Let Me See Again
Sunday, March 21, 2021

Pastor Mark Aune

Luke 18:31—19:10

His name is Robert Aaron Long, and I am wondering, what did he see that caused him to walk into those spas and massage parlors in the Atlanta area and begin shooting people.

Did he see a solution to an alleged addiction?

Did he see people of Asian descent as a reason for his killing spree?

Did he see women as the cause of his problem?

He obviously was not able to see the unimaginable grief and pain his actions would cause nor the additional layer of community pain this creates. It is sad beyond words and I continue to struggle to see how these things happen.

Blindness takes many forms, and it manifests itself in many ways.

I am painfully aware of the many times, too many to count, that I have been unable to see how my actions, or my words have harmed other people. It is a form of blindness and we all have it.

This inability to see manifest itself in many ways. One could even label it. We have cultural blindness, relational blindness, economic blindness, and spiritual blindness.

The struggle we have seeing God at work in our lives and in our world is a common thing.

The biblical witness is filled with examples and it may or may not surprise you but the ones who struggle the most with seeing are the ones who appear to be close to God.

The disciples are a prime example, and we hear again today the mighty struggle they have in seeing Jesus and truly understanding him and his mission in the world.

Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. ³²For he will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. ³³After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.”

³⁴But they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

They could not see God’s plan. They did not understand and when we are blind, we do not understand. Keep in mind these disciples have been following Jesus for about 3 years. They have seen his actions, his words, what he has done and how he has transformed and changed lives by his love and his power.

Right on the heels of this episode of blindness, Jesus and his disciples approach the city of Jericho and there is a blind man, sitting beside the road, right where you would expect him to be, in a high traffic area so he could beg.

When the blind beggar heard a crowd going by, he asked what was happening. ³⁷They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth^[^d^] is passing by.” Then he shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those who were in front sternly ordered him to be quiet; but he shouted even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

This man is blind. What does he see that the others do not see?

How is it possible for him know that Jesus is the son of David, that he is the Messiah of God. He is blind after all.

The crowd tries to shut him up, but he cries out all the louder, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Two times he says this. Notice, he does not ask for healing. He does not ask for money. He does not ask for food. He asks for mercy. What does he see that no one else sees?

Jesus stood still and ordered the man to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

I think this might be the most important question ever asked by Jesus.

What do you want me to do for you?

It is a question that stops you in your tracks.

How would you answer the question? Right now, today?

Can you answer the question? Are you able to see what it is you need from Jesus?

I wonder if we struggle to answer the question because we doubt that Jesus can do something about a deep need we have, a form of blindness that affects our lives.

So, when he asks the question, we do not know what to say.

The blind beggar knew how to answer the question.

He said, “Lord, let me see again.”

Let me see – again. In a new way. A different way.

Let me see with the eyes of Jesus.

I want to be able to look at people differently.

People who make me uncomfortable
who I dislike
who I disagree with
who act strangely
who have different politics than me
who say the wrong things and do the wrong things
who look different than me

I want to be able to see them, and I want to be able to see them as Jesus would see them.

To see with mercy. To see with understanding. To see with love.

Is that what you want to see? Is this how you would answer the question?

And Jesus follows through on his promise; “Receive your sight; your faith has saved you.”

Let me see – again. And we are given – again, the kind of sight that is worthy of praise and glory to God.

The richness of today’s reading ends with the familiar story of Zacchaeus. This is also a story about seeing.

Zacchaeus is different than the blind beggar. Yet he is the same.

A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.

Let me see – again.

We cry out from the side of the road or we climb a sycamore tree.

We can be a blind beggar or a rich tax collector.

Both men were outcasts, but they both wanted to see. They wanted to see Jesus.

And the beauty of both stories, the amazing grace of God is that before either one of them has their eyes opened, Jesus sees them first.

He sees them as children of Abraham.

He sees them as beloved by God.

He sees them because his mission, which the disciples could not see, is to seek out and save the lost.

Lord, let me see again. This is all we need to say. This is the answer to His question.

And because He came to seek out and save the lost, that means He came for you and for me.

To give us our sight back.

To cure of us our blindness to human need and prejudice.

To restore us to health.

And to know that today, today salvation comes as our sight is restored.

Thanks be to God. Amen

Past Sermons

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

The book of Romans is a letter. An actual letter. Like, a letter written by hand and then sent to someone else for them to read. Paul, the author of this letter, wrote a lot of letters. Paul was an apostle, that is, someone who is sent – in this case, he is one who is sent to preach the good news of Jesus Christ to the furthest reaches of the known world. He’s really, really good at it.

At the time that Paul writes this letter to the church in Rome, he’s been doing this work for probably twenty years and is at the peak of his career. He’s developed a great pattern in his work: visit a place, get to know the people, continually share his faith with them, help gather a community of believers from all walks of life, and stay with them while they learn how to be followers of Jesus. Then Paul leaves – after all, he’s got other places to visit and more people to teach. He is an apostle – he is sent. But he doesn’t leave the church abandoned. He writes letters back to these churches, especially when he hears about crises or conflicts. Sometimes they need comfort, sometimes challenge, sometimes critique, but always he writes as one they know and love. They welcome his input.

The letter to the Romans is not like that. Paul has never been to Rome. There is already a Christian church there, one brought over likely from Jerusalem very early in the faith. And the church in Rome has recently seen conflict. A few years before the writing of this letter, the Roman emperor expelled all the Jews from Rome. Because Christianity was effectively a form of Judaism at the time, Christians were also exiled. After the emperor died and the Jewish Christians returned, they found a church that had continued to grow and develop – this time with Gentile Christians.

It’s hard for us to understand how shocking and despicable this would have been. Two weeks ago I preached on Acts 10, and how Peter’s vision of God calling all animals clean and good to eat flew in the face of millennia of culture, history, and society for Jewish Christians. Jesus himself was Jewish and kept these laws – surely if anyone else wanted to be Christian, they could likewise follow these rules. Peter’s vision and the general movement of the church revealed otherwise.

That didn’t mean it made things easy. It is hard to let go of tradition and expectation and legislation as the Spirit moves us to new places. I hear people struggle when someone sits in their pew or wears sweatpants to church. Let’s be honest: those are enormously trivial things. If still we grind our teeth at the thought of these worthless infractions how much more might faithful people be driven to despair by moving on from the purity laws ordained by God?

This is the faith community to which Paul writes. He writes to a church redefining and fighting. It is a church that feels a deep rift, a painful split, one that goes deep into matters of identity and righteousness, one that threatens to dissolve into name-calling and condemning and finger-pointing and disgrace to the very name of God in whose name they mean to gather – and if we’re honest, we know how that feels. Those fears are not unfamiliar.

So how does Paul start his letter? He has no standing in that church in Rome. They don’t even know who he is – and if they do, it’s possible that they might still remember him as he was in his youth, an aggressive persecutor of the early faith. What can he say that would possibly invite them to listen to him, to hear the word he will share, to receive the message that he hopes will join them together in the work of the gospel?

He keeps it simple: he tells them the truth. He tells them who he is, and it is fully wrapped up in who Jesus is. His self-introduction is the story of the gospel. Nothing he can say about himself means more than who he is in Jesus Christ.

He tells them he wants to come see them, that he wants to be with them, that he hopes he can share some spiritual gift – but even more than that, so that they might mutually encourage each other in faith. He doesn’t want to come to them because he’s better than them, because he can fix them so they can get things right, because they’re obviously sinful mess-ups who just haven’t been taught the truth. No, he wants to join them for mutual encouragement in faith. He wants to walk with them. He hopes he has something to offer them in his teaching and leadership, but just the same, he knows he will grow by being with them as well.

What if that’s how it’s supposed to be? What if we’re supposed to talk about what we believe and why, not because we’ve got it right and we want to establish our superior knowledge, but because we know that God works through our mutual encouragement in faith? What if we were not ashamed of the gospel, not afraid of getting it wrong, not worried that someone would think we were weird for talking about what we believe and why and then asking others the same? What if we trusted that the power of God was at work in this mutual encouragement? What if we were not so proud and short-sighted as to think that the way we see God is the only way God works in the world? What if we actually believed that God is at work in the world, that God has already been working long before we showed up, that we arrive as much to learn as to teach?

Ah, but I know the argument against it: we’re supposed to keep polite conversation, right? What don’t you talk about at the dinner table? Religion and politics, right? Look where it’s gotten us. It’s gotten us to a place where we can no longer have civil discourse, where we are more likely to condemn than to seek to understand, where we claim a Christian can only look one way, live one place, vote one direction, take one moral position. It’s gotten us built up and walled off and fighting against our own beloved members of the family of God.

So don’t do it. Take Paul’s example. Tell people who you are. Tell them where you’re from. Tell them what you believe. And then invite them to do the same. Make your story of faith as natural a part of your introduction as where you work and where you live and who’s in your family. And when someone’s story is different, listen to it. Hear it. See God at work in it. Be amazed. Allow for the mutual encouragement of faith, because this is how the gospel is shared.

No matter where you go from here, no matter where you find yourself, no matter what comes next for you – you can do this. You are called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel which is the power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith – no matter what. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let Me See Again
Sunday, March 21, 2021

Pastor Mark Aune

Luke 18:31—19:10

Past Sermons

Crying Out

Waiting

A World Shaped by God’s Power

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

Past Sermons

Crying Out

Waiting

A World Shaped by God’s Power

About Augustana

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Let Me See Again Sunday, March 21, 2021

Pastor Mark Aune

Luke 18:31—19:10

Past Sermons

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019 Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

Past Sermons

About Augustana

Quick Links

Contact Us

Worship Hours

Let Me See Again
Sunday, March 21, 2021

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson