Spiritual Myopia
Dear church,
How good are your eyes? How well do you see? I recently received a vision upgrade via Lasik surgery. I am still in awe… about the fact that eye deficiencies that have plagued humans for centuries, such as Myopia (near sightedness), can be permanently corrected in a matter of minutes. How fortunate I am… to live now. My mother used to wear thick glasses throughout her life. She had severe Myopia from a young age and was relentlessly made fun of as a girl. Eyeglasses in rural Germany weren’t exactly cool designer pieces in those days. Now, for a majority of people, this can be fixed in a matter of minutes. I say that’s pretty darn amazing!
How well do we see? Today’s Scripture readings are all about that. Of course, there is more to vision than what meets the eye! I am reminded of the famous quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, from his book Little Prince: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Let us start there and segway into the first reading for this Sunday where the prophet Samuel is sent to the House of Jesse to select and anoint the next king. No small task. Before he begins the candidacy process, without the involvement of a Human Resource Department, without review of hundreds of resumes, without clearances, without lawyers, without a clear job description, without any of our modern tools AND with all the typical biases of his time, Samuel goes to work. It can only become a disaster, right? Well, almost. God gives Samuel a game-changing rule as the sons of Jesse line up before him:
The LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
Samuel heard these words from God and then… he does the exact same thing he would have done anyway. Does that sound familiar? We hear the wise words we hear the good advice but we don’t believe it. We turn around and use the same old approach we’ve always sworn by. What is that called? Stubbornness? Shortsightedness? Human nature? Maybe a touch of… (can I say this in church?) maybe a touch of… stupidity? (I think I can say it in church because it applies to me sometimes.) My wife knows. Ask her.
So, Samuel goes about this important task and has a clear bias, a stigmatism, an amazing case of mental shortsightedness. The new king, Samuel assumes, must be a tall guy, probably muscular, generally handsome, likely the oldest of the sons because after all, he is going to be the king… And if it’s not the oldest, Samuel figured, it’s probably the second oldest, and on he goes using all the biases he had grown up with. He had an image in his head.
There are always biases we grow up with and sometimes we never grow out of them. And those biases can be hurtful and lead us to judge or misjudge people. Sometimes we don’t see what is plain in front of our eyes because we are not looking for it. Our eyes are trained on something else. I have had that experience many times. And I can tell you this for a fact: they could not take care of that problem at the Lasik Institute. This problem can only be fixed in our hearts and souls.
To be fair to Samuel… How can anyone see into the heart of a human being? C’mon now, that’s a set-up! Isn’t there a limit to what mere mortals can see? Isn’t that why we use checks and balances in the church and in any good organization? To make sure people don’t misuse our trust? Although there are many people here in this church that I trust completely, which is something that develops over time. You can see the heart of a person over time, most of it anyway. You can get a pretty good sense. In this old story from the Book of Samuel, the prophet had no chance. God pulled someone out of the hat whom nobody, not even his own father, had considered. The youngest son, the baby, who wasn’t even there. David! He had to be brought in from the fields. A big surprise.
It’s a lesson. Sometimes the most unlikely people are chosen. The wisdom that is given to Samuel remains valid to this day. People look at the outward appearance, don’t they? But the Lord looks at the heart. Meaning? Perhaps we need to pay more attention to what is essential about a person and a bit less to their appearance. The same is true when we look into our world. Can we develop a judgment that is not so clouded by the powerful trends of how most people see things? Or… how most people in our circles see things? Can we at least attempt and pray to see into the heart of matters? I think that’s all this old text actually wants from us.
When Jesus opened the eyes of the man who had been physically blind from birth, he used mud. Good old dirt mixed with saliva. That procedure hasn’t been patented as far as I know. But it may be a subtle hint for us. Our spiritual eyes are usually muddy. We don’t see all that well. We are pre-occupied with seeing too many things and it blurs our vision and we miss essentials. Spiritual Myopia. May God help us to wash off that mud that we may see more clearly. Keep that prayer in your hearts. It may change how you see things.
Amen.
