On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded in the Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls. It was not the first bombing in Birmingham
during the Civil Rights movement. It was
not even the first church bombing in Birmingham. Bethal Baptist had already been bombed three
times before that sad day at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Bombings in Birmingham were so common that the city became
known as Bombingham.
From 1947-1965, there were fifty bombings.
Fifty.
Can you imagine? Can
you even imagine living someplace where bombings happened on average more than
twice a year? Can you imagine the
terror? Can you imagine what that would
feel like if that happened here, in Brevard County, Florida?
Actually, Brevard County is the site of a notorious bombing
that happened on Christmas Day, 1951, when a bomb exploded under the bedroom
floor of Harry and Harriet Moore, killing them both. It was their 25th wedding
anniversary.
Harry and Harriet Moore had been teachers until their
activism, including their founding of the first chapter of the NAACP in Brevard
County, caused them to lose their jobs, and eventually their lives. The killers, the bombers, were never brought
to justice.
All of this fifty-sixty years ago can seem like something
for the history books, something that happened back when pictures were still
black and white, something we may linger on for a moment, before turning the
page to something else.
And then, last week happens and suddenly we see that we still
have such a long way to go when it comes to hate crimes in this country and
violence in houses of worship.
A gunman enters a synagogue and kills eleven people—it
should be a wake-up call, it should be an eye opener, but staying awake in this
world, walking around with our eyes wide open—it’s not easy. It’s hard work and time and time again we
find ourselves, our eyes growing heavy, and the sleep of ignorance returning.
And let’s be honest, staying awake, staying woke to the
suffering of so many in this country, is hard work and painful. We begin with the best of intentions. We offer prayer. We say the right words. These things cannot continue. And then … nothing.
Three years ago, a shooter walked into the Mother Emanuel
church in Charleston, South Carolina and killed nine.
And just last year, a gunman walked into the First Baptist
Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas and murdered twenty-six.
If you’re feeling hopeless these days, it’s perfectly
understandable.
Will things change?
Will things ever change?
I’m not going to make this political. I’m not going to preach to you about gun
control and mental illness.
Instead, I want to pray with you.
I want to pray with you the words the blind men said in
today’s Gospel reading when they called out to Jesus.
In verse 33, they say, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.”
And this—if you look all through the Bible—is a prayer of
consequence.
If God opens your eyes, figuratively or literally, your life
will never be the same.
In Genesis, Hagar and her son are cast out and sent into the
wilderness. And when they run out of
water, Hagar hides Ishmael because she doesn’t want to watch him die. She cries to God and He answers her by opening
her eyes in Genesis 21:19 so that she can see a well of water.
In Numbers 22:31, Balaam has just finished beating his
donkey for stopping in the middle of the road—a donkey, which by the way then
speaks to Balaam and asks him what he’s doing—and then God opens Balaam’s eyes
and he sees the angel of the Lord standing in the road.
In 2 Kings 6:17, Elisha is surrounded by an army and a
servant is justifiably afraid, so Elisha prays that God will open his eyes and
he saw “the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around
Elisha.”
In Psalm 119:18, the psalmist pleads with God, “Open my
eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”
In Acts 26:18, God will “open their eyes so that they may
turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they
may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by
faith in me.”
“Lord, let our eyes be opened.”
It’s not just a prayer of physical healing. It’s a prayer of spiritual transformation.
The truth is if you want to change the world, if you are
tired of the hate, and weary of suffering, this is the very first prayer you
must pray.
Lord, open my eyes.
And then, after that prayer, step out of the way and let God
do His thing.
Two weeks ago, I spoke to you about suffering. I told you that God does not punish us with
suffering. I told you that suffering was
part of the human condition. But that
doesn’t mean that God looks the other way when we are suffering. It doesn’t mean that God sees the violence
that happened at the Tree of Life Synagogue this past Saturday and throws up
His hands, and says, “Nothing I can do.”
Two weeks ago, I spoke to you about Job, the poster child of
suffering, but today I want to remind you about Joseph, he of the amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat. Joseph, favored
son of Jacob, is sold into slavery by his brothers, falsely accused of rape and
sent to prison where he waits to die. He
had it all and he lost it all and not because of anything he had done wrong.
But God raises Joseph up, brings him to a position of power
and reunites him with his brothers.
Joseph finally has the chance to repay his brothers, to get revenge on
them for his many years of suffering, and instead, he forgives them. And he says, in one of my most favorite
verses of the Bible, in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God
intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many
lives.”
God used this horrible thing that had been done to Joseph,
to save a family and a nation.
Lord, open our eyes.
Show us what we need to see.
Show us hope and faith and love.
The world right now is in a desperate place, but know that
God will use this for His good.
But if we want to be a part of that “good,” we need to open
our eyes. We need to wake up.
As Paul urges us in Romans 13:11-12, “…. now [is] the moment
for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we
became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near ….”
Amen.
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