There is a well known story in the Bible found in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John. The disciples are walking with Jesus and encounter a man who was born blind. Jesus places spit-moistened mud on the man’s eyes, and instructs the man to go and wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam.  The man does as he’s told and returns to his town with restored sight. Later, when he is questioned by the religious authorities about the miraculous healing, the man replies only with what he knows to be true, “I was blind, but now can see.” The man doesn’t engage in a long, drawn-out theological conversation with the Pharisees.  Rather, he simply witnesses to what he knows. His life had been utterly changed by Jesus, and so he speaks his truth.  He was blind, but now can see.

All these years later, we are called to do the same as the man born blind.  We are called to witness to our truth.  God invites us to consider the ways that our lives have been transformed by the love of Jesus and to let our lives speak of the truth of that transformation. There is no need to figure it all out.  There is no need to convince anybody. There is simply the exhortation that our Lord gives us to speak our truth. In my opinion, that is done most effectively by what we do and how we live rather than what we say or what we believe.

Over the course of the next several weeks, all are invited to consider the ways that God’s Spirit has been moving and changing us here at St. John’s. We call the process visioning, and we’re meeting on Wednesday nights in the Parlor.  We are looking at who we have been and who we are now, always with an eye toward discerning the movement of God’s Spirit.  We will take the best of what God has done in and through us and bring it forward into a fresh vision for our Christ-centered life moving forward.  Then, emboldened and inspired by this new vision, we will think of ways that we may witness to the truth of God’s transforming love in our common life.

It is an exciting thing to be healed, empowered, changed, transformed by the love of God. It is a privilege to be able to witness to that work by our words and our lives. It is my fervent prayer that over the course of the next several weeks, those who engage in the process of visioning might be able to say both in word and deed, “We were blind, but now can see!”

~Father Art