The neighbors and those who had seen him
before as a beggar began to ask,
“Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”
Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying,
“No, but it is someone like him.”
He kept saying, “I am the man.”
—John 9.8-9
John tells a long story full of irony and comedy,
almost slapstick in places:
Jesus heals a man born blind and everybody has a fit.
Pharisees don’t think it’s a good idea,
his parents don’t think it’s safe to say it’s true,
friends don’t think it’s him,
and detractors don’t think it’s possible.
Everybody’s trying to make it something else.
Nobody but Jesus and the healed man seem ready
to just let what is be what is.
The story suggests a Lenten discipline of allowing.
Allow yourself to be healed.
Allow someone else to be healed.
Let someone you look down on be healed.
Allow people to change. Or not.
Let people freak out without joining them.
Let someone criticize you without stopping them.
After all, God allows.
God did not command light, God allowed it:
“Let there be light.”
Only when there is ample room for what is
is there room for what may yet be.
Loosen your grip.
Stop trying to make things be what you want.
Let there be great letting in your life.
Let God have their way with you.
Let it be.
__________________
Listen to the audio recording:
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:46 — 2.4MB)