Facebook-brave new world?

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Facebook - brave new world? 3 April 2011 The Revd Jenny Wilkens

• 1 Samuel 16:1-13
• Psalm 23
• Ephesians 5:8-14
• John 9:1-41

http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons

I finally caved in this week and signed up with Facebook - and depending on your attitude to social networking tools such as Facebook, you'll either say What? Or, Whatever took you so long?! I've been resisting invitations to join it for quite a while, but the opportunity to catch up with friends in Christchurch whom I was concerned about post the quake clinched it for me.

Needless to say I've already discovered how engrossing it is to see how your network of friends and relations and acquaintances inter-relate, and who knows whom. And I've discovered the advantages of instant communication with friends overseas, and of chats with a couple of my nieces who happen to keep the same late-night hours as I do!

And yes I've already got 45 friends, whom I hope I will never have to 'unfriend' - and what a scary word that is! I've also discovered that some of my 'friends' have the most extraordinary conversations on-line about the most surprising things! But perhaps seeing they are all my friends, it says more about me, than about them!

A whole new world, a brave new world, this social networking. Am I intrigued by it? Yes. Am I convinced by it? Hmm, not sure, more ambivalent I think at this stage. I'm very aware there's a very real world out there, and in here, as well as a virtual one. And I'm not expecting to start Twittering any time soon!

But I wonder if that sense of having stepped into a whole new world, was the experience of the main character of our Gospel reading - the man who was blind and to whom Jesus gave sight. A whole new world opened up before him bombarding his senses. 'One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see' (John 9:25). The words of John Newton's Amazing Grace ring in our minds.

We've been privileged over recent weeks to hear some of the wonderful dialogue stories of John's Gospel - Jesus' night-time conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus' high-noon encounter with the Samaritan woman, and today a series of vigorous discussions following Jesus' healing of the man who was blind.

It's interesting that only at the end of the story do Jesus and the healed man have a real conversation. Before that we have a series of quick-fire exchanges as the poor man has to defend himself before the neighbours, the Pharisees, the Jews …all of whom seem far more interested in the whys and wherefores of whether Jesus should have healed him on the sabbath, of whether Jesus is a sinner, and whether the man is a sinner, than in rejoicing that the man has received his sight.

But notice the journey the man is on. He starts off as the object of discussion by Jesus' disciples - who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus is quick to counter such connections, and moves from questions of cause to the bigger issue of purpose: 'so that God's works might be revealed in him.' (John 9:3)

And then Jesus goes on to reveal the works of God, but in a way that showed his concern for that man as an individual, he reaches out and touches him as he puts mud on his eyes, and sends him off to wash in the pool of Siloam.

Jesus then disappears out of the picture and the man, now sighted, has to cope with a barrage of questions from neighbours and then the Pharisees. They are hung up on whether Jesus has contravened the sabbath laws by healing or working, they see Jesus as a sinner. What does the man himself say of Jesus - he is a prophet (John 9:17), someone who is a channel for the words and work of God.

The Jews have another go at him, trying to tie him up in knots over whether Jesus is a sinner. But the man sticks to his guns, and we find that he has gained not only sight, but insight: "We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will…if this man were not from God, he could do nothing." (John 9:31-33) For this answer he is driven out, but then Jesus comes and finds him, just at the point when he was probably wondering if it had been worth all the aggro.

Then follows the most extraordinary exchange as Jesus reveals himself to the man as the Son of Man, the Messiah, just as he had to the Samaritan woman. "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." "You have seen him and the one speaking with you is he." "Lord, I believe" and he worshipped him.

In each of these dialogues, we see the journey of faith that the character is on, and the amazing steps of faith they take as they come to see Jesus as a man, then as a prophet, then as the Son of Man, the Messiah. And they come to believe - one of the key words of John's gospel, indeed the whole purpose of his Gospel: 'that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name'. (John 20:31)

Each of these stories shows the main character coming to faith and new life in Jesus, but perhaps this story shows more starkly than most the cost of that commitment.

It's thought that John's gospel was written late in the first century CE, when the Christian community of which John was a part was finding itself being separated off from the Jewish synagogue, either 'driven out' as the man was here, or finding that their beliefs and lifestyle were not compatible.

We get hints of that in this story, as the man finds that becoming a follower, a disciple of Jesus means ostracism from his previous community. Part of this new world he has entered into is becoming part of a new community, and that is a gift - but there is also a cost to this commitment.

Part of our Lenten journey is examining afresh our discipleship, our commitment to Christ, and counting the cost of that. Two young women of our community, Bronwen and Sarah, are preparing at this time for baptism and confirmation here at Easter. Pray for them and as they count the cost of their commitment to Christ and to discipleship, it is important for us to do the same.

You may like to look at the 'Commitment to Christian service' that they will be making in the Baptism service, page 390 in the New Zealand Prayer Book. One of the questions the Bishop asks which never ceases to challenge me is this: Will you accept the cost of following Jesus Christ in your daily life and work? The response: I will, with God's help. The Bishop continues: With the whole Church, will you proclaim by word and action the Good News of God in Christ? Again the response: I will, with God's help.

I think it's that context I find deeply encouraging - when we make a commitment to Christ in baptism, and when we re-affirm our faith as we do every time we say the Creed or take Communion, we do this with the whole Church, who supports us, and with God's help.

With God's help, the same God who in the well-loved words of Psalm 23, will be with us even when we walk through the darkest valleys of our journey, even through the valley of the shadow of death, and will bring us to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Thanks be to God!