The Senior Sermon of Sam Brannon, LSPS Class of 2005 from the ELCA Southwest Texas Synod, given at Christ Chapel on October 5, 2004

I'll start today with a little background. The story of these two blind men in today's gospel reading is juxtaposed to the previous story of the Zebedee family's requests positions of power and authority in Jesus' expected Kingdom. After all, one can do a lot of good from there, and I'm sure the allure of security was probably great for them. And yet the blind men want something seemingly innocuous, their sight restored, and there goes another one of Jesus' many miracles. But as most of you know, receiving sight in the New Testament is no small or arbitrary gift. So it isn't much of a surprise to us when we find out that just after the two men receive sight, they follow as disciples and the Passion narrative begins. Jesus gives sight to the two men just as he is about to enter into Jerusalem, and there is something to be seen there.

It's easy to be hard on disciples like Little Jimmy and Johnny, as I like to call them, ask to sit at the right and left of Jesus when he comes into his kingdom; and it's ironic that when Jesus does come into his kingdom those at his right and his left are two thieves. Yet, Jimmy and Johnny, like most of us probably have very good intentions; positive personal ambitions, but our ambitions nonetheless, not God's. And ambition is wrapped up very well in two words, "I want…"

This is the perfect time to say in unison with Jimmy and Johnny, "I want…" because we live in the "i" age; from Modernity to Post-Modernity, straight to the cold solipsism of the "i". The Ice-Age has begun. Now if that doesn't raise red flags for a community of believers, nothing will. But it is a reality and we live in it too. We live in the greatest age of "i" that has ever been. And nothing stands more starkly as an example of the "i" age than the "iPod"; as in My-Pod, as in My-Own-Special-Individually-Wrapped-Single-Serving-Size-Pod; as in My-Own-Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers-Pod. And to chance a terrifying image, My-Own-Lonely-Quiet-Library-Basement-Study-Pod, where I sit and listen to a thousands theologians argue in my head over infant baptism, and the like. But alas, I cannot escape, even in sleep, because now I can get My-Own-Special-Sleep-Number-Mattress-Pod. Together and yet apart; i-perfection even on a mattress.

But we have perfected other things too! Whereas we once traveled together in the family station wagon forced to listen to Dad's horrible music on fuzzy AM radios; we now have harnessed the i-entertainment technology to seat an entire family in one vehicle and allow them the luxury to not speak with one another for most of the duration of the trip to Disney World. Now, in our little iPods of perfect personal bubble space we don't have to worry as much about little Sammy jabbing his spit wet finger into his brother's ear canal. And all but gone are the cries of mercy, "Mom, tell Sam to get back his own side and to stop eating my crayons." A new age of i-personal appeasement, all made possible by the master marketers who listened to the base desire of all humanity that is the door to endless possibilities of human degradation, "I want." And that leads us back to story.

If the door to Jerusalem and Jesus' coming kingdom is the difference between the Zebedees' request and the request of the blind men; then the key to that door is in the questions that Jesus' asks each party. "What do you want, Jimmy and Johnny?" "What do you want me to do for you, O ye blind people?"

It is what Jesus does for us that matters most, not what we do for him or anyone else. And so we pray aright indeed when we cry out, "Let it be that our eyes may be opened." "Let us have Holy Sight… insight… so that we may finally see things for what they are, not what we want them to be in our little iKingdoms and fiefdoms. And when we can finally see, we can follow you as disciples into your kingdom." The problem is, all too often when we see things as they are, we see things we don't like; a world that suffers, a world in turmoil, a world that is totally turned in on its little iSelf. And so we hide from the cross and try not to see what Jesus has done for us and what Jesus will do for us.

But it is only when we see things for what they are that we can be available for the will of the Spirit. Complete powerlessness is our ultimate destination. The cross is where all illusions of power are shattered; it tells us that we have absolutely no control over anything and we never did, and we don't want to see that. But even in our iPod egocentric world the cross still stands and waits. Once everyone has run away, and we are left abandoned and alone, only then can we know that the only hope we have is in Jesus Christ; the Jesus who also went to the cross and saw things as they really were, and felt every bit of it.

It might seem that my own church is under the weight of the cross. We are embattled over understanding human sexuality, trying to eek out an understanding of our ecclesiology in the infant ELCA, and seminarians are grappling with the reality outdated first call process that works quite well for single men, but not many more. We are arguing over all sorts of issues, some of which people feel will tear our communion apart.

But are we seeing things for what they really are?

While we are arguing over who should marry who and who should and should not be ordained, our membership is dwindling and not showing signs of improvement. While we're pronouncing prophetic social statements and trying to uplift the voice to the powerless, our main contributors who have been paying for it are dying away and most of their children and grandchildren are not tithing, if they even come back to church after confirmation. Congregations appoint evangelism committees to encourage church mission and outreach and yet no one seems to notice that an entire demographic is underrepresented if not missing from our pews -- people in their twenties and thirties.

It is here that we Christians are called -- to be right in the middle of it all. To see reality for what it is and reach beyond ourselves and the confines of our comfort. To be the antithesis of the iAge and stand beside James, John, and rub elbows with all the other saints as we face the cross together, some for the first time in their lives, and if we are faithful, we will bear the burden the cross with them, and together we'll meander our way over the rocky soil of our fallen world. And so today, I ask you, I implore you, rise up with the saints and commit our hearts to seek the paths which Christ has trod.