Was You There, Charlie?
My grandfather, Charles Gross, was quite a raconteur, noted for his tall tales and elaborate embroidering of things that had actually happened. He was a master storyteller. With a wry grin and a twinkle in his eye he would launch into relating something that had happened at the funeral home where he worked after retirement from the Lodi post office. Or a story about someone at his Odd Fellows meeting the other night, or a rumor that someone had passed along.
My grandmother, Edna Mae, had become accustomed to such far-fetched stories. Sometimes in disbelief she would interrupt his narration with, “Was you there, Charlie? Was you there?”
He had quite a way with words, and his letters to the editor were frequently published in the Lodi Sentinel. I am fortunate that my mother saved many of these pieces. They bring back fond memories of the two of us walking down to a small corner grocery store where he would buy me an ice cream or soda – something absolutely forbidden in our house as my dad was a dentist. On the way there I loved to hear his commentary on the events of the day or the local news. And couldn’t wait to get back to their house where Grandma was bound to say at some point, “Was you there, Charlie?”
Despite her skepticism, she took it all in good stride. Their fondness for one another always impressed me. I didn’t witness much of that emotion in our house.
And I can picture her skeptical questioning of the disciples’ tales of having seen the Risen Lord — Was you there, Peter?” Was you there, Mary? Was you there, John? Was you there?
And of course, this is Thomas’s question. He doubts that any of what the other disciples are saying could possibly be true. What have they been smoking? Dead and buried, Jesus was. There’s no use in talking about it anymore.
When he appears in that upper room where Jesus followers were huddled in fear of the authorities, Thomas cannot comprehend the story they tell. He demands proof. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in their mark and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later, Thomas receives his proof as Jesus again appears although the doors of the house are shut tight. Jesus’ parting words to Thomas – “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Doubt is the proper order of the day. As Frederick Buechner said about religious doubt, “Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith; they keep it alive and moving.”
Unfortunately, the great growth of the church, beginning in the 50s after WWII was, by and large, the church of the “comfortable pew.” Sunday was the most segregated hour in America and what parishioners expected of the church was assurance. Velvety complacency was the order of the day.
Such a complacent and inoffensive Christianity was mocked by that song out of the 60s, “Plastic Jesus.” “I don’t care if it rains or freezes / Long as I got my plastic Jesus / Sittin’ on the dashboard of my car.”
Yet there lurked in the background of our mainline congregations a small group of radical folks whose souls had been infected by the gospels. A group yearning for more than pious platitudes and sappy hymns. They wanted a church that entered into the messiness of a wounded world. A church that would bear the burdens of Christ Crucified in the struggles for civil rights, racial reconciliation.
These folks would see Christ, would know him by his wounded body – the Church that bears the wounds of us all. This Sunday, in many churches is what is known as Thomas Sunday. Thomas wants to see Jesus before he will believe. And how will he know that the one he gazes upon is the real McCoy? By the wounds in his hands and feet. By the gash in his side where he was pierced by a Roman spear. He wants the real thing. By his wounds – that is exactly how he will know.
We will know the authentic representation of Christ – for the Church is the Body of Christ incarnate – when we see the wounds. Authentic Christianity enters into the struggle, the heartache of “the least of these.” It bears the wounds, the worry, of the homeless, the incarcerated, the addicted and the defeated.
Christ is the face of thousands.
The authentic, wounded Christ is yet among us still today. Christ is that despairing man in the pew beside you whose wife has just received a terminal diagnosis of cancer.
Do you now see, Thomas?
Christ is that immigrant who has been detained by ICE. Separated from his wife and one-year-old daughter. Picked up as he arrived at his required check-in under the DACA program.[1]
Do you now see, Thomas?
In the recent COVID-19 pandemic Christ was that nurse working 12-hour shifts, sometimes seven days a week to the point of exhaustion.
Do you now see, Thomas?
I recall a Facebook post I put up of a contemporary rendition of the Pietà. You remember the artist’s portrait of Mary receiving the tortured body of Christ from the Cross. The Wounded Christ of the Coronavirus Ward.
In this rendition the Christ of the Coronavirus Ward is portrayed as bearing the disfiguration of that disease. His virus-ravaged body is being lowered from a gurney by doctors, nurses and paramedics. Attached to his chest are still the leads of a heart monitor. He wears a face mask and little else to hide his nakedness.
Do you now see, Thomas?
This modern Pieta is not a pleasant picture. Not what you’d probably want hanging on your living room wall. Not the décor of a sanitized, inoffensive spirituality.
I remember also one woman writing back, not so much as in disgust or indignation – but what seemed an honest question, “Why did you post this?”
I explained that as followers of Jesus we need to enter into the hurt and pain of this world, just as Christ did. As Christ still does today.
For Christ takes on the wounded humanity yet today. In Lebanon where over 250 were killed in less than ten minutes by Israeli indiscriminate bombing of downtown Beirut. This Wounded Christ cries out from the ruins of destroyed homes, from the grief-stricken mother pawing through the remains for her dead children and husband.
Do you now see, Thomas?
Unless I see those wounds in the Church, the Body of Christ, I refuse to believe. Without those verifying wounds, it’s all Plastic Jesus.
When I hear Grandma’s question, “Was you there?” I strive to answer, yes, I was there. Yes, I am still there.
Thomas, here is your answer. In the nursing homes and in ICU wards. In ICE concentration camps. In the suffocating silence of a home ravaged by addiction. In the rubble of Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
Do you now see, Thomas?
Christ is in the face of that desperate family that has lost their medical insurance for a child with muscular dystrophy who needs around-the-clock care. Lost their insurance to pay for this senseless war of choice in Iran and Lebanon – a war of untold suffering now engulfing the entire Middle East.
Christ is that man languishing in an overcrowded jail simply because he could not afford competent legal advice or bail.
And Christ is the face of that Legal Aid worker toiling hours for little recompense to free him.
Christ is the face of those who blow their anti-ICE whistles, warning all that government thugs are about. At the risk of brutality, arrest or even death.
Christ is the face of that person who writes postcard after postcard urging infrequent voters to get to the polls. The face of millions in the No Kings Day demonstrations across our nation, from shore to shore. And up in Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. All advocating for a government that respects the dignity and rights of all its citizens.
This Sunday I ask the skeptic in all of us – that Doubting Thomas – might you, in a blind leap of faith, join those folks on the food distribution line, help in a homeless shelter or even greet an unhoused person on the sidewalk with a smile, and maybe a few greenbacks?
Might you now be the face of Christ, putting aside your niggling hesitations and lend a hand to receive his broken body?
Might you be the hands and feet, dare I say the wallet and sweat in our Garden of Hope and Food Bank?
In such generosity of Spirit there is the blessing to be found. Found beyond measure. A smidgen of life eternal.
Oh, Thomas, was I there? Yesterday, today and tomorrow, all of us — we of St. Francis’ and St John’s will be present – bearing the imprint of the wounds of Christ. Touch. Feel.
Do you now see, Thomas?
Amen.
April 12, 2026
2 Easter
“Was You There, Charlie?”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16;
1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
[1] Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The program that protected undocumented persons brought to America when they were children and who have known no other country than the United States.
Christ the Gardener
We are sometimes blindsided by moments of complete and utter terror. I remember such a night over at our neighbor Jorie’s house where several of us junior high school kids had gathered to watch a new TV program, “The Sea Around Us” in living color. Her family had the only color TV in the neighborhood.
At one point, during an intermission, we broke for snacks that her mother had made. As we passed through the dining room some of the kids were looking out the sliding class door. “Look at that,” one exclaimed. They were all staring at a very large bullfrog out on the patio.
When I looked out the window all I saw was the pitch-black night. I was overcome by a terrifying sensation of being sucked into an empty void. I don’t ever think I have felt such fear since. The experience was one of overwhelming existential terror.
I wonder if that was the experience of those first arriving in the wee hours of dawn to anoint Jesus’ body with spices. When they peered into the gaping black hole of that tomb carved out of rock, what moments of terror seized their souls?
The gospels record no details about what had actually happened at that moment – the seconds when his body was there and when it wasn’t. There were no witnesses. The guards were all asleep.
The entire event, the most seminal happening for Jesus’ followers – and nobody was there. No reporter from NBC Nightly News. No Lester Holt at the anchor’s chair. No bright lights and cameras. No one there.
The first gospel narratives were written a generation or two after those events. Tales passed down from one to another, Mark’s version being the first iteration. John’s version most likely being narrated by his community of faith maybe five generations removed from that first Easter.
Christian writers, attempting to explain the inexplicable down through the centuries. The entirety of that Easter Event still alludes our capacity to understand.
John Cobb, the eminent process theologian in his work, Christ in a Pluralistic Age,[1] explains the astounding experience of that first Easter. That morning, the spiritual reality of who Jesus was, is now let loose into the created order.
Remember, Dr. Cobb would remind us, “Christ” was not Jesus’ last name. It denotes the spiritual reality of his life and message now transcending his death. The core of his being. A new, transforming power let loose in the world. Passed from one follower to another down through the hallowed halls of time by the faithful – a long procession of members of the Jesus Movement.
Christianity so understood, is not a set of dogmas, not a rule book, but a way of life. In the first years after his death, Jesus’ followers were known as “Followers of the Way.” Look out the door of our parish hall to that garden that feeds some 470 people a week — that’s what we believe. That’s how we roll here at St. Francis.
As such, it is a mature Spiritual understanding capacious enough to encompass
the gifts of all religious traditions rooted in the way of compassion and servanthood.
Here is one way in which an ecumenical “generous orthodoxy” works itself out. Let me tell you a story told of an interfaith gathering. Unfortunately, the host pastor preceding the featured speaker of the evening – this pastor who was to give opening remarks and welcome, was from a very conservative church. His agenda was not interfaith understanding. He used his brief moments of introduction to score religious points for Jesus.
He was there to prove the supremacy of his Christian faith. He was solely bent on demeaning the speaker’s faith, proving the superiority of his own, rather than entering into any interfaith dialogue. He cared not a whit about the sensitivities of those in the room who were not Christians.
He addressed the crowd reading from one of the most exclusivistic passages of the John’s gospel. “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me.”
What a jerk, many thought. Way to make our guest feel welcome!
Most in the audience were embarrassed by this lack of charity, by this lack of basic manners. Folks sat in their seats in stony silence, glued to their places as interfaith relations were possibly set back hundreds of years. As the guest speaker approached the podium, all wondered how he would respond.
The speaker stepped up and benevolently smiled at his audience. After a pause, he proclaimed, “The pastor is absolutely correct.”
“For, what is the way of Jesus, but the way of peace, humility, truth, gentleness and respect. That is the only way one can approach God, enter into the Holy.” No matter what his or her faith might be.
This Hindu man had seen in Jesus that which this pastor failed to register: the Inner Light of God. The speaker had seen the same spiritual luminosity that those Wise Sages saw in that baby’s eyes, lying in the poverty of a manger.
The same vibrancy those early witnesses experienced on that Easter Morning. John Cobb asserts that this is the spiritual reality let loose in creation that yet lives through the humanistic values and ethic of the Renaissance. Christ has infused the spirit of that age. In the work of Michelangelo, DaVinci and Fra Angelica. Artists who through their work testified to that God-spark they perceived in all human flesh and endeavor. Through the milieu of the Renaissance and later the Age of Science, that human capacity for invention and exploration of those men and women who understood the grandeur of the created order – through their lives that same Spirit yet lives. Just as it did among the first astounded followers that Easter Morning.
We will soon baptize Luther James Forney, calling upon the very same Spirit let loose that first Easter — the Holy Spirit, if you will – to give him the same discerning mind and generous spirit as we’ve known in the Risen Christ.
We call upon God to give him the same passion for justice and freedom as those intrepid souls who followed Harriet Tubman through the swamps of the South to new lives of dignity and promise in the North. Following the Drinking Gourd to freedom. Terrifying journeys often steps ahead of the trackers and baying dogs.
We call upon the Holy Spirit to give him the courage to stand for what is right – just as did those German farmers who hid Jews in their fields and barns. Never knowing when Gestapo agents might show up and kill everyone involved. Just as did that family in Amsterdam who for two years hid Anne Frank in their attic. Never knowing when some nosy neighbor might betray them and summon Hitler’s SS agents.
We ask for a discerning mind to speak truth to power as did Bishop Mariann Budde after witnessing our president desecrate one of her churches. Leading an entourage of cabinet officers across Lafayette Park to hold a Bible upside down in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op.
For it is in these inspired and intrepid souls that Christ is known today. These are true and trusted people of the Way, the ones of whom that Hindu teacher spoke. For the authentic Way of Jesus, the Risen Christ, is the face of all who daily live out that humble care for their fellows. Yes, even to the point of death, as did two ICE protesters in Minneapolis.
We pray that Luther James might have that same generosity of Spirit as did that Hindu speaker, a capacious understanding of divine purpose that transcends our limited sectarian boundaries. An openness to the magnificent depths of our common humanity and the marvels of this created world, honoring God’s presence in all persons.
Frederick Buechner, in his book The Faces of Jesus,[2] makes the point that we have no idea of what Jesus looked like. Despite all the glorious attempts of our noted artists down through the years. We have absolutely no idea.
Mary Magdalene thought he might have been the gardener. And why not? He is the face of even those who presently tend our St. Francis Garden of Hope. When it comes down to it, in the last reality, the face of the Risen Christ is your face. And mine. And the sweet face of this tiny child Luther James whom we will baptize into the family of the Jesus Movement. Luther James, you are the Easter face of the Risen Christ.
As we gather in thanksgiving and gratitude for his life, as we pour out our prayers, hopes and dreams for him – that he finds his own way as a blessing to our common life as a part of the Beloved Community – we raise the Easter Greeting. Christ is Risen. He is Risen indeed.
Amen.
Christ the Gardener, Albrecht Dürer, c. 1511
April 5, 2026
Easter Sunday, 2026 – the Baptism of Luther James Forney
“Christ the Gardener”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24;
Philippians 2:5-11; John 20:1-18
[1] John B. Cobb, Jr., Christ in a Pluralistic Age (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), 33.
[2] Frederick Buechner, The Faces of Jesus: a Life Story (Brester, MA: Paraclete Press, 1974).
This Night
In the Passover liturgy, the youngest son at the meal asks the seminal question, “Why is this night different from all others?”
The narrative of the Passover, the haste in being ready at a moment’s notice to leave Egypt, the hurried meal, so rushed that the dough for the bread has no time to rise. The night of death that hovers about the fleeing families as they hear the howls of anguish from those families touched by the Angel of Death. It must have been most terrifying to the young.
Even if they had no understanding of the danger and the dread of their parents as the readied for a journey into a terrifying unknown – they surely sensed the danger and the silent anxiety of their parents and neighbors as families gathered in bunches on the path outside their houses.
A night like none other.
This story has provided assurance for people fleeing oppression throughout the ages. It was a lamp for the feet of Harriett Tubman and those fleeing enslavement in the south. To hear the baying of the tracker dogs was surely no less frightening than the sound of clanking armor and pounding of horses’ hooves of Pharoah’s approaching army that perused the escaping Hebrews. That night of departure, a night like none other.
I’ve been listening to an oral history of the personages and events around the development of the atomic bomb. What struck me was the fraught moment of decision for many Jewish scientists as the Nazi storm clouds began to envelope Germany.
The recollection of those whose options were diminishing by the moment and the alarm forcing a decision. To leave or stay. I’m surprised by the number in denial, saying, chancellors come and chancellors go. Hitler probably won’t be any worse than the others.
And their other colleagues, university professors and doctors squeezed out of their professions and livelihoods, as options shrank – those intrepid souls who decided to get out while it was still possible. Before doom settled in.
Nights like no other, Krystallnacht, the Night of the Long Knives when Hitler’s Brown Shirts assassinatedmany of the intelligentsia, business and professional classes of Jews who remained behind.
Nights of terror. Nights like no other as Germany sank into a living hell.
Today, US Marines have been called up for duty in Iran. Their commanders have told them to prepare their equipment, steel their spine and make loved ones aware that some of them will not be coming back. Get your affairs in order. Final instructions ought to be given for families to carry on in the case they’re killed in battle are now in order.
Nights like no other as they hastily assemble and prepare to head out.
We all have premonitions of that last night or our last fleeting moments. The time when everything hangs in the balance. A time when we will no longer look forward to that aromatic cup of coffee. A time when we will see that last sunset. The time when we will no longer hear the voice of a loved one or feel their gentle caress. In a real sense, we all face a final night like no others.
As Jesus drew his friends around him, he knew that night would be a night like none other. For all of them. He knew that this would be his last meal with those companions over these last three or so years. Night was closing in. The end was in sight.
A night that would turn the world upside down. Caeser’s arms might momentarily hold sway, but a new, subversive order was in the borning. Not based on might, prestige or outward appearance, but based on humility.
As Jesus took a towel and basin and prepared to wash his disciples’ feet, a gesture so radical, they could not comprehend it. Nothing in their past experience had prepared any of them for this new way of being.
Yes, even at those last hours they still understood nothing. As Luke records the disciples’ bad behavior at that meal and the commandment to serve one another, “They understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them and they did not grasp what was said.”[1] They quarreled amongst themselves at that table. Who would be the greatest? And if they should fall to the Caesar’s sword, who among them might sit at their Lord’s right hand?
They understood nothing; nor do we comprehend this new thing God is doing before our very eyes. Time and again we mess it up. Yet here we are, assembled at this night out of sheer Grace at the Welcome Table..
As we come forward in obedience to Christ’s command to wash one another’s feet, to share in the Bread broken and the Cup of Sorrows poured out — in all humility let us remember and give thanks to that Man for Others who by his example has ushered in a new way of being. A night like no others as we prepare to venture out – not knowing where the Spirit leads, but on the road in faith.
As it has been through the eons of time, for generation after generation – it has ben that the choice is ours. Will we with humble and contrite hearts set our prerogatives aside and join our Lord in the creation of a New Creation – will we join Christ’s vision of a Beloved Community – united as brothers and sisters in venturing into a new way of being? Or will we drift along wherever the Kingdom of Caesar takes us? Lives of lesser purpose. Just a part of the food chain until our eyes are finally shut in sweet oblivion?
O Lord, in this moment, teach us to number our days that we might get a heart of wisdom. Lead us into that Life Abundant that we might truly live. Usher us toward a foretaste of Eternity. On This Night. Amen.
[1] Luke 18:34, RSV.
April 2, 2026, Maundy Thursday
“This Night”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; Psalm 116:1, 10-17;
1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Gospel: John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The Summons of the Via Dolorosa
Today, my issue of the Living Church arrived and on the front cover was a picture of the “Harrowing of Hell.” This image is from the Icon Museum in Recklinghausen, Germany, artist unknown.
In the Apostles Creed, one line reads, “he descended to the Underworld” – which we interpret to mean “to the dead” – or to “Hell.” This is taken from the verse in 1 Peter, 4:6. The Harrowing of Hell is commemorated on Holy Saturday.
I take this observance to mean that, ultimately, no one is beyond the saving grace of the Good News. Yes, even Judas.
When Jai and I were in Jerusalem, that city was so commercialized that It was difficult to get into the mind of the auspicious and seminal events of Holy Week. Among all the stalls offering everything from tourist trinkets to lentils, dates and melons, nothing seemed to have remained from the time of Jesus’ last days.
It wasn’t until we got to the Wailing Wall – the only remains of the second temple wall begun by Herod the Great — and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that I began to feel some of the ambiance of that ancient City of David. Yet I had no idea where the path of sorrow was which Jesus took from his trial to the Cross on Golgotha — the Via Dolorosa –I had no idea of how it might have wended its way through the city to that fateful end.
It is during this time of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday, that even the non-believing world becomes aware of the Christian story. With the reenactment of the pageantry of the processions of the palms around the world, the world becomes acutely aware of that Man for Others. The one who “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”[1]
In our milieu of hyper-partisan Christianity, many – especially our younger generations — are repulsed by the vulgar sensationalizing of the message by right-wing Christian Nationalists. Whatever their mental picture of Jesus, THIS IS NOT IT.
In his book, Evangelism in the Age of Despair,[2] Andrew Root makes the point that the substance of the Good News can mostly be conveyed by those who come to others as a servant, in humility, entering the suffering of this age.
The only Christ that neighbor might ever encounter is in that neighbor, friend, who becomes vulnerable to their pain, their great despair. Just as Christ descended to the dead with Good News – for in his or her despair, overwhelming grief, that friend was indeed dead to themselves and those around.
Dr. Root tells a prototypical story, drawn from a number of experiences of such a contemporary encounter.[3]
The story begins with Mary Ann, who had landed a job with a trucking company outside of San Diego, California. Her new boss, Bud, the owner, of this small operation, was most supportive, though a somewhat gruff personality.
As the company grew, Bud realized that he needed someone to manage personnel, a Human Resources manager. He offered the new position to Mary Ann, though she’d had no experience in such work. But Mary Ann was a quick learner even though she had no college background. By attending conferences, seminars and through reading, she was soon up to speed. The company was still small and the demands for the new HR position were not overwhelming.
It finally looked like everything in her life was clicking. She had two wonderful children, a home in a nice neighborhood and a great job she loved.
Until, out of the blue, her husband announced he wanted a divorce.
She might have seen this coming. She and her husband more and more frequently bickered over money and pretty much everything else. Mary Ann figured that more money from her increased salary would resolve the tension. Not so.
There she was, now on her own with two children under ten without a father. Grief, self-doubt and depression became the order of her days. The emotional pain shook her to her core. She could barely be there for her children or her job.
She poured herself into her job and that helped somewhat. But busyness could not take away the shame, the anxiety and the sorrow. The sorrow, more than anything else, settled about her as a dense fog. No sunshine to her days.
Mary Ann’s father, like many from the 60s counter culture had drifted to the West Coast. Some in Los Angeles, others to the Bay Area around San Francisco and Berkeley. Unlike her father, she didn’t hate the church, she just never gave it much thought.
Her father was a “tough-it-through” kind of guy. Never admit your hurt.
One day, a coworker, Valentina, who had been noticing Mary Ann’s slow decline into despair, approached her and asked her if she was okay. “I’ve noticing that you seem to be carrying a lot of weight on your shoulders – a pretty heavy load.”
Those words caused an emotional dam to burst in Mary Ann. She, for the first time, unloaded her burden. For two hours they talked. Mary Ann felt that she had been held in a way she never had before. Yes, she needed a friend.
Valentina, also, had known loss. Her son had been arrested and sentenced to jail for theft, which led to addiction. She told Mary Ann how the people of her church had come to the courtroom and sat with her during the trial. They fed her for three weeks afterward.
Because of that experience Valentina was walking a nearby horse-trail with Mary Ann three times a week.
Valentina’s pastor was constantly telling the congregation that the followers of Jesus know sorrow. She saw that example through the depths of her own depression. Because of that, she was now out on this horse-trail with Mary Ann three times a week.
Valentina may be the only image of Christ that Mary Ann would ever know. And that is sufficient. In that friendship was born the entire message of the Gospel. Now vibrantly alive in Mary Ann’s heart as well as she walked her own Via Dolorosa.
I never found out where that ancient trail of tears led through Jerusalem, but I am well acquainted with that Via Dolorosa in my own heart. And it has been a saving grace at needed times to have had trusted companions along that way.
Yes, together we navigate that path as it has wound its way through our lives, through the lives of friends and family for in faith we know it leads to an Easter Sunrise.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, for Christ in our friends will join us along the way to lift and to sustain. Just as Christ does three times a week on that horse-trail in the guise of Mary Ann’s dear friend. Amen.
[1] Philippians 2:8, NRSV.
[2] Andrew Root, Evangelism in an Age of Despair: Hope Beyond the Failed Promise of Happiness (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic).
[3] Ibid, the story which follows is from pages 4-7.
March 29, 2026
Palm Sunday, 2026
“The Summons of the Via Dolorosa”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Liturgy of the Psalms: Matthew 21:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16;
Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26:14-54
I Only Know That…
There’s an old song from the 80s by Boxcar Willie. Born as Lecil Travis Martin, one day sitting at a railroad crossing he saw a boxcar go by and in the door was a fellow who looked like his loading master in the Air Force. Willie Wilson became the inspiration for a second career as Boxcar Willie. And for many years during the Korean War, he had a full-time gig with the Air force, retiring as a Master Sargant.
One of his signature hits was “Hey Mister Can You Spare a Dime.” Like many of his songs, this one showed great empathy for the down-and-out – the hobos cast adrift.
During times of adversity and social dislocation, many families were splintered, often as the men went looking for work in far-away places, or sometimes out of guilt they felt their families would be better off without them. They didn’t want to be a burden, or were too ashamed to stick around. Or they became stuck in the bottle.
These days, it is often addiction that shreds families. Or mental illness. Sometimes, it’s losing or being priced out of housing. Or the loss of a job. Right now, so many Americans are living on the margin. One little unexpected expense throws many families into financial chaos.
In John’s gospel we encounter a barrage of dysfunction occasioned by the completely unexpected.
Jesus encounters a blind man on the side of the road. The disciples first instinct is to cast blame. “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” Who’s to blame? Often, it’s blame the victim. That’s how racism works.
When Jesus dismisses such scapegoating, he then proceeds to heal the man with spit and mud. Then tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam.
The man, to his astonishment, sees. The unexpected, the unexplained.
The man’s neighbors who had only known the fellow as a beggar, now begin to argue among themselves. The blind do NOT see. Their fellow villager could not possibly be now seeing. They refuse to accept what their own eyes see – this guy now seeing must have just looked like the beggar they had know at the side of the road.
When the man explained how it was that Jesus had healed him, he can’t rightly explain where that man presently was.
And since this was done on the Sabbath, the religious authorities are now involved in this community-wide imbroglio. This Jesus must be a sinner since he had done the deed on the Day of Rest, the Sabbath.
But no one who is a sinner, one group argued, could have done such a deed. Yet most of the pious folks cannot believe this man. They ask him to explain again and again what had actually happened.
They now call the man’s parents. Out of fear they mumble, ask our son. He is of age. Yes, even the man’s parents deny him.
When the formerly blind man is again hauled before the righteous religious leaders, they now tell the man to give Glory to God, not Jesus – for he is a sinner.
All the seeing man can say is, “I only know that … I only know that I once was blind but now I see.”
In the Gospel of John, this event was considered much more than a healing miracle. It is a sign – a sign that in Jesus and his work, God is in this place. It as a sign of the Divine Will for redemption and salvation. Indeed, God is working God’s purpose out step by step as our Lord trods the sacrificial path to Jerusalem. Step by step with wonders along the way.
And we, when the most astonishing things transpire, can only say… in open-mouthed amazement — can only say, “Thanks be to God.”
What exactly happened, and how it happened we cannot rightly say. As my Methodist friends would say, “My heart was strangely warmed.”
In response, we with warm hearts respond as best we can and thank God we have breath and life, and capacity to make some meaningful response.
My friend Dick came upon a fellow just by chance, or maybe not by chance. Who knows, he can only say that… he can only say that this man was a gift of God as he lay on his cot.
Over the months Dick got to know Tom and his little dog. Dick helped Tom find a living situation that would accept his little dog. When the shelter demanded that the dog be licensed and given his shots, Dick hit me up to help foot the bill. In that way I got to know Tom and his dog.
No, the dog was not blind but now sees. But he was licensed and vaccinated. And for Tom, that was miracle enough. Tom had been on his own, no known family but that little dog. And the people who rallied around the two to keep them safe, housed and fed. Miracle enough for Tom.
Did God direct Dick to Tom in that first shelter? I only know that… a mystery. And a blessing to all involved.
Ohers would have blamed him for his shabby circumstances. Or have run Tom out of their communities. Many of our communities would not have behaved any better towards Tom and the other homeless on our city streets than had that beggar’s village regarded him. Sweep them off the streets. They’re a big inconvenience. Bad for business.
But as debilitated as he was, Tom was doing the best he able to do with his mental health issues. In and through friends of the Jesus Movement healing happened in some small way for Tom and his dog.
Such healing, call them miracles if you will, is wrought through human agency and the real stuff of creation – even spit, mud and water. Through the solid voice of compassion and encouragement.
How often have you felt that gentle nudge, that silent voice propelling you as an agent of mystery, of compassion?
During the Great Depression on many nights my grandma who lived in Lodi, CA, would set some of the supper she had made for the family out on the back porch with a ladle and paper bowls. This was for the vagrants who came through her’s and grandpa’s back alley at night hunting for any sustenance, anything useful that might have been thrown away.
She was well aware, since her husband was the postmaster of Lodi, that they were going to be okay. Unlike the many who trod that back alley.
Her hands and bowls of supper on her back porch were signs that in some small way God was in this place. You may be down-and-out, but a kind, gentle woman has remembered you. Sacrament of God’s Remembrance. A sign that in some small way God was in this place.
Under the tyranny of the ruling religious leaders and the pressure of the Roman empire, we have the story of an entire community fractured – a family, a village, a faith community.
And the only fully functioning person in this melodrama is the beggar, the one considered of no account. He speaks the truth, “All I know is that…that I once was blind but now I see.” A sign of God’s will for the healing and restoration of all creation – into a community of love.
Amid all the chaos and incompetence, the horror of masked goons dragging Americans and others off the streets. Killing with impunity on our nation’s city streets, I cannot blame those who are totally bummed out and would rather withdraw in a warm cocoon. Thankfully, we have those amongst us who are opening the eyes of an electorate gone blind.
One of these healing persons is the United Methodist Bishop, Grant Hagiya. Bishop Hagiya, now retired, is presently the president of Claremont School of Theology – my alma mater. The bishop, in his episcopal letter, gives us sound instruction on how to survive the next three years. With our souls intact.
- Focus only on that which we have control over in our lives. We can’t personally stop this insane war. We can’t stop the predations of the grifters around this president. But we can support candidates we believe in. We can make sure our friends and family vote in November. Save the date – November 3rd.
- We can take our baptismal vows seriously. Resist evil, and when you fall into the sin of complacency and accommodation, repent. Rely on the One who empowers you to resist evil and oppression.
- Speak the truth to the erasure of our history by Trump. Have the moral courage to embrace the total American journey, its glorious people of all races and nationalities that have made their contributions. Have the courage to accept open-eyed the worst we have done and been. Speak that truth to those who would whitewash our errors.
- Take time to enjoy the ordinary activities of the day, whether washing dishes, playing cards with you kids or reading them a book. Take time to enjoy a lunch with a cherished friend or making dinner. Delight in these pieces of our lives.
The bishop’s letter draws on the wisdom of a Zen monk who counsels us to look at the day’s activities as a string of beads. Some large, some small. Some eye-catching, others dull. From the broad perspective of time, all beads are equally important. They’re all pieces of our lives. Rejoice and be glad that they are given to your hands and heart. The appropriate response here is, “Thanks be to God.”
This is clear-eyed wisdom for getting through the next three years with equanimity and graciousness. And your sanity.
The Serenity Prayer is a fitting close here.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
With this calming of mind, like that ancient beggar, we can rightly say, I only know that…that God is in this place. A sign indeed! Amen
March 15, 2026
Lent 4 – Mothering Sunday
“I Only Know That…”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
1Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23;
Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
