Matthew 26:36-56                    Our Eyes Wide Open               E/DC/GR      March 4/07 

1. Last week we began our Lenten walk with Christ.  On your journey, what are your eyes doing?   Wide open?  Clenched shut?  Firmly focused on the ground?  As we walk with Christ, we’re going to connect with some of the people he lived with in the final steps of his journey.  This morning we’ll hear from one of the sleeping disciples, who couldn’t keep his eyes open.  (Put on cloak.) 

2. Why couldn’t I keep my eyes open?  We’ve had other long days.   There were Roman soldiers everywhere because of Passover.  I needed to be awake.  It felt like a powder keg ready to blow.  Actually it was tiring to be with Jesus.  Well, more like draining, because every day was such an adventure.  You never knew what you’d be doing next!  I’ll never forget the first time out on our own.  It was incredible.  When we came back I was so tired.  We were going to rest, and another crowd came.  As always he was patient, and taught and healed.  He even helped the crowd be fed, when it seemed there was only a little food. 

3. But why couldn’t I stay awake that night?  When could he have needed me more?  I could even hear him praying near by, as if his heart would break.  But sleep overpowered me.  Suddenly, we were wide-awake.  All of us – at least I wasn’t the only one unable to watch with him.  I wanted to apologize, but there was no time.  The soldiers came bursting in on us.  Some of the disciples believed this would happen for a long time.  Some even feared Jesus had gone too far.  He was making the religious leaders anxious because he was questioning Roman power and the religious leaders’ power.  The threat of Jesus and his followers being seen as terrorists, or freedom fighters depending on whose side you were on, would risk Israel’s perilous connection with Rome.  It was no surprise to most that Jesus was arrested.  We were terrified.  He stayed calm.  I felt so scared and so unworthy of him that I ran.  (Remove cloak) 

4. So where are your eyes focused?  There was a man who had fallen in a well, and couldn’t see that there was a rope a few inches above his head.  He was doing exactly what he always did.  Perhaps his eyes were tight shut thinking of an earlier, easier, time.  Or wishing things were not how they were.  Or maybe he was looking down because of bad temper, or habit, or feeling insecure.  If he was looking down, it hadn’t worked well, as he fell in anyway!  He screamed and screamed for help.  At last a child heard him, and came, and he looked up.  And saw the rope. 

5. Were the disciples who slept also unwilling to look up?  Whether by habit, or bad temper, of feeling insecure, it seems their focus was very low.  They couldn’t imagine that anything could be different than what they presently knew.  Put yourself in their shoes.  Dead is dead.  And that’s what Jesus would be if he kept it up.  More to the point.  Power is power.  In first century Israel, Rome held the power along with those who cooperated with them.  Jesus, poor, uneducated, unsophisticated, didn’t hold that power.  What did he even know about economics and how the world runs?  The power of armies and politicians and banks can follow through on promises – or threats.  But what could promises based on love and kindness – even if miraculous, do?  As we face questions of power, and what it promises, as we do very much today as well, perhaps the question to us, is also about choice.  Which power will we choose to bet our lives on?

6. The disciples have a clear picture.  They know Rome has more power and where it comes from.  They also have come to know the source of Jesus’ power.  They trust him.  The problem with Jesus is they feared it would all come to nothing.  What would they gain by betting their lives on him?  Forgiveness, grace, love, self-sacrifice, and trust every day, they know how hard that is.  They know to speak the truth to power is deadly!  You can almost hear them say, “Nothing we do will make a difference.”  With their eyes firmly fixed on the ground, they run away. 

7. Speaking the truth to power seems equally important to us today.  It was the topic of 3 different programs on Prairie Public Radio on the drive to Minneapolis and back.  From media to politicians to poets and their families, how do we speak the truth?  We likely won’t be politicians or high powered media, but how do we as ordinary faithful people, speak the truth to power?  Nikki Giovanni is a poet talking about speaking the truth to power.  Her mother is 86 years old.  Nikki got a phone call one night.  Her mom says, “I can’t get the game.”  Nikki shouts into the phone, as it will be about all she can get her hard of hearing mom who loves football to hear.  “I’ll be right there.”  When she gets there, she manages to get her mom to understand, it’s not on.  “Well why isn’t it on?”  “You know who they’re playing.  They’re going to blow them out of the park.  The rest of the state doesn’t want to see that.”  “I’m gonna picket,” was her mom’s immediate response.  Her daughter managed to convince her, “Let me write a letter first.”  “All right, but if it doesn’t work, I’m going to picket.  And I’ll get all my friends.”  “Now you have to realize,” says Nikki, “Her friends are all the same age!  Can’t you just see them all out there with their walkers?”  Well the letter got published in the local paper.  Now all home games are televised.  They didn’t need to picket, but they certainly would have! 

8. Apparently age is no barrier to our ability to speak that truth!  We may not care whether local football games are televised, or we may care deeply!  But where are the places where you can speak the truth to power?  Where can you stand up among friends and neighbours and dare to have the will to choose Christ’s way of forgiveness, grace, love, self-sacrifice, trust every day, before the values of cynicism, and materialism, and me- and mine-first, and resentment?  What truth can you speak to the forces that seem to have power over your life? 

9. Standing up, speaking the truth to power, can strike the same terror into our hearts as the disciples felt.  But we have something the disciples didn’t have.  Christ’s resurrection.  God has ended death's power over us.  We dare to imagine something can be different than what we presently know.  With our eyes wide open to the world, we know God’s power will never be destroyed.  That power can lift our heads up from our tired worry and despair. That power enables us to dare to believe we can choose the path, with Christ, to speak the truth to power and truly live.[i]