Choosing Bold Over Mild

Choosing Bold Over Mild
We’re in the fourth week of our Lenten series, I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church and in the 4th of 6 critical choices that need to be made…Each choice is vital and critical not only for individuals, but also for churches…Rev. Paul Nixon poses these choices to the Church universal, but also to every congregation…Our first choice is Choosing Life over Death, the second choice is choosing community over isolation, and the third choice is choosing fun over drudgery…The first 3 choices have seemed like they would be easy choices to make…Life obviously wins over death and community clearly trumps isolation and drudgery doesn’t even stand a chance against fun! But the next three choices, while it’s clear what the choice should be, the decision gets harder…Because the choices become more challenging…Which brings us to today where our choice is choosing bold over mild…
When you’re at the store and you have the option of choosing the product that’s “original” or the product that’s “new and improved”…Which one do you choose? More often than not, the product that’s new and improved wins out…There are the rare cases when it doesn’t…Like when Coca-Cola changed their name to “new Coke”—that one didn’t go over so well, but instead they went from “new Coke” to “Classic Coca-Cola” which was a bold change in and of itself as well!
Choosing Bold over Mild…Now, the choice is pretty clear which to make…We should choose Bold! But like I said the next 3 choices are more challenging…When we call something bold, it’s usually because it’s sharp or biting or harsh…Bold hasn’t been associated with many “good” ideas in more recent times…So, wouldn’t we want to choose mild? Because mild surely doesn’t offend anyone…
And therein lies the problem…Mild doesn’t offend anyone…And Jesus’ message was anything but mild…Now don’t misunderstand…Jesus’ message was about love and grace, but Jesus’ teachings weren’t easy to swallow for many people when they were first heard or when they’re heard today…Jesus’ teachings are very challenging and if you aren’t sure about that, the next time you read one of Jesus’ teachings, imagine that Jesus is talking directly to you…While Jesus’ message is one of love and grace, it is also very challenging…Jesus’ message…The message of the Gospel is very bold.
The story from this morning about the man born blind is a story filled with boldness and even within the story, there’s some mildness to be found…
Jesus & his disciples encounter this man born blind from birth and after some conversation about his condition, Jesus makes a bold statement about himself…He tells his disciples that he is the light of the world…Even more than that, Jesus says I AM the light of the world…In this short sentence, Jesus refers to himself as God simply by saying the words I AM…When Moses asked God for God’s name in the burning bush, God told Moses, “My name is I AM.” Jesus just made the bold statement, I AM the light of the world…
After Jesus makes the bold claim about himself, he then moves toward healing this man…This is another bold move…Not just because Jesus is going to heal this man, but because he’s going to heal this man on the Sabbath…According to law, no work must be done on the Sabbath—absolutely none! Jews were given specific instructions on how to observe the Sabbath and still continue the practice to this day…No cooking is to be done on the Sabbath, only a certain number of steps are allowed…Absolutely no work is to be done…So, if absolutely no work is to be done and Jesus is healing this man on the Sabbath…Jesus is doing something bold! He’s healing on the Sabbath and he knows that the Scribes & the Pharisees are not going to take kindly to this…But Jesus still spits on the ground and makes mud…then he takes that mud and puts it on the man’s eyes and tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam…Now this man could have ignored Jesus, but instead he did what Jesus told him to do and he came back able to see…
The townsfolk didn’t believe that this could possibly be the same man that they knew who would beg…and after some questioning, they find out how this man could see again. And when word gets to the Pharisees, they are not happy…They refuse to believe that Jesus is doing this healing in the name of God because surely God of all would honor the Sabbath!
So the Pharisees started to make excuses because they didn’t want to believe many parts of this story…They didn’t want to believe that anyone from God would heal on the Sabbath, but they also didn’t want to believe that anyone but God would heal this man born blind…It’s a tough situation to be in!
The Pharisees call in the blind man’s parents and want to make sure that this man was really born blind and if it is their son, how was it that he could see…And what do his parents do? Well, they acknowledge that this man is their son, but they give no answers as to who healed their son…Instead they say, “Ask him! He’s of age!” They don’t want to get involved with the situation, because they don’t want to be caught up in anything if there’s trouble…They’ve heard their son’s stories and they could certainly share what their son has shared, but instead they take the mild approach… “Ask him yourself.”
Now to some, their mild approach may make sense…Why would they put themselves in a position of getting in trouble? I mean seriously, they weren’t there for the actual healing…So, why would they want to put themselves in a position to get into trouble or offend anyone? So, in today’s times…When someone asks you “Why do you go to church?” Of course you say, “Figure it out for yourself.” Or “Why are you so joyful all the time?” “Figure it out for yourself.” Or “Who is this Jesus I keep hearing about.” “Figure it out for yourself.” It’s a nice, mild response…
Well, the Pharisees then go to the man born blind and he has no problem telling the Pharisees what has happened…Now this man has never seen Jesus, so he answers honestly that he doesn’t really know who it was that healed him, but instead he starts teaching the Pharisees about God! The Pharisees who are the experts—the ones who claim to know everything that can possibly known about God and this man, this formerly blind man who they consider to be a sinner starts to tell them about God…Oh this formerly blind man is bold!
The Pharisees tell this man that they don’t know where Jesus came from…And the man says to them…You say that only one from God can heal…I once was blind and now I see…I’ve been healed and you’re still asking where this man came from? If only one from God can heal and he healed me…Don’t you see the connection here…So many bold statements in that man…He was standing up to the Pharisees and teaching them! And he was making the statement that Jesus came from God…A statement that was blasphemous…he could be put to death for it…And he makes it unabashedly! Much different from the mild response from his parents!
When Jesus encounters this man again he asks him, do you believe in the Son of Man? Now, remember that this formerly blind man has never actually seen Jesus, so he doesn’t know to recognize him by sight…But Jesus tells him that he is looking at the Son of Man…And he worships him!
Did you catch that? This man never physically saw Jesus and yet, he believed! He didn’t know how to recognize the one that healed him, but he believed that Jesus was from God…He made an incredibly bold decision…And when he finally did come face to face with Jesus, he told him that he believed and he worshiped him!
Are we that bold? Are you that bold? To unabashedly believe in Jesus that we don’t have to physically see him in order to believe? To not need proof in order to say that Jesus is Lord!?!?
That’s boldness there…Jesus doesn’t call us to be mild…Jesus doesn’t ask if we believe and then say, “Oh good, keep it a secret now!” Did Jesus die and rise again to keep that news a secret?? That’s bold news…That’s the Good News of the Gospel! That Jesus died and rose again…That Jesus is Lord! It’s bold news! So, what do we do with that bold news?? Think it’s great on Sunday morning, but on Monday morning in line at the grocery store forget about it?? Are we choosing bold over mild?
Now to be sure, there is a time when boldness can cross the line into pushy or rude…And there are probably times when there will be someone who is offended when I say that Jesus is my Lord…But I’m not going to hide that and I’m not going to keep it a secret…Because I am excited and impassioned that Jesus is my Lord…That God made the bold move to send Jesus Christ because God so loved the whole world! That Jesus was so bold to die for me, for us and that the whole world was changed when Jesus rose from the dead…That there was all this boldness and all this amazing activity that happened for me and on my behalf…For us and on our behalf…How can we not be bold in proclaiming that??
And it’s still a choice that we have to make…Are we going to be bold in our belief? Or are we going to be mild? And let me say that if we choose to be mild, there will be another bold statement to come along that people will listen to more…And that bold statement may not have anything to with Jesus or with God’s love…But we have the bolder statement…We have it…Are we going to share it? Choosing Bold Over Mild…It’s not always easy, but it’s what we’re called to do. Let’s choose bold over mild together.