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The 4th Sunday in Lent
(A) In the Name of our Lord. Amen. How many of us have ever had the experience of having a child being sent home from day-care or school because of an infestation of head lice?! It is NOT, I can assure you, a pleasant situation!! After shampooing the child’s head with Rid or some other similar product, then the real work begins. Each “nit”, or tiny egg of a louse, must be meticulously combed, picked, or pulled from the single strand of hair that it is attached to. In a head lice infestation, there can be literally hundreds or even thousands of nits to be removed - which involves hours of work. The fact that this procedure must be carried out on a child who is probably very embarrassed and is most definitely NOT happy only makes the task that much more unpleasant! NIT-PICKING - the removal of tiny lice eggs from strands of hair!! That is where the word comes from. But in common usage, the term has come to mean focusing upon small faults about something or someone - instead of focusing upon what is good and important overall. Nit-pickers are always noting what is wrong rather than about what is right. They can’t enjoy anything, especially anything that has a flaw in it. An accomplished nit-picker can burst almost any celebratory balloon. “The wedding was so beautiful - but its a shame that the bride couldn’t have lost a few pounds for the occasion!” “Congratulations on your new promotion. But you’ve still got a long way to go, don’t you?” “Yes, it was a wonderful worship service, but...” (I’ll leave you to finish that thought in your own way!) Nit-pickers!! They are always going about deflating joy, tarnishing triumphs, focusing upon the negatives and the small flaws. That’s what they do best. Today’s gospel reading is a rather lengthy one (maybe that is something that we can “nit-pick” about!). Be that as it may, it gives an excellent portrayal of what nit-picking is like - both by the disciples and then later by the Pharisees. Our gospel begins by telling us that as they walked along, Jesus and his disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth. The disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” The disciples were “nit-pickers” in the sense that they were asking the wrong question. They saw this man as an object to be talked about, rather than as a person who needed their compassion and help. Their issue was about finding answers to esoteric theological issues rather than about having concern for a real person who was right there in front of them. Are we ever “nit-pickers” in this sense? I am afraid we are! Too often, we focus upon those issues of our faith which are really not that essential and ignore what is really important for us here and now. “Pastor, what if a person in some other part of the world dies without ever hearing about Jesus - can he or she be “saved”?” “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Or “Why are some people born handicapped and others aren’t?” I am not saying that questions such as these are bad ones. But they pale in significance to questions which we SHOULD be asking such as; “How can I help my friend or family member to Jesus’ love?” “What can I do when bad things happen to good people?” Or “What can I do to show God’s love to someone who is handicapped or needs some special assistance?” The disciples saw the blind man as being an object for theological discussion. Jesus, however, saw him as someone who needed compassion and healing. He answered his disciples; “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” Gently but firmly, Jesus turned the attention of his disciples to focusing upon the blind man as a real person. A real person whose special need provided an opportunity for God to give a special blessing to him through Jesus’ ministry. Jesus then spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eye, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.” Now we come to the second group of “nit-pickers” - the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the Jews. Instead of being amazed and rejoicing and giving praise to God that this man was healed from his life-long blindness, they instead were upset because he had been healed on the sabbath day...a day on which no work of any kind was supposed to be done, including the “work” of healing. If anything, their “nit-picking” was much worse than that which had been shown by the disciples. The disciples had simply focused upon asking the wrong questions, but the Pharisees were intentionally focusing upon faults. They were doing this because they did not want to admit that God's works were being done through this Jesus whom they did not like. They were looking for every reason possible to disparage the blind man's healing as being nothing special. Nit pickers!! The reason why people do this kind of fault-finding nit-picking is that they want to make themselves look good at the expense of others. In other words, PRIDE! If they can not actually be better than another person or group, then they will do their best to drag that person or group down to their level - or LOWER if possible. That is what the Pharisees were doing with Jesus. They could not do God's works of healing like Jesus was doing, so they focused upon his "violation" of the Sabbath as a way of trying to make him look bad - and certainly to look worse than them! Do we ever do this? Every time that we magnify the faults of a person, a group, a church, or another denomination - and minimize the good that they do - we are repeating the nit-picking of the Pharisees in today's gospel lesson. May God keep us from being like this! Martin Luther gave us good advice in his explanation of 8th Commandment in his Small Catechism that we should always "defend (our neighbor), speak well of him, and explain his actions in the kindest way." In other words, we should always look for the good that is done by others and praise God for it - and minimize our focusing upon the bad. That is what the Pharisees should have done in today's gospel lesson, and that is certainly what we should do today! Focus on the good done by others, and avoid focusing upon the bad. The opposite of nit-picking!! Finally, there is one other central character in today's gospel lesson (besides Jesus himself). That character is the blind man. How do you think that he must have felt when Jesus SPIT in the dirt and made mud with the saliva to then spread it on his eyes? How many of us would have appreciated this gesture? My mother when I was very small would sometimes SPIT into her hand and then wash away some dirt on my face before going into a place where I needed to look clean. Have any of you ever done that to your kids - or been on the receiving end of it when you were little? I didn't like it then, and I certainly wouldn't like it now! SPIT is not only viewed as unclean, but is also downright insulting! A couple of years ago Roberto Alomar of the Baltimore Orioles created an uproar when he SPIT into the face of the umpire he was having an argument with. We too, would be very offended if someone spit at us. And yet, that is what Jesus did. He mixed his SPIT with dirt to make mud to spread on the man's eyes - and then told him to make his way (blindly!) to the pool of Siloam to wash it away. What is the point of this? To me, this illustrates the total humility and faith of the blind man! He was willing to bear any shame, any insult - because somehow he trusted that Jesus loved him and wanted to help him. Somehow, he believed that Jesus was going to HEAL him of his blindness. And because he believed that, he was not going to be a nit-picker as to HOW Jesus was going to heal him! The blind man could have thought of all kinds of objections. I can imagine him thinking, "This is stupid and unsanitary! Instead of making mud pies with his spit, why can't Jesus just say the word and make me see?" But instead, he trusted that Jesus knew what he was doing. He did not try to nit-pick Jesus' methods in any way. He was totally humble and obedient, and willing to endure shame and the snide comments of others. And because of this, he was healed. How about us? Are we like the blind man, willing to trust and be obedient to Jesus even if we do not understand why? Even if our Lord's ways and methods are different and even considered weird at times? Or do we stand on our own pride, wanting to do things only in our own way? Demanding to understand fully before we trust and obey? And criticizing the "faults" of others whose ways are not like ours? Are we nit-pickers, or are we humble, faithful, and obedient? During this Lenten Season especially, we focus upon the fact that our pride needs to die! That for the sake of being with Jesus, we should be willing to endure anything - even to be "spit in the eye" like the blind man was. May we, like him, focus only upon being humble and obedient to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ - even as Jesus was to the will of his Heavenly Father. For then, and then only, we will be healed of the spiritual blindness of our sin - and we shall clearly SEE God's love! So may it be. In Jesus' Name! Amen! -------------------- George R. Karres, Pella Lutheran Church 418 W. Main Street Sidney, MT 59270
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