[Sermon] Seeing with the Heart

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo

March 15, 2026 + Fourth Sunday in Lent: The Sight of the Heart

We live in a world that discards what is chipped, cancels what is complicated, and overlooks what is small — and the disciples were no different when they asked Jesus whose sin caused a man's blindness. In this sermon, Pastor Hector challenges the retributive logic that turns human beings into objects, ping-ponged between accusers who cannot see their own need for grace. Drawing on Richard Rohr's insight that sin is fundamentally fragmentation — a part of the body believing it is separate from the whole — we explore what it means to move from "fixing" our sight to transforming our vision entirely. The golden grace of God, Pastor Hector reminds us, fills every irregular edge and every tiny space — not despite the fracture, but through it.

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.

Grace to you and peace from God. Abba, father, mother, creator, our parent, the Lord Jesus Christ, our savior and lord. And we said, amen. Somebody with a calculator now. I need somebody with a calculator now, and to do the mathematical operation 41 times five.

41 times 5, please.

Are you sure? Yes. And checking if Aaron is really using a calculator.

Well, you know, I was looking at the passage that Richard was telling us about. It's a long passage. Can I say — okay, 41 verses is so rich that we can talk about 5 minutes per verse. So that puts us at 5 minutes times 41, 205 minutes sermon. So let's begin.

It's a wrong calculation. I mean, honestly, I mean, this passage is so rich that I think that we could spend the rest of the day speaking from every verse, because every verse brings some truth and really teaches us something about us, something about who God is, and something about who we are in the presence of God. For the past few weeks, we have been looking at the charts that are out there — you took maybe some at home. Specifically last Sunday, we were talking about water and the water, the living water that washes us and washes away labels and dust and everything that builds up on our shoulders and makes us feel unworthy, so heavy, or maybe that we don't fit. The thing is that after you wash it, you will notice that you start seeing more clearly all the little pieces that are missing. You start looking at it and you start wondering, does this really fit? Can we really find every single tiny speck that goes in between the parts, in between the pieces, that can make the whole pot or the whole ball or the whole piece of art come together again?

And I think that at this part of our lives, and part of our spiritual journey this Lent, that no matter what, even when we know that we are washed by the grace of God, we find that we are not perfect. And you can read, and we can read, that through the entire liturgy that we have been using these past few Sundays. Today we heard it again, today. So today I would like to just spend a few minutes on this story that, honestly, I don't think that needs a lot of theological reflection and a time to speak very long, because I think that the story itself tells us about who we are and who Jesus is in our lives. However, let me share with you just a couple of thoughts that I hope can help us to expand, but also that will help us to go through the week thinking and reflecting on who we are and how our lives come together in the grace of God.

Now, I started with mathematics, asking you for a mathematical operation here. But let me ask you now about the laws of physics — I'm coming very, very "engineery" today. So, what does Newton's third law of motion say?

Good engineers.

I hear a lot of talking, but I don't hear really.

Do you want to help? It says — I mean, this is the simplified version, but — for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I knew that you knew it. I know there is an engineer in you. I knew that. So, Rabbi, what was it — this individual's sin that caused the blindness, or that of the parents? Good scientists asking good questions to Jesus. The concept of cause and effect really makes sense, because we experience it every day in our lives. In everything that we do, to every action that we take, there is a reaction, right? So this probably made perfect sense for these people who were asking Jesus about this blind man.

But there is, in this world, another dimension of this law. And this is the retributive mentality that we have, because even in the spiritual realm we talk about reactions, actions and reactions. Every religion and every culture mostly believe that somehow sin and evil are to be punished, and retribution is to be demanded from the sinner. In other words, as they were saying, if you sin, you deserve to be punished, right? That is the logic that we use. Retributive justice is a dualistic system of reward and punishment that makes perfect sense for us and to our ego. But I was thinking that when we live in that system of retribution, what we are doing is that we are refusing to see our own irregular fractures in our lives. And that prevents us from seeing the need for the golden grace that reconciles and restores the dignity of every person.

In the stories that we read today, we continue to see the theme of seeing and blaming, and the blaming game that started in the story that we read when we began Lent. Remember the tree of knowledge? Remember the garden of Eden? Remember when God said, "Who told you? Who gave you the fruit?" And the man said, and the woman said — and we were looking for somebody to blame, and somebody to say, "Well, this happened because of the action that the other one took," right? So we live in this propensity to blame someone or something for all the misfortunes that we experience. And by blaming others, we also make others an object. When we objectify a person, we dehumanize a person, a human being. Just note, in the story of the blind man, how he becomes really a ping-pong ball, right? They bring him to Jesus, they take him to the parents, they bring him to Jesus, they take him to the parents. Poor man. He becomes an object, because the people around him are refusing to see — or probably they cannot see — their own need for that grace.

Richard Rohr says that sin primarily describes a state of fragmentation, when one of the parts of the body thinks it is separate from the whole. So sin is the loss of any inner experience of who we are in God.

Sin is separation, and sin prevents us from seeing ourselves as being part of God. So Jesus responds to these people and says it was to let God's work shine forth in this person. That's why this man was born blind. And that answer, if we read it out of context or not understanding the culture, can sound harsh and difficult, because it can imply that God makes us suffer in order to show us how powerful God is. So, how do you feel about that?

Who wants God to show you how powerful God is? Are you ready for some suffering?

Right. I mean, that statement can lead us to that. But I think that what Jesus was doing was to help the people to understand that they were asking the wrong question, and that maybe we cannot let our human logic of retribution or cause and effect lead us to think that God works with that same logic. What God is inviting us to in Jesus is to think that there are other ways that we can together journey through this spiritual journey that helps us to see with our heart, with the spirit.

Perhaps the best way — says Jesus — the right question to ask was: what is God doing in this situation, and how can we get on board with it? What is God doing in this situation, and how can we get on board with it?

Jesus was not trying to sugarcoat the situation or to avoid dealing with these harsh realities of life. God teaches and tells us that there is evil in the world. Jesus reminds us that there is sin, with all of its tragic consequences in our lives. And you can see that right now in the world that we are living in, where sin is separating us from one another, where sin is causing death, where sin is causing retribution. If you attack me, we attack you double.

But Jesus is also telling us that there is a complex web of cause and effect relationships at work in our human experience. So what good does the blame question really do in our lives?

The evangelist St. John teaches us that the way that God shows us God's presence in the midst of us is through signs — signs that point to the truth, the new order, God's reign that is right here, today. And today's story tells us that God's authority — and when I talk about God's authority, I'm talking about God's ever-presence among us, around us, and in us. I'm not talking about the authority that comes as a dictator, trying to oppress people to obey, to fear, and therefore do what God says. I'm talking about that loving, changing, and transforming presence. That type of authority that cannot be overcome by anything in this life — including, if you notice in the story, Jesus is telling us that this authority of God is not overshadowed by the impossibilities that human beings see in their lives. Impossibilities like this: a man who was born blind. A community that is shaped by retribution and therefore sees blindness as a payment for the sin of the parents. Parents who distance themselves from the man because they disassociate from him, so that they don't want to be part of the disruptive power of God.

The dehumanization of those who are accusing Jesus for healing this man — by being unrighteous, by breaking the rule of the Sabbath when Jesus made mud to heal the man. That Jesus engaged the heartbreak and the complexity of this human situation by pointing out that such a situation actually creates the most amazing possibilities for God to be at work. God is above all — God is in, under, and above — every imperfection that causes a sign of hopelessness is grabbed by the amazing, reckless, never-ending love of God. The man receives his sight, a sign that tells us that nothing will ever stop the unfolding, the unfolding reign of God among us. The imperfections of the edges of the shards make it almost impossible to fully match the pieces in our lives. But the golden grace of God fills every single tiny space to allow these pieces to come together. And then we are transformed into a masterpiece of broken lives that are adorned by the golden grace of God. The healing is offered freely for this man. It's not earned. The man does not ask to be healed. But divine love acts regardless of the perceived worthiness of this man.

So, my siblings in Christ, I think that all of us in this congregation are walking that spiritual journey. None of us is perfect. And when we come to believe that in the church, everybody who comes to church is perfect, I think that we are not understanding that the very reason that we are here is because we recognize that you and I are on a journey — to be able to gain our sight, the sight of the spirit, the sight of our hearts. We will hurt each other. We will see in one another the irregularities of the edges in our shards. But we are here to remind each other that in the grace of God, no matter where we are, where we are coming from, where we are in our faith journey, the golden grace of God will bring us together to be a testimony of the authority and the power and the mercy of God, that can change a world that is yearning for that reconciliation and restoration, to bring the healing that is needed right now.

So, my siblings in Christ — we are on a journey, and we thank God for that. Amen.