Yet, "I have rejected him,"
said God to the Prophet, Samuel,
when it was time to anoint a king
for Israel,

"I have rejected him;
for the Lord does not see as mortals see.
They look on the outward appearance;
but, the Lord looks on the heart."

Peter Wade was hugely successful
by all worldly measurement.
He worked as an Analyst on Wall Street,
lived in a prestigious apartment,
made over a million dollars a year
plus bonuses,
dressed for attention and got it,
and was admired on the Street.
Peter Wade had it made
- outwardly;
but, his life was a lie underneath.

"The Lord looks on the heart."

Peter suddenly resigned
from his enviable job, which he had come to hate,
and began to tell his story,
write a book, produce a movie;
not to sell these things for profit
but to cleanse his soul.

"I knew inside what a despicable human being I am,"
he now says.
"I couldn't live that lie anymore."
"I need to face the Truth."

For Peter, the Truth about himself is best told
by an incident that happened 20 years ago.

He and 5 other teenagers
were hanging out around the railroad
when they got the idea
of throwing one of the switches.

Peter did so,
and just then, a train came along.

It de-railed, plowing through a factory.
The Engineer was killed.

Peter served 7 months
of a three year term,
got out, went to college, graduated,
and made an apparent success of himself.

At least the world would say that.
But, he says
I had not come to recognize
and act on the Truth;
not just the truth of wrecking the train,
that is only an illustrative incident,
but the truth of who I was -
what I believed;
and I was never going to be whole,
healed
until I did.

In a very real sense,
Peter Wade was born blind,
and is just now beginning to see.

I don't think badly of Peter Wade.
The fact that he is willing to ask the hard questions
means that he is well on the way to sight;

and, are we not all born blind?

Jesus walked by
and saw a man, blind from birth.

This is an opportunity
for God's glory to show forth, he said;
for, I am the Light of the World,
that which enables people to see.

He laid his hands on that blind man,
spit on the ground
and made a poultice
of the very essence of God,
and pasted it on the man's eyes,
his face, his soul.

"Go and wash," said Jesus,
and the man obeyed the Lord.
From that moment on,
he was able to see.

Now, being healed,
seeing,
becoming a whole human being
is not necessarily easy.
One can get mud in one's eye.

Peter Wade had to expose his inner truth
to the world,
and the world has not liked him much for it.

There is a fascinating man
named Dr. Keith Ablow,
who is a Forensic Psychiatrist.
He also has journeyed hard into the catacombs
of his own human spirit.

He reconstructs for people
sometimes the courts
why people become what they are;
perhaps, how they might face the truth
and be healed.

He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School
and did his Psychiatric Residencies there.
He also writes books.
In one of his books, titled, Projection,
he tells a story of how
we are made ill by unresolved issues
of the spirit.

He talks about the huge wooden carving of Jesus
that stands under the dome
of the old building at Hopkins Hospital.

"I am not surprised,"
he writes,
"that thousands of patients at Hopkins
have begun their journey toward healing
standing in the presence
of that statue of Jesus,
for one cannot be healed of anything,"
he writes,
"until one comes face to face
with the Truth."

The world doesn't necessarily
want us to do that, you know.

Doing so calls into question
lots of paradigms and practices
we don't much want changed.

When the man born blind is healed,
the Pharisees in the town
question him aggressively,
trying to prove
that he was not really blind from birth,

and, they challenge his parents,
who don't want to risk
antagonizing the Pharasees,
so, they pass the buck.
"Ask him," they say.
"He is grown up enough to speak for himself.

He is now, for sure. Listen to this.

The Pharisees go back to the man born blind
and instruct him firmly
not to pay any attention to Jesus,
for Jesus is obviously a sinner
and they do not know who he is.

The man then shows
the depth of his healing and growth
by responding with courage and truth,
saying, "Now there is an astonishing thing!
You say you don't know who he is
yet he gave me sight.
You say that God does not listen to sinners
but only to those who worship him
and obey his will;
therefore, this man, Jesus,
cannot be a sinner as you claim."

In response, the Pharisees drive him out of the community,
but, Jesus met him outside,
and it was more than alright.
Way to go, said Jesus.
I am very proud of you.

My friends,
I have a lot of growing up to do.
We each were born blind
and often never get to the point
of looking at our hearts
and finding the imperfections there,
and we are rife with failures
of generosity and hospitality,
compassion and love.

We put far too much faith
in the expectations of the world,
knowing full well that
"God does not see as mortals see:
they look on the outward appearance,
but God looks on the heart."

But, thanks be to God,
we have the truth before us, Christ Jesus
standing tall at the starting place of our seeing,
and, we have today,
we have Lent and Holy Week and its liturgies
to guide us gently, and not so gently,
toward wholeness and perfected humanity.

We have each other, this congregation,
joining us in our journey
with signs of faithfulness
fellowship,
courage, and strength.

And, we have the Easter Vision,
a confirmation of all that is good and lovely and true,
all that is life-giving;
to draw us from wherever we are
to where God wants us to be,
from here, with our incompleteness and blindness,
all the way to Eternal Life.