So we weave our stories.
There is a homeless person who is fairly regular at Bethel Church. People in the office know that he's a regular. I do what I can for him. I'm happy to make sure he gets lunch. I'm happy, when I can, to give him a ride.
But what distinguishes him...I'll call him Ed...what distinguishes Ed are his stories. He has a reason for everything. In a way, it's amazing. If he weren't homeless he'd probably be a Nobel-prize winning author. He has a gift for it. It takes some time. As you get to know him you begin to sort out what is pure fiction from what might have a little touch of truth.
First, it's his name. It's one of three versions. Incidently, that's supposedly why his VA check never gets to him. Identity confusion and a returned check, and your off the list. At least that partly makes sense.
And then there's the intentions he has and what he needs to fulfill them. Another pastor I know told me a couple of years ago he's always leaving town. And to leave town you need bus fare. But, amazingly, he's always back in two weeks. It turned out to be true. The leaving town story has run its course. He doesn't get bus fare anymore.
Then there's the hopeful story...the job! Wow, he's got a job. He's going to work regularly now. But he needs something or another to get on board. Then there's the victim story, how one event after another has put him in a difficult position when none of it was his fault.
I don't mind the stories. I just think it's best to appreciate them for what they are - incredible works of art, in a way. And I suspect that's ok with Ed too, at this point. As long as you appreciate them, you don't have to totally believe them. So we have lunch, and I listen, and we part friends. Really, I suppose that's the most fair way of describing our relationship at this point. We've become friends.
Sure, Ed has his faults. And I could try to connect the dots for him...how this leads to this. But then, those would be my stories about his life...stories about how his life might be different. And we'd just have a battle of stories. And in the end he might find my stories entertaining, but that's about it. I can just see the smile on his face.... "Pastor Schuble (he can never pronounce my name), Pastor Schuble, you're something!" he'd say. So my stories would probably come off as unbelievable to him as his are to me.
Finding a reason for something is about telling a story. And it's not that sometimes a story can't fit the facts. Then again, sometimes it's just an interesting story. Maybe that's what the disciples wanted when they ask Jesus who sinned, he or his parents, that the man was born blind. We love stories. The National Inquirer sells because Inquiring minds want to know. Who sinned that caused the blindness?
The ancients believed our eyes are made of fire, like lamps. They believed our eyes emitted the same kind of divine light of which they believed the celestial bodies were made.1 Literally, there are stars in our eyes. A blind person was, therefore, thought to have been filled with darkness, with sin - a physical symptom with a moral cause.
We're not unlike the ancients, I think. We've given up the belief in a light inside the eyes, that's true. But it amazes me that Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood can find enough to do a show every single day. Much of it having to do with people's faults - a kind of institutionalized form of gossip, which is talking about people rather than to people. It makes me wonder if the shame is really on Brittany Spears or us.
And I have to say I still don't understand the legal system. Remember that suit against McDonalds for the coffee being too hot? I sympathize with the burn that was experienced, of course. But suits are grand exercises in weaving stories to find fault. Not all frivolous, certainly, but the litigious society is legend in our day....as is also the fault-finding culture.
Well, Jesus answers the disciples. He says, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him." Well that's a different story altogether.
What if the weaknesses, the imperfections, the failures of others is opportunity for us to be our best? What if they are opportunity to lift each other up rather than to be used as grist for the gossip mill of judgment? What if we answered people's worst selves with our best selves?
The disciples are ready to talk, to weave their story. But Jesus invites them into another story....the story we rehearse in this season - that in the face of the worst that the world could give Jesus never abandoned his calling, never let his love fail, never stopped praying even for those around him, even on the cross, but forgiving them - for they know now what they do.
To be baptized into Jesus Christ is to follow him in this calling. And the temptation will be strong all around. For the disciples are walking with Jesus right next to them, and still they ask their idle question that might have occupied them on their journey - a diversion of interest...who sinned this man our his parents? Whose fault was it?
But Jesus points them and us in another direction. Why is Ed homeless? Probably a lot of reasons. And we could fill the afternoon with the conversation. But maybe the best reason might be so that we get to have lunch occasionally, so that we have come to know each other, so that the works of God might be revealed, so that I can remember my calling.
1Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John, Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) pp. 40-41