4/9/67

Text: Matthew 5: 8; “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Those of us who attended the concert by the Oberlin College Choir a week ago Friday evening were impressed by the splendid music. Some of us were impressed also by the people who sang in the choir. Among them was a girl who was obviously blind but who was able to contribute her full share to the harmonies of the evening. In order that she might follow the director precisely, she was given the tempo by the singer who stood next to her, who tapped the beat on her hand with his forefinger as the conductor began directing each composition. With no eyes to give her physical vision, she nonetheless “saw” the director and followed his will in singing the composition.

A blind girl was speaking about mercy. She said that mercy is the odor which flowers give when trampled upon. Who, except one deprived of physical sight, could have thought of that!

Perhaps a great deal of our experience would be changed if we were to perceive it, not with our two eyes, but through our other senses. I once saw Helen Keller when she briefly visited Honolulu, and spoke there. Before she spoke, she was treated to some Hawaiian music. Being unable to see with her eyes, nor to hear with her ears, she perceived the music through her finger tips. Barely touching the fingerboard of a guitar, as the Hawaiian musician strummed it, her face lighted up in an ecstasy of understanding and pleasure, while her other hand beat time with the music’s rhythm.

For those of us who are given normal sight, our physical vision is further developed than any or our other senses. We see more than we hear, smell, touch or taste. Only when one is deprived of his eyesight, does he become as highly aware of his surroundings through the other senses.

An interesting experiment was tried in an English school. A class of boys was sent into a room for exactly two minutes, and was told to report what they noted there. After two minutes in that room, each boy came out and made a list of what he had noticed in there during two minutes’ time. Some jotted down the things noticed. Some were able to remember and jot down as many as 40 objects. But nothing was noted that had not been seen with the eye. In that room were the noises that came in from the street and there was the sound of a piano played near by. There was the scent (the smell) of a cigar that was purposely introduced. Yet not one of these things was mentioned by the students. They reported only what they had perceived with the eye --- what they had seen. And yet the eye as an organ of seeing, is not the only means of perception which we have. Jesus, despite the potency and primacy of physical sight once asked, in rebuke, “Having eyes, see ye not?”

Recall the occasion. Jesus had seen to it that the multitude was fed. Great crowds had followed him out of curiosity. They were impressed by his power to heal and to fee. And Pharisees had asked for a sign, some spectacular evidence that he was the Messiah. To get away from the sight-seers and sign-seekers, he took ship with his disciples across the big lake. Then he turned to the little group of his own friends and said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” They thought he was talking about yeast -- the fermenting agent that fills a lump of bread dough with the tiny, porous holes that make bread “light.” That is what their “leaven” was. Jesus could see that they were not following his thought. And he continued: “Having eyes, see ye not?” [Mark 8: 1-21].

As that question comes to the rest of his followers -- among them to us in our time -- does it strike any of us? It strikes me! And perhaps it may give you pause for thought. How little we train ourselves for understanding through many channels of experience!

I once stood nearby and listened while the attendant in a commercial wireless telephone station received a coded message of instruction over the separate receiver set. It came through in quick bursts of sound that meant nothing to me more than a series of buzzes. And it came so fast that only the seasoned operator could get it. Another fellow who stood beside me, and had sent and received many a message as an amateur radio operator, could not follow it. We had ears all right. But neither of us could really “hear” that business message, for we had not trained ourselves to hear ... I, not at all; the man who stood beside me, not enough. And yet a message came right out of the air we breathed, and through the space we occupied.

Think again of one born blind, this time a musician. He described his world as one of sound and melody. A friend got for him a copy of “Ode to the Nightingale” by Keats in the Braille edition. Reading the lines of the poem through his finger tips, the blind musician exclaimed: “When Keats wrote that, he was living in my world.” How much do you suppose you and I miss in the melodic world of Keats and that sightless musician?

Early this past week, Mrs. Kingdon and I were visiting briefly in Washington, DC. While there, we visited the National Art Gallery for a couple of hours, and there feasted our eyes and understanding on some of the treasures displayed in that fascinating place. You perhaps recall the story of the artist, Turner, who was painting out of doors. A sight-seer who passed by stopped to see the artist at work, looked at the scene which Turner had chosen, and looked at the canvass where he was applying his brushes. Looking over the artist’s shoulder, this passing critic said, “Why, Mr. Turner, I never saw any such light and color in nature as you put on your canvass.” Turner merely replied: “Don’t you wish you could? As for me, I never can hope to match with pigments the glory I see in the sky.”

Or consider the avenue of perception opened in the life of some saintly person. Some years ago a man was traveling in Switzerland with Stanley Jones, the distinguished and devout Christian missionary to India. At a turn in their path, a majestic mountain peak loomed into view. At sight of it, Stanley Jones burst forth into prayer -- a sort of conversation with God -- just as naturally as if the divine Presence were a man standing beside him. In a moment, he saw the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah had seen the Lord in the temple centuries ago. Millions have seen the majestic peaks in the Swiss Alps. How many have seen the Lord there?

All around us are musicians who revel in richer worlds of melody, scientists who live in wider reaches of knowledge, artists who catch deeper and higher insights of beauty, saintly souls who know more revelations of divinity -- all of which brings pretty close home to me, and perhaps to you, the feeling that Jesus was speaking to us --- to me and to each of you --- when he said, “Having eyes, see ye not?”

When we think of how much the Master saw in life, and how much he made out of the meager materials there were at hand to work with in barren Palestine; and when we think how little we really make out of this lush, rich America, we are aroused to ask why we are missing so much? Perhaps it is because we have several organs of perception, and our preoccupation with one causes us to neglect the potentialities of the others.

When you go to your oculist or optometrist to be fitted with glasses, he may put a spectacle frame on your nose, and ask you to read from a chart on the wall while he tries lenses of different kind and strength until he thinks you have about the right correction of vision. About certain letters on the chart, he asks, “Can you see those?” and you say, “I see.” That is one kind of vision.

Or you have gone to your attorney, or your accountant, to consult him about your income tax ..(and you are not the only one who had to have help in getting through the maze of the current Federal income tax forms!) .... The lawyer explains the law -- or at least as much as you may suppose the income tax law can be explained --- and as the light of some understanding breaks through your mental confusion, you say, “I see.” Well, that is a form of mental vision.

Suppose a daughter comes home to dinner this evening. She sits down with what she supposes will appear to her family as her usual state of composure. She believes herself under such perfect control that none of her inner feelings are revealed. Across the table sits her mother, who detects some suppressed emotion in the daughter. Perhaps before the meal is out, or perhaps after dinner is over, at one side, away from the rest of the family, the mother says: “Well, Mary, out with it. I see that something is up.” You might say that the mother is seeing with her heart, or her intuition.

Now let us get back to that beatitude of Jesus, when he said, “Blesses are the pure in heart, for they shall see ..... God.” In one proper and accurate sense, it is undeniably correct to say “nobody has ever seen God.” Certainly a blind man can’t see God. He can’t even see a hippopotamus, or the person sitting across the table from him. But just as certainly, I can’t see God with my eyes. At least I never have; nor have you. Yet, in another very realistic sense, Jesus says that some “shall see God” .... and he refers to those who he says are “pure in heart.”

It is true that one mind can be trained to “see” much that other minds do not see. One boy sees just automobiles. Another sees Pontiacs and Lincolns and Chevrolets and Dodges and Volkswagens and Buicks. He sees them with more discriminating vision than the first boy because his mind sees more. Jesus said “beware the leaven of the Pharisees.” He saw what was happening to his disciples. They were catching the spirit of the Pharisees and the sight-seers, the selfish and the curious. To get them out of that groove he took them across the lake and tried to open their mental understanding -- their spiritual perception. So, also, he tries to open the understanding of the heart. Without the ability to “see” with the heart --- through the emotions as well as with mind and eye --- we simply do not perceive a great deal that goes on about us. Perhaps the heart can be trained to see, or to perceive, beyond the color and the scent of the blossoms of the cherry trees around the tidal basin in Washington. Perhaps one can see in them the overture of friendliness which prompted the people of Japan to make the gift of those trees to the people of our country.

Paul once wrote to the Ephesians the fervent prayer: “May God grant to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation for the knowledge of himself, illuminating the eyes of your heart.” [Ephesians 1: 17-18]. If we are to see God, and to see God’s children, as Christ would have us see them, we must use the eyes of the heart. Imagine yourself in a crowd watching the news of the world on a screen. Does the sight of people of other nations evoke a friendly response from your fellow-sitters-and-viewers? Not often. Too often the response is something like this: “Queer people, aren’t they? I’m glad I’m an American.” Mere sight does not breed friendship. And cold facts produce cold conflicts and cold wars.

Our information about other races and nationalities must be illuminated with Christ-like imagination. We must catch human feelings behind the cold statistics of the starving and homeless people, the patriotic of their own land, the sensitive and artistic persons, and even the calculating men. What does it feel like to be an Oriental waif looking for food in garbage cans? How does it feel to be charged with responsibility for the welfare of hundreds? How does it feel to be dependent on the decisions of people of a foreign power? Can we feel ourselves beside the man who is denied a fair trial and is faced with a sentence based on false charges? What are the hopes that surge up in the life of a man who is new to this country -- or to this state -- this community? Can we possibly imagine anyone praying in Russia --- in China? Some do. Do we have to be satisfied with only what we can see of people and little of what we can think of them? And the eyes of the heart are essential when we look toward God. “The natural man seeth not the things of God; they are spiritually discerned.” [I Corinthians 2: 14].

“Blessed are the pure in heart,” said Jesus, “for they shall see God.” He knew that when we give up prayer, or find it unreal, usually it is not because of intellectual difficulties but because of something that we will not forgive, or some envy that distorts our vision, or some abject fear, or a dull neglect which beclouds our spirits. But what is it to be “pure in heart?” Does that refer to chastity? Or to a literal observance of, and adherence to, the ten commandments? Or to faithfulness to propriety and ceremony? James Moffatt helps shed a different light of understanding on this beatitude when he translates it thus: “Blessed are they who are not double-minded, for they shall be admitted into the intimate presence of God.”

This expression, “double-minded,” suggests instability, or perhaps even deceitfulness. A person may be double-minded because he lacks stability, or integrity. He may have one reason that he gives for what he does, and a real reason which he keeps to himself. One cannot be quite sure of him, because he is not sure of himself. The pure in heart are those who are not double-minded. A step toward purity of heart is to have a will to the good. Kierkegaard declared that purity of heart is to will only one thing, and that is the Good. You might even spell the Good with a capital “G”, for the complete Good is God. And then, the pure in heart are not only those who have a will to the Good, but who pursue it in action. Not that we wish to escape punishment for the bad. (One may even welcome punishment, and any other correction, if it be medicine to make us well and right again.) But to pursue the good because that is one’s choice -- what he wants to do and be -- that is purity of heart. The good and the true -- that is the channel through which we may see God. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork” says the psalmist. [Psalm 19: 1]

Jacob, in the Genesis account, was a man running from himself and from his brother, Esau, whom he had wronged; until he felt himself face to face with ultimate reality and sheer honesty. Then he said, “I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved.” [Genesis 32: 22-30]. “Seeing God” imparts a strength to find solutions, and thus renders unnecessary a lot of rules for righteousness.

The pure in heart shall know Jesus’ all-inclusive precepts; they shall “see God;” and they will thus be in a frame of living which keeps the commandments without concentrating on the “musts,” because of their own right desire and purpose.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, April 9, 1967.