The Peripatetic Preacher Sees with His new Eyes

Last updated on: December 23, 2019 at 2:37 pm by John C Holbert

The Peripatetic Preacher Sees with His new Eyes 2019-12-23T14:37:09-05:00 John C Holbert

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I mentioned some weeks ago that I was in the process of cataract surgery on my eyes. This, of course, is one of the gifts of old age, the gift that keeps on giving. I can now happily report that the surgical portion of the process is over, and was quite successful. I, after over 60 years of being the very definition of near-sightedness, (i.e. able to read anything without glasses, but unable to see anything clearly past five inches from my nose) am now a far-sighted person, able to see clearly without glasses street signs, building markings, and even individual leaves on trees. However, menus and books (along with computer jottings) require my newly purchased reading glasses, slick Foster Grants, acquired from a local drug store. I have yet to employ my new eyes in my church choir, where I will need to use my glasses to see the music, but will also need to look over the music to watch the conductor, who will, I fear, be something of a blur. Might there be the dreaded half glasses in my future? That remains to be seen.

For those of you familiar with this cataract business, you may be asking why I did not go for the multi-focus lenses that would have obviated the need for any sort of glasses at all. The answer is two-fold: the cost of those things is prohibitive and is uncovered by my insurance, but more importantly I have glaucoma, and thus was not a candidate for those special lenses. Hence, I am now very far-sighted John. After 60 years of fumbling for my glasses first thing each morning and taking them off as my last act at night, I find myself still reaching up to mess with them, but soon discover that “them” have disappeared. As I watch TV, I do so glassesless, and though my computer does not recognize that as a word, I assure you that I do. It is a new world for me at 73, and I am quite literally seeing the world quite differently.

What could be better at the Christmas season? The entire story of Christmas is in fact one long paean to the call to see the world with new eyes. Before I launch into my theological ruminations, I want to be quite clear about this Christmas thing: I do not wish to argue about whether the tale is historical in any way, in a few ways, or in every way. After 50 years of such celebrations, held in the glaring light of my increasing knowledge of the biblical texts that announce the stories, I find most of the narratives to be primarily theological-historical. In other words, I do not wax nostalgic about the possibility of very bright stars (a NASA supernova?), or wise ones from the unnamed East (3? 7?, many?) walking their camels to a stable (?), a house (?), or shepherds overwhelmed with choruses of angels, not to mention the scandal of the unwed mother and her initially reluctant fiancée. Please note that I have conflated the tales of Matthew and Luke quite randomly as the church has done almost from the time they were written. This all to me is story, with a bare minimum of historical superstructure on which to hang the tale. Surely, there was a young couple and a baby, and the baby grew up to become Jesus, a prophet disliked by the religious authorities and murdered by the Romans for something or other, perhaps the most dangerous things eating with the wrong people and saying things few wished to hear. Yet, it is a story that has altered the world, has attempted to change the way we see that world.

Much of my life has been a near-sighted one, focused on things close by—my education, my career, my family, my safety. That state of my eyes well matched the state of my soul. Do not misunderstand me or make a too hasty judgment about what I am trying to say. There is in my sight nothing wrong at all with being deeply concerned about oneself. After all, does the great commandment not enjoin us to “love neighbor as one loves self,” with the possible implication that without self-love, there can finally be no lasting or significant love of neighbor? Near sightedness, in short, is no bad thing in and of itself.

But something is obviously missing from a total absorption in a near-sighted world. My newly created far-sightedness recalls for me a text from the Hebrew Bible that I have often touted as one that is a signature for the faith I hold, and yet may have been for me more an ideal than a reality. Listen again to that winsome poet of exile, 2-Isaiah, as he sings of a new way of seeing:

Do not remember the former things, Or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing;
Now it springs up; don’t you see it?

I will make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert (Is.43:18-19).

There are no roads in the wastelands of Babylon and Israel in the 6th century BCE; it is bare and jagged rock, unmarked and endless sand, places where jackals and ostriches, the very definitions of wild creatures, cavort. And there are no rivers in the desert; there are barely hidden tiny pools, known only to the few who venture into the wilds. But YHWH proposes to change all that; there will be roads and there will be rivers. Don’t you see it? Frankly, my near-sighted self does not see it. I saw only waste and desolation, tohubohu, that state of the earth in Genesis 1:2 before the far-sighted God began the work of creation. I saw only Roman power and rigid religious hegemony before God sent the baby, “mewling and puking in its mother’s milk” in Luther’s trenchant phrase. I needed my far-sightedness to match that long view that God has always provided to those with eyes to see.

The tale of Christmas is one of new eyes to envision the new things of God, roads and rivers and babies. I pray this Christmas that my new eyes will become genuinely new in their ability to see all the more clearly what the far-sighted God may be about in a world too often captured by near-sighted self interest. Joy to the world, the babe is come! Let earth truly and clearly see the one who is their true monarch, their loving ruler, their genuine Emmanuel.

(Images from Wikimedia Commons)

Uncategorized

Previous Post

December 16, 2019

The Peripatetic Preacher: The Narrative Lectionary January 5, 2020 Mark 1:21-45 Christmas 2

Next Post

December 26, 2019 The Peripatetic Preacher, Ecclesiastes 3, and the New Year

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz