The eyes of understanding

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Creation's attention to detail #1
Paul lifts a prayer for the church at Ephesus: “. . . that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what [are] the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints . . ..” (Ephesians 1:17-18, KJV)
Parsing the central thought here, Paul expresses the hope that God—in sending Jesus—has extended to them the “spirit of wisdom and revelation” so that they are in reach of the knowledge of what Christ’s coming means. The “spirit of wisdom and revelation” having “enlightened the eyes of their understanding,” Paul prays that they will recognize what a great hope lies in store for them.
Maybe because I was born with one good eye and one “lodged with me useless,” in Milton’s words—and am now living with cataracts and threatening glaucoma—that the expression, “eyes of your understanding being enlightened,” catches my attention.
Matthew 6:22-3 (NEB) quotes Jesus’ metaphor centered on eyes: “The eye is the lamp of the body. If then your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
Both Paul’s and Jesus’ eye metaphors leave something to be desired, probably because they were spoken or written in an age when the details of human anatomy were vague. But their intent is clear nevertheless. Enlightenment is contingent upon eyes being open; seeing is a prerequisite to understanding and looking precedes seeing. The eye is probably our most important sensory receptor and, speaking physically, an inability or unwillingness to look, to see, is critical to almost everything we do.
But there are causes for not seeing. A diseased eye can prohibit it, or at least seeing as we would wish to see. To build on Jesus’ metaphor in Matthew, closing one’s eyes, wearing blinkers, refusing to look in order to prevent seeing what we don’t want to see, all of these can obviously deny the body the light it needs in order to understand.
The eye is a receptor, a receiver, not a decider. And you’re right; neither Paul nor Jesus are talking about literal eyes, but about our ability or willingness to receive and recognize the gospel truth that’s been laid out before us, even though it demands something of us or conflicts with the habits of our lives. And this truth that Jesus taught and modeled so persuasively remains unseen and un-appropriated because the glasses of our mind are dirty, ill-fitted, or because we simply choose to see only that which is more suited to our tastes, our desires.
In the words of the Carl Smith song, “I overlooked an orchid, while searching for a rose.”
The decision to look, and therefor to see was what Jesus was talking about when the highly educated and influential Nicodemus came to him with a question, the answer to which was that he needed to be reborn. Nicodemus had clearly comprehended what was literal, what was lawful, but what he hadn’t comprehended was what is spiritual—he hadn’t turned his eyes toward the light. (Reread John 3 and note all the references to light.)
Nicodemus can hardly be condemned for failing to understand Jesus’ words that “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Despite Jesus’ comparing the spirit to the wind in John 3, generations of Christians have personified, rendered concrete what Jesus was talking about in attempts to see with un-reborn eyes. The result of this folly is the establishment of a new legalism, the pretense of following Christ . . . an idolatrous mockery.
To understand the radical reformation of the Anabaptist forefathers and mothers is to see how they sought to return the church to the gospel of “water and the spirit.” Eyes cleansed and opened, caught up in the spirit of love for the life-giver and the life that’s been created—including, most immediately, our neighbour.

May we all be spared the glaucoma of wealth or power, the cataracts of prejudice and pride, the blinkers and blinders of self-centered desperation, so that we may experience daily the enlightenment of our eyes of understanding.
Creation's attention to detail #2

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