directions. Yet the work we do together gives evidence that we belong to God and to

one another.

In our self-focused era we must rediscover the power of pulling together—

especially when we often seem to have to pull in a direction we did not choose. In his

book, Canoeing the Mountains, author Tod Bolsinger writes of Lewis and Clark's Corps

of Discovery. Most do not know that the true start of the two men's incredible journey

happened in what is now Jeffersonville, Indiana, on the Ohio River. They recruited

their team in St. Louis and rowed up the Missouri River, against the current, for over a

thousand miles. They learned how to “read the river”, how to cross from side to side to

avoid the swiftest currents. They learned how to row with the technique that

generated the greatest efficiency. They learned where to place each man in each boat

in order to create the most momentum. Ultimately, because they had to work against
the flow of one of the mightiest rivers on the planet for three-quarters of the journey

west, it took them nearly three times as long to reach the Pacific Ocean as it did to

return home two years later.

Tod Bolsinger writes, “We church folks have for many years gotten away with

sitting wherever we like, and pulling in whatever direction suits us. Our churches

thrived for the fifty years from about 1950 until about 2000. But then we started

encountering currents directly opposed to the direction we thought we ought to go.”

And in what direction did we think we ought to go? Each one of us might have a

different answer. None of our answers would be entirely wrong or right. But we

Presbyterians probably have more in common with the Pharisees, the haves, than the

common have-nots. We need to open our eyes. We have spent most of our lives

pulling toward once praise-worthy destinations. Now those destinations have moved.

But we have not changed the direction in which we are pulling. In the coming weeks

the leaders of this church will consider whether to set new targets, new directions. We

will try to lift our eyes from the fields we already plow and look for new rows to hoe.

May God's Spirit guide us all as we embark on this new effort. And may we see

God at work among us as we do.