John 9: 1-41 Marianne Niesen April 3, 2011
Today is the fourth Sunday of Lent. When I was growing up, this was the Sunday the priest wore pink - as a symbol, I was told, that this was a Sunday to celebrate in a special way. Lent was half over and somehow, bright rose-colored vestments and banners were to bring the message home. This “pink Sunday” was always a big deal for children who had given up candy or dessert for Lent. We were on the home stretch! And I remember thinking, as I looked at the flowery-dressed priest, that even he had to be glad about that. After all, why else would he agree to pink? The Scripture text chosen for today, is, in a sense, in keeping with the intended spirit of this ‘pink’ Sunday. It handles a serious topic – but, with a story that borders on the ludicrous. It is also very long so I will do what I did last week. I’ll read and little and talk a little. John 9: 1-7
The story starts out innocently enough. A man, blind since birth, is spotted along the roadside. He was probably a regular there. He made his living begging for food, relying on charity. When they pass him on the road, the disciples of Jesus seem more interested in engaging their teacher in a theological discussion than in the man’s plight. Whose sin is responsible for such tragedy? They are setting him up of course – and, remember physical handicap and illness were understood to be God’s punishment for some recent or ancient wrongdoing. Jesus takes the bait and cuts through their theological blindness. He, you notice, has no interest in the cause of the man’s malady. He is interested instead in the man himself and what a cure might mean. To his disciples, Jesus says, just watch…this is an opportunity for you to see God at work – or, even better, what God intends for the world! He makes some mud, puts it on the man’s eyes and tells him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. The man, who up until this moment has asked for nothing - does as he is told. In a sense, though blind, he’s the one who sees what is going on here! And so, he is healed. A pure gift. Grace. Good news for all, right? No, of course not. I told you it is a long story and so it continues… (John 9: 8-12)
Of course, he doesn’t know! He was blind when he got healed and he went right to the Pool of Siloam as instructed. And no one had told him to keep track of the healer – just in case there was a recall or something! He probably had a hard enough time figuring out how to deal with the healing itself. Several years ago, there was an article in The New Yorker [1] about a man who had been blind since childhood and who, through surgery, was suddenly given sight. The man, Virgil, described the difficulty he experienced with his newly acquired sight. One of his most interesting challenges was in putting the visual pieces he saw together into an identifiable whole. In other words, when shown pictures, he could identify the paws, nose, teeth, ears and tail of a dog - but when he saw a whole dog, he didn’t know what it was. Sight, he found, was a very hard thing to live with. Which might be why those with sight sometimes find true vision so difficult!
And, this business about finding Jesus? Well, for his part, he has effectively disappeared from the story. In fact, this is the longest period of time in the gospels that Jesus is ‘off camera.’ Gone. The gospel writer, John, has turned the focus from Jesus to … to the issue of blindness and sight. So . . . we have a man who was probably stumbling around, trying to figure out what to do with his newly acquired sight, being examined and cross examined by a whole group of folks he knew by voice but not by sight trying to figure out what to do with what they saw right before their eyes! (Makes one wonder . . . who was really blind!) And, rather than rejoicing in his good fortune, they debate whether or not it is he - as if he wouldn’t know. You almost get the impression that up until this moment, the only thing that distinguished the man was his blindness - with that gone, he was unrecognizable - and unbelievable. Because, after all, why would anyone heal him – if indeed it was him? There are none so blind as those who will not see![2] (John 9: 13-34)
There are none so blind as those who will not see! So, his friends (some friends!) bring him to the Pharisees and they, like the neighbors, want to know how it happened - and why the healer had the bad judgment to heal on the Sabbath. Then they bring in the parents, then go back to the man himself. It is not unlike a circus, where the ringleaders, the people in power – here represented by the Pharisees - try desperately to tame the lions and tigers that threaten to overrun their show.
Perhaps the irony of all this is obvious to you, but just in case, let me ask the question that I found myself asking. Why on earth did they care? A man had just been healed - that should have been good news. It, at the very least, meant one less beggar, one less name for the welfare rolls, one more son of the covenant to pray in the synagogue. And yet, rather than a celebration, the neighbors raise questions, the parents react in fear - and the Pharisees are downright hostile. Why? Why was the good news not celebrated everywhere? Why was the healing so threatening? The answer seems sadly obvious - because surprises didn’t fit their understanding of how God worked. Because those who thought they knew the Law very well, those whose job it was to own righteousness, those who were in control, the religious insiders, suddenly found themselves outside. And they didn’t like it. As far as the Pharisees were concerned, the healing had happened without their approval. Not only that, they reasoned, since it had happened on the Sabbath, it must have been outside God’s approval as well. They knew the Law - and so they thought they knew God. Healing on the Sabbath? God wouldn’t allow it. But, if, by chance, God was on a break, they asserted . . . We won’t let God allow it! God working outside the box they had constructed for God was unthinkable. So, what should have been simply wonderful news about healing, freedom and wholeness for a fellow human being became a threatening affront to their pre-conceived notions, to the status quo. The Pharisees were outraged - or perhaps just frightened - at their sudden lack of control. They ignored the good news and literally went after the healed man as if he had cooperated in a criminal offense. One minute a blind beggar, the next a sighted criminal - his crime? Getting healed on the wrong day by the wrong guy. A recipient of undeserved grace.
But, let’s be clear. This isn’t just about threatened Pharisees-of-old. When John wrote his gospel, there was a major conflict raging between those Jews who followed Jesus and those who did not. And, as the story relates, Jews who acclaimed Jesus as Messiah were threatened with expulsion from the synagogue. But, though that conflict is over now, have you noticed that self-righteous blindness has not been cured? It continues – quite strongly – in our church, in our nation, in our politics and our religions. And like the Pharisees of old, we too can be quite blind to how funny we are when we try to control God. When we try to protect God. When we think that we own salvation, grace, the way to God. When we think, like the fellow beggars, that we have each other all figured out and that our figuring is of course how God has it figured. We do funny things any time we confuse the bounty of God’s grace with the boundaries of human understanding. Of course, there is nothing wrong with boundaries. We need them, in fact. It is necessary to have traditions and customs that help define us. That’s what the Jewish Law was all about. It defined a people. It helped keep them together. None of that was wrong. But when we try to confine God to our boundaries, our customs, we will always run into trouble. When we try to confine goodness to ourselves alone, we do funny things. We will - and do - become obsessed, as did those Pharisees, with convoluted arguments. We become unable to celebrate the healing that occurs around us and among us and in spite of us.
But today’s scripture, thank God, does not end with the sad comic routine of the Pharisees. And, Jesus, absent to this point, appears again. (John 9: 35-41)
It is Jesus who rescues the wonderful event of grace from the ridiculous conflict it generated. He returns to the formerly blind man and assures him that his healing is a good thing – he must have wondered. And then he reminds the Pharisees – who haven’t given this up yet – that the most dangerous kind of blindness is a chosen attitude rather than a physical affliction. And, quite frankly that hits quite close to home, doesn’t it? For, you see, sight is a very hard thing for us to live with. In a sense, we are all like Virgil – the newly sighted man in the New Yorker article. We too see parts of things but we do not have the whole picture. We need each other and we need God for that. For none of us really sees as clearly as God sees. Perhaps that is the insight most fundamental to this story of Jesus healing a blind man.
In the end, the healing of the world, of our society, of each person happens as we follow Jesus and work together to care for the poor, the sick, the helpless, the hopeless, the homeless. It happens as we work to own our individual blindnesses – the blindness of race, creed, culture, social status – and, yes, party affiliation – and then work together toward God’s vision of healing and wholeness for our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters. Jesus never gave up on the Pharisees in that story. He wanted them to see too! But, in the end, real vision is a choice we must make each day as we dare see what God sees. Blindness abounds – in us and among us. May we dare open ourselves to the vision and understanding and the healing that Jesus offers us all again and again and again . . .
