Blindness and Sight: A Co-Preaching Conversation

March 26, 2017

John 9:1-42

Another sermon conversation between John Baker and I.  We split the long Gospel reading into parts and took turns preaching about those parts.

v. 1-7

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

(John)

Before we go any farther, I have to say a word or two about that line that probably just stopped many of us from hearing what came next.  Did Jesus really say that the man was born blind so God’s works might be revealed?  Did he really suggest that bad things happen so God can make a show of fixing them?  Well that’s the way John wrote it, and yes, hearing that line is like stubbing the same sore toe again when we hear it while conscious of a loss, or while living with hard news.  The line raises for us the consuming question of why bad things happen in a world created by a good God.  But I don’t think that is where John wanted to take us.  I think his homiletics professor would call him on that line.  Nothing else in this long passage suggests he wants to talk about why bad things happen.  It is, rather, a treatise on light and darkness, seeing and blindness. And if any side point is intended by John it is the one we may have just missed where he says that tragedy and troubles are not caused by sin.  I think he is telling us that every trouble we face is an opportunity for God to become present in some new,  creative, and life-giving way.  I hope that message wasn’t lost in that clumsy bit of wording.  I hope that you hear how big the scope of this story is.  It is the story of one man being healed, yes, but being healed not be the light of one man, but by the light of the world.  The gift of restored sight made possible by John’s Jesus is for every one of us.

v. 8-12

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

(Elizabeth)

First, it was the blindness of this man that made his neighbors uncomfortable.  They were afraid of the sin and judgment they thought might be attached to him.  And I'm guessing he was also a reminder of how tenuous and fragile life can be.  Beyond that, he was a reminder of their own selfishness.

And so rather than including him as part of their community, they relegated him to begging on the outskirts.  That way they could keep him safely at a distance; feel sorry for him rather than having their theology, optimism or morality challenged by him.

But then, he was healed.  And they found that he still made them just as uncomfortable.  They had seen this man all of their lives as incomplete and disabled and sinful.  That was who he had become to them; they couldn’t imagine him any other way than as the Man-Born-Blind.  To these neighbors, his disability defined him.

And so it was easier for them to deny or explain around his healing than it was to change their way of thinking.

I wonder who makes us uncomfortable?  Maybe because of skin color, or country of origin, or physical ability, or education level, or political persuasion... or something else completely.  Whatever it is, whoever those people are, I wonder how might our imaginations need to expand to see people as fully as God sees them?

v. 13-17 

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

(John)

Jesus is not easily pinned down.  He doesn’t observe the sabbath…..and he performs amazing signs.  He doesn’t follow the rules….and he is good.  He can’t possibly be from God…and he can’t not be from God.   We love to draw boundaries, we can not easily imagine a God who works outside the expectations we have established based on some earlier understanding of God. I sing a song with the day school children called God is Surprise.  That’s the chorus.  One of the verses says, “the people of Israel were looking for a king, God would save that way and freedom bells would ring, along came Jesus a man who’s poor and meek, that couldn’t be our God they said, he’s nothing but a freak….well surprise, surprise….  I learned that song when I was a teenager in a time when long haired, flower carrying, herb imbibing kids like me who scoffed at the rules were called freaks.  I like the idea of a Jesus who challenged the old ways of understanding things.  Of course I have now lived long enough that I often discover how crusted over my understanding of God has become. I sometimes find a Jesus I don’t expect challenging my views and operating outside my comfort zone…in my life!

Prophets are commissioned by God to carry God’s message to the people, to be God’s agents in the world.  Prophets get a lot of grief because the message is seldom what was expected.  

v. 18-23 

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

(Elizabeth)

There are so many people in this story reacting to the healing of the man born blind.  His neighbors, the pharisees, and now his own parents.  You’d think at least some of these people would be cheered by his healing, be thrilled for him!  But in one fell swoop, we see that what should be this man’s entire support system fails.  And maybe his parents fail the most egregiously.  

I can only imagine what it must have felt like for those parents when they realized that their newborn baby was blind.  The hopes and dreams for him that must have slipped away.  The worries for his future that must have weighed so heavily.  And so it’s particularly hard to hear their utter lack of enthusiasm for his healing.  All we hear from them is fear for their own safety.  They know that to be identified with this healing is to be identified with Jesus.  And to be identified in any way with Jesus was to risk being rejected themselves.  And they’d seen up close and personal with their son the isolation and loneliness that entailed.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus provokes crises.  Once someone meets Jesus, they have a decision to make.  And playing-it-safe, middle-ground, not making waves decisions don't come out looking very good.  One of the reasons I love John's Gospel is because of these stories that are so easy to imagine ourselves into.  Stories with plenty of characters that we can identify with.  Which gives us the opportunity (and the challenge) to make these decisions right along with the folks in the stories.  Because these decisions aren't just in this story or back then.  These decisions are for us, right now.  God is on the move — he's got mud and spit on his hands and he's reaching out to us.  Will we plunge into the pool of Siloam -- the pool of the Sent -- or not?

v. 24-34 

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

(John)

The hard truth is that too often we don’t want the very good we claim to be seeking.  We reject some good thing that has come our way because we don’t recognize the package in which it arrives.  We prefer our old brand of faith, of church, of the story.  We cling to our addictions, our old hurts, our assumptions about whom we can trust.    And a sure sign of our being stuck in some bit of life that isn’t good for us is how quickly we condemn those who try to show us another way, like Jesus.  There is a reason this story is told in Lent.  Jesus is presented here as the “light of the world” and light sounds good, surely it is better than darkness, but we hear that we can be ambivalent even about the good that comes our way.  John always challenges us to think about whether we really can welcome the light.  Do we really want it?  It is funny how even pain can become so comfortable that we attack those who suggest that we might not have to live with it anymore.  Because he said, “I see,” they drove him out.

v. 35- 42

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

(Elizabeth)

Even as his persecutors entrench themselves more deeply in their blindness, the man-born-blind grows continually in his sight.  And not just his physical sight.  That was just the beginning.  His vision keeps improving:

from calling Jesus “the man” 

to thinking he must be a “prophet” 

to realizing Jesus is “from God" 

to giving him the Messiah’s title “Son of Man” 

to worshipping him as “Lord.”  

This man is help up as a model of faith, a model of discipleship.  In his openness to new ways of seeing God.  In his openness to God acting in his life and in the world.  And in his openness to seeing himself as a sign of God's transformation in the world.  

But what I really love about this story is how this man tells his story.  He doesn’t really understand what happened.  It isn’t something he can rationally explain.  He can't suddenly espouse a creed or explain a system of theology.  He only knows that he is changed.  “I was blind, but now I see,” said this man, simply.  His healing has become part of his self-definition:  He is no longer the Man Born Blind; he is now the Man Who Can See.  

I wonder if we are as open to seeing God in new ways?  To seeing God at work - in us and in the world around us?

And I wonder if we know ourselves to have the potential to be signs of God’s transforming work?

Amen.