Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them.  Take our minds and think with them.  Take our hearts and set them in fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

Luke Timothy Johnson is a well respected New Testament scholar who teaches at Emory University.  In an interview, he once said, “The test of whether or not something is a religious experience is the consequence in the transformation of a person's life.”  He continues, “Genuine religious experience shapes time and space around itself, or reshapes time and space around itself.  So if I listen to a Mozart symphony and simply leave the concert hall whistling, I've had an esthetic experience.  [However], if I leave the concert hall and put all my energies from that point on into becoming a violinist then, at some level, that concert was a religious experience.  Likewise, if I'm in church and I hear a pastor preaching a sermon on [the Gospel] and I'm deeply moved and I tell the pastor, my gosh, that was a powerful sermon, and then I go back [to my day to day life] and nothing happens, [nothing changes], then [hearing the sermon] was just an esthetic experience.  But if I leave the church, sell all that I have and give it to the poor and devote my life to bandaging the wounds of the ill, then that was a religious experience.”  Luke Timothy Johnson is making a distinction between a religious experience which results in the transformation of an individual life and an esthetic experience which though perhaps edifying has no measurable lasting effects on the way a person lives. 

Transformation is at the heart of today’s Gospel lesson and for that matter transformation is central to the entirety of Jesus’ earthly ministry.   In both word and deed, Jesus invites us into a transformed way of being.  Through his miracles and healings, as well as, his teaching and preaching, Jesus claims that we can experience transformation in our lives.  We can become fuller, more whole, healthier, more effective, and do more good than we ever thought or imagined possible.  Jesus’ words and actions promise us that the darkness, disease, and death that we discover both in ourselves, if we are honest, and in the world around us can be transformed into light, health, and life both in our own lives and in the world.  The kingdom of God within us and around us can become real. 

I think we often think of the kingdom of God as a political reality.  Who has been on the ride “It’s a small World” at Disney Land or World?  Now I didn’t go on it this year when we were at Disney Land following this past summer’s mission trip to Baja, Mexico.  However, I actually did go on it for the first time as an adult, and it was kind of embarrassing really.  The only other adults on the ride were parents of small children.  Everyone was staring at that lone, grown man (me) who didn’t really fit in his seat.  Anyway, my point is, the kingdom of God is often thought of as a political reality that is sort of like the ride—children the world over from every tribe, language and nation, holding hands smiling and singing—a world full of peace, understanding, and childlike innocence.  Honestly I really like that image.  I don’t think it’s cheesy or impossible, and I think it is an ideal worth giving our lives to achieve.  But, if we really think about it, how does transformation in a political or corporate sense really begin?  Well the answer is: through a religious experience of personal transformation.  In other words, the world changes one heart at a time—beginning with yours.

In today’s Gospel lesson, the blind man has a religious experience of personal transformation.  Mark tells us that several people approach Jesus with a man who is both deaf and has some sort of speech impediment.  The people beg Jesus to lay hands on the man knowing that Jesus has the power to heal him—to transform him.  Mark tells us that Jesus takes the man aside in private puts his fingers in his ears, spits on the ground, and then touches the man’s tongue.  Jesus is acknowledging with his touch the areas of the man’s body most in need of being made well.  Jesus then sighs and says to the man, “Eph-phatha,” which means be opened.  Mark tells us that immediately the man’s ears are opened, his tongue is released, and he begins to speak plainly.  The man is healed—he is forever transformed.

Perhaps we are not blind or have some other physical disorder, but we all have obstacles, disabilities, fears, and moral failings that God wants desperately to transform through a personal religious experience of our own.  What disability needs healing in your life?  What obstacle is keeping you from your heart’s desire?  What fears keep you from stepping out boldly on behalf of that which you believe?  What on going sin or addiction is currently holding you in bondage? 

Tomorrow is of course the fifth anniversary of September 11th.  As I reflected on my own experience of that day and of the days that followed, I remembered a moment of transformation I shared with one person in particular.  I was working as a seminarian intern at Christ Church, Georgetown in Washington, DC.  A young woman who worked in the White House administration approached me several days after the 11th to talk to me about her fear.  After the plane had hit the pentagon, she and her co-workers were told to run for their lives.  And they did.  With nowhere in particular to go they ran out into the streets of Washington, DC, not knowing if a fourth plane was headed toward them.  She told me that the experience had left her consumed by her fear.  That she couldn’t work or concentrate on anything.  She hadn’t slept in days though she was totally exhausted.  She was completely griped and controlled by an overwhelming sense of doom.  She told me she was about to pack up everything she could carry and move home to her parent’s house here in Texas.  She thought that might be her only chance at regaining her sanity.  And, to that point, she hadn’t discussed her fear with anyone because she was embarrassed by her weakness. 

After listening to her for several minutes, I thanked her for pouring her heart out to me and asked if she had prayed about her fear—if she had come before God and cast her cares upon him.  She thought for a moment and said she wasn’t sure, she didn’t even know if she had the strength or the words to pray.  I asked her if we could pray together.  She said yes.  So I took her hands and we prayed.  We confessed to God that we were both afraid and weak and confused.  We asked for help and healing.  We asked for Jesus to touch our heats and minds with His Holy Spirit.  Following the prayer, I asked if she felt better and the answer was, much to my disappointment, no.  The next afternoon my phone rang.  It was the same young woman.  I could sense excitement in her voice.  She called to tell me that her fear had miraculously disappeared.  She had experienced a radical transformation overnight.  She finely fell asleep that night when she got home.  The next morning she woke up and the fear was completely gone.  She told me she was completely transformed, and, moreover, she was going to stay in Washington as a testimony that faith is stronger than fear.

Like this young woman and like the man who is healed in Mark’s Gospel, our transformation begins first when we come into Jesus’ presence and second when we allow him to touch our hearts and our minds.  The man in Mark’s Gospel literally walked into Jesus’ physical presence and Jesus literally touched what he needed to be healed.  The young woman in DC came into Jesus’ presence by prayer and He came into her life, even while she slept, by the gentle, healing touch of His Holy Spirit.  What disability needs healing in your life?  What obstacle is keeping you from your heart’s desire?  What fears keep you from stepping out boldly on behalf of that which you believe?  What ongoing sin or addiction is currently holding you in bondage?  Just as in Jesus’ earthly ministry, still today, Jesus invites us into a transformed way of being.  Jesus claims that we can experience transformation in our lives.  We can become fuller, more whole, healthier, more effective, and do more good than we ever thought or imagined possible. 

Most of us, including me, will not leave this church tonight, sell all that we own, give it to the poor, and spend the rest of our lives bandaging the wounds of the ill.  The fact is most of our religious experiences are esthetic and not life-transforming.  If you are simply inspired, encouraged, or challenged by this or any sermon I preach or any experience in the church, I give thanks to God and am personally satisfied.  The Good News of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection is that God loves you just the way you are—right where you are—in all your goodness and all of your brokenness.  Nonetheless, God desires you to come into His presence to be touched and transformed into a kingdom of God builder—which is truly the desire of your heart whether you realize it now or not.  Remember “It’s a Small World” can only become real one heart at a time—beginning with yours.  Amen.      

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