Seeing by a Different Light - 1 Samuel 16:1-13, John 9:1-41
I have glad tidings of great joy: the hummingbirds are coming! Ruby-throats began arriving on the Gulf coast a couple of weeks ago, and they are slowly working their way north, ready to claim their nesting grounds after their winter vacation in Costa Rica. Just a couple of days ago, one was spotted in El Dorado and Arkadelphia, and I expect the first migrants will be seen on flowers or feeders in Little Rock any day now. In preparation for their arrival, my family bought a new feeder for our front porch, that will be ready with sugar water for a sweet welcome.
There are many beautiful birds we have in Arkansas—painted buntings, scarlet tanagers, gold-finches and rose-breasted grosbeaks, to name a few—but hummingbirds seem to belong to a different order, even a different world. From the radiant red gorget’s of the males to their fierce speed, hummingbirds seem like creatures as fantastical as fairies or unicorns. And yet every summer, if you’re looking, the ruby-throated hummingbird can be found all over—in our yards, parks, and forests.
That otherworldly quality of hummingbirds, in which it seems that they live in a reality just at the edge of our own, is not entirely a wrong idea. Hummingbirds do experience the world in a profoundly different way than we do; not only because they are birds, but because they see the world by a different light. New research has shown that hummingbirds can see several spectrums of light that are beyond human perception, meaning that the world they zip through is one of vibrant color beyond anything that we can imagine. We all walked by the beautiful flowers Howison and the garden volunteers planted last summer and saw the wonderful oranges, reds, purples, and yellows. Or we looked out at the Close, and marveled at the easter pastel tulips or the pink azaleas Dale and her crew cultivated. The reality, however, is that there were more colors present; colors we simply couldn’t see because we don’t have the eyes for such light. But hummingbirds, and even many butterflies, do have the eyes for it and so they experienced those same gardens as a multitude of hues we can only know in theory.
But what if we could see by a different light, too? What if there was a way that our vision could be trained for more than what meets the normal human eye? That’s a possibility our scriptures introduce to us this morning. From Samuel learning to see as God sees to Jesus showing his disciples that there is more to the world than the systems of sin and shame, we learn that God’s vision of the world contains colors that are invisible to normal sight and yet can be seen by the light of God’s grace.
Jesus had learned to see by this light. Though he had human eyes, a visual cortex like the rest of us, Jesus had trained his perception to see a reality beyond the human range. As a result, his vision for the world was so much larger than the normal religious vision. Religion, so often, is our attempt to control God and make the divine fit within our scope of reality. We see just a little light and believe that we have seen all there is. That’s what both the disciples and pharisees were doing when they encountered the man born blind. His life and disability fit into a set of easy categories—someone had sinned, someone had violated the ways of God, and so he could not see—it had to be someone’s fault. But Jesus saw in this man a larger reality. His blindness was an opportunity for Jesus to bring in a hint of the expansive light of grace. When this man was healed, he came not only to see, but to see by a different light. And with him Jesus invites all of us—the disciples and pharisees, and we who hear the scriptures two thousand years later, to also see by this different light.
The challenge for us is will we accept the offer? Are we willing to go through the transformation of our eyes so that we can see by the light of God’s grace, being born anew as children of the light, or will we stand with the pharisees—not believing that there is a reality beyond the range of our vision? I hope that you, like me, want to learn to see the wider reality of God’s reign, the broader spectrum of God’s light. But the question then becomes, how do we learn to see what is invisible to our normal vision?
For Samuel, he needed God to come alongside and help him see, like a blind person guided by a sighted one. He couldn’t see what God saw, but he trusted the voice of God that whispered close to his heart. That whisper of God’s voice is available for all of us, if we learn to be quiet enough to hear it. We could call it learning to see with the vision of the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of John calls that Spirit the parakaleo, the one who comes alongside and calls out. I imagine the spirit pointing over our shoulder in the places we least expect it, whispering in our ears, “look, see that glimmer of light. Train your eyes there. That is where God’s glory is ready to shine forth.”
If we learn to listen to the Spirit, then over time our eyes will adjust to this new light, and our perception of the world will be renewed. We will learn to see the broken places of the world, not as abandoned and desolate, but rather as sites where God’s light is beginning to shine with the glory of a new community of God’s healing. Our task is not to look away, but to look again, waiting as the Spirit helps us see what our everyday vision cannot. With such vision, how might we see ourselves, our families, our neighbors by a different light?
This work of seeing anew is helped by the practices of prayer, solitude, silence, and meditating on scripture. Like physical therapy, in which our brains and bodies must be rewired for new movement, seeing by a different light requires exercises and often they are uncomfortable and challenging. How many of you who have been through physical therapy have had moments when you weren’t too fond of your therapist for what they were making you do? It’s often the same with the spiritual training of our bodies and minds. Our perceptions won’t change overnight, but with time and regular exercises in this new sight, we’ll begin to notice that the world looks different. We will begin to recognize new colors we never thought possible and suddenly we’ll even see those we once despised, shining with God’s glory.
I am just now learning to see that glory myself, but each spring I get a hint of it from the hummingbirds that will soon be hovering around my porch. When I see them in all their brilliant colors, I will wonder how they see my yard and the world beyond. What light is radiating just beyond the reach of my vision? What beauty is invisible to my sight? And as I watch I hope to be reminded again of the invitation we are all offered to see by the light of God, becoming children of light. When we enter that light, trusting the Spirit to teach us to see by the wide spectrum of God’s illumination, we will enter a world beyond anything we could imagine—a place of love and beauty where we least expected to find it. It will take work, and there may be those who doubt the vision we begin to claim, but with God’s grace we will enter a brightness that will go with us whatever darkness we may face. Amen.