Sunday, February 11, 2024
/Last Epiphany
2 Kings 2: 1-12; Psalm 50: 1-6; 2 Corinthians 4: 3-6; Mark 9: 2-9
The Rev. James M. L. Grace
In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
I would not be surprised one day to find out that in heaven there is a large, warehouse-like room, kind of like a Costco. In this vast heavenly storage room there would be shelves as high as our eyes can see stocked with billions of little purple boxes. If you were to open one of these little purple boxes, inside you would be surprised to find a blessing which God had given you that you either ignored or were unappreciative of. Can you imagine how big a warehouse containing all of our ignored and unappreciated blessings would need to be?
It might look something like the warehouse we see at the end of the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know the one where some government employee boxes up the Ark of the Covenant for storage in a wooden box - wheeling it down an aisle of some huge government warehouse that seemingly has no end to it. In the often-maligned sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we learn the location of the warehouse holding the ark of the covenant – a top-secret military base in Nevada – Area 51. Oh, and there are aliens in wooden boxes for storage there, too, by the way. We also learn from Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull that hopping into a lead encased refrigerator will save you from a nuclear explosion, a scene from the film which has now become its own meme “nuking the fridge.”
Today “nuking the fridge” is a phrase used by movie fans to describe the declining point of a film franchise as a result of its heavy reliance on special effects. You all might come up with a similar term – nuking the sermon – which would describe the declining point of a sermon as a result of its heavy reliance on pop culture refences, a point I think this sermon has crossed two minutes ago.
In today’s reading from 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul writes these words “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” I am drawn to this verse from today’s reading and its description of blindness. As Paul describes it, the blindness is inflicted on unbelievers by the “god of this world.” This is the only place in the entire new testament where the devil, is given the title “the god of this world.” According to Paul, the number one priority of the “god of this world’s” job description is to keep us blind, because in our blindness, we bocme unbelievers.
And to varying degrees, all of us are blind. Paul understood blindness. He himself was blinded on the road to Damascus, only to have his sight regained when he learned that the love of God conquers all hate and removes all human blindness. Several years ago I read the Pulitzer Prize winning book, Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson. In the book, Wilkerson establishes a daring premise, which is that many of us are blinded to an American caste system which she argues is “based upon what people looked like, an internalized ranking, unspoken, unnamed, unacknowledged by everyday citizens even as they go about their lives adhering to it and acting upon it subconsciously to this day.” The blindness of so many of us to this American Caste system, Wilkerson argues, “is what gives it power and longevity.”
I want to revisit that vast warehouse – not the one from Indiana Jones, but the one I believe might be in heaven, the warehouse full of all our unnoticed and ignored blessings. How many untold blessings would there be, just warehoused away, collecting dust, because we are blind and unwilling to open our eyes to see them? What would it take to remove the veil from our eyes so that we might see those blessings?
As I said earlier – the “god of this world” according to Paul, is happiest when we are blind. What the “god of this world” cannot stand is gratitude. The “god of this world” prefers we dwell in self-pity and morbid self-reflection, because that keeps us looking back to the past, while remaining blind to the present. If we forego all the self-pitying and open our eyes to see everything, we have to be grateful for – the “god of this world” will run from us. He will flee. He cannot stand us being grateful and having our eyes opened.
I cannot say it any better than Alice Walker does in her novel The Color Purple when Shug Avery says, “I think it pisses off God when you walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it.” Life is too short to fill a heavenly warehouse with more purple boxes full of ignored blessings. There is blessing in this world. Are you courageous enough to open your eyes and see it? AMEN.