Looking for God at Work

March 26, 210017 –– 4th Sunday of Lent

1 Samuel 16:6–7, 10–13a  / Psalm 23  / Ephesians 5:8–14 / John 9:1–41

Looking for God at Work

Where are we most likely to see God at work? Surely we see his power and glory in the spectacular. Nature shows us the grandeur of majestic mountains, pristine beaches, huge storms, and a star-studded universe. The psalmist was aware of God’s green pastures and still waters.

Scripture also gives us stories of a sea dividing so people could walk through on dry land, and even people being raised from the dead. We sometimes hear incredible conversion stories and are aware of examples of extraordinary love and service to others. In those situations and more it is relatively easy to say “God is at work.”

Yet that level of divine activity is not aways so common. I often think, and remind others, that Scripture itself is very selective and encompasses thousands of years. For the average Israelite, spectacular miracles were not everyday occurrences. C. S. Lewis reflected:

You are probably quite right in thinking that you will never see a miracle done:...They come on great occasions: they are found at the great ganglions of history--not of political or social history, but of that spiritual history which cannot be fully known by men. If your own life does not happen to be near one of those ganglions, how should you expect to see one? If we were heroic missionaries, apostles, or martyrs, it would be a different matter. But why you or I? Unless you live near a railway, you will not see trains go past your windows. How likely is it that you or I will be present when a peace-treaty is signed, when a great scientific discovery is made, when a dictator commits suicide? That we should see a miracle is even less likely. Nor, if we understand, shall we be anxious to do so. "Nothing almost sees miracles but misery." Miracles and martyrdoms tend to bunch about the same areas of history--areas we have naturally no wish to frequent.

~C.S. Lewis, Miracles, Chapter 17 (1947)

Where are we most likely to see God at work? There is a sense in which we can see God at work anywhere we look if our spiritual eyes are open. Speaking of Christ, St Paul tells the Colossians In him everything continues in being. That means the very active presence of Jesus in our world is what holds everything together; neither we ourselves nor anything else can even exist apart from the ongoing active work of God. It is the presence and power of God that upholds and energizes what we understand as “science”. Behind the “rising” of the sun and the orbits of the planets and a seed germinating into a plant is the light and life of God.

We need to understand that God works in these spectacular and powerful ways. We need to be awestruck sometimes. We need to be humbled sometimes. Knowing that God works in these ways which are beyond our comprehension is right and good. But we also need to be able to see God at work in a way that is much more intimate and personally encouraging.

In our personal lives, where are we most likely to see God at work? The second reading calls us to be children of light. There is a spiritual darkness in our world that will not––cannot––see God at work. It is a spiritual darkness that gets most things wrong. Truth gets twisted; right and wrong become inverted. Worthless things are prized and true values are disdained. God is dismissed and every effort is made to explain how the universe is self-generating and people are free to do whatever they want to do. This is spiritual blindness.

The light of God reveals those distortions and enables all who are willing to be able to see. This is the bigger context of today’s Gospel. The blind man is every human being who needs to be able to see the glory of God. Any time we are able to “see” God, grace is at work; the Spirit of life––the very Spirit of Jesus––is close to us and actually at work in us whenever we have times of God-consciousness. God loves us so much that he wants to heal of the blindness that keeps us from seeing God at work all the time.

Isn’t it amazing that some people can see even the spectacular signs of God’s glory––the grandeur of majestic mountains, pristine beaches, huge storms, and a star-studded universe––and still have no sense of the reality of God?! That is spiritual blindness. It is a tragedy.

But here is the word for today: We do not have to be always experiencing something spectacular to see God at work. The amazing thing is that God is at work, mightily, in the small things. God is at work in every one of us every day, and he wants to heal any hint of blindness that prevents us from seeing him in everything.

In the story of Samuel coming to anoint David we find another kind of blindness to the work of God. The assumption is that God would choose those who were visibly impressive. David’s older brothers were strong and mature. They made great first impressions. They fulfilled everything we usually look for when we look for prime candidates. David, at the time, was young; he was not yet “filled out”, and I’m sure that when he was called in from the shepherd field he looked and smelled far less than impressive. Yet the young and outwardly inferior David was exactly the person where God was most mightily at work at the time.

Think abut the man Jesus healed. He was a cultural nobody; the Pharisees considered him an especially marked “sinner.” Consider even the establishment opinion of Jesus: he too was judged a sinner because he had healed on the Sabbath.

Look around. Take an inner look at  yourself. You may see nothing particularly spectacular, but if your heart in open to Jesus Christ you will be able to see God at work.

Can you see it? If you can, the grace of Jesus is removing your blindness. Look out at a world where things are not always what they seem. Look into your own soul and understand that God can do something incredible beyond what anyone else thinks. That is how we are healed of blindness. That is how you can see God at work even in your own personal experiences.