John 9.1-41

March 2, 2008 The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A

open my eyes that I may see wonders of life

One could say, as Rowan Williams does, that the whole of John’s Gospel is a trial story. Again and again, Jesus is exposed to hostile questioning; again and again, he struggles to bring to light the suspicion or unbelief that prompts such questioning, to position himself against the self-referring and self-sufficient categories of his questioners, and to redefine where they stand and who they are.

Williams reminds us that John’s gospel is the latest, written at time of savage bitterness between the community which the Gospel addresses and the parent community of the synagogue, this positioning and redefining reads painfully today, because the history of the Gospel’s reception includes so much of that anti-Jewish passion that disgraces and disfigures Christian identity. It is as if John’s concern is always to define Jesus as what ‘The Jews’ are not, and therefore to define Jewishness as opposition to truth or reality.

Nothing about this is easy reading. It is easier simply to dismiss it all. That would be an ironic mistake because the deeper theme of the Gospel, especially John’s, is that the ones who think they know are ignorant, the ones who think they see are blind. A close reading of the gospel with a listening heart compels us to ponder our own standing before the God who comes to make all things new.

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John 9.1-41

Act I A Man Born Blind Receives Sight

As he 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.

When the child with the disfigured face was brought to the doctor, his mother bowed her head in shame. She and her husband had taken a 8 hour bus ride to get to the clinic set up by doctors on a medical mission from the United States. The doctor received the child with the cleft palate and agreed to begin the long series of surgeries that would occur over the next few years, now and on return visits, until the repair was done. The doctor with the compassion of Christ asked the mother about her obvious shame. May God forgive me, she said, I don’t know what I’ve done, but I don’t want my child to bear my punishment. The doctor listened calmly. When she was finished and the tears dried up, he said simply, your child is not a punishment for your sins. One thing I know is that your child is a child of God and so are you, that’s why you brought him here. I intend to correct his palate, in Jesus’ name.

Act II The neighbors question what has happened

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.’

Unlike the child with the cleft palate, whose parents brought him to the doctors, Jesus initiates the blind man’s healing, displaying the work of God in broad day light. Perhaps there will be those who disbelieve or those who insist on placing blame somewhere on someone for something. Strangely enough when someone gets better, someone else gets worse. It happens frequently in families and communities; when the sick get better, when the blind see and the lame walk, things as they have always been can be no more. That’s what happens whenever Jesus heals someone. The newly sighted man, baptized in the waters of Siloam, is not even recognized by those who have known him for years as the poor, blind beggar. The newly sighted, newly baptized go on their way in world and someone is threatened.

Who now is blind and who can see?

Act III The Pharisees Investigate the Healing

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.’

Clearly, the identity of Jesus is at stake in this argument and just as clearly we know the bad guys and the good guys. It’s the framework for a boring movie. Instead of the Pharisees as stick figures – straw men easy to ridicule – what if we consider them as us, or at least one part of us, grappling with something far beyond our experience and comprehension. Some are open to a new thing that is happening among them, others skeptical, preferring to rely on the answers that have stood the test of time, and their own authority. What might be occurring is not a really bad B-movie but a genuine spiritual crisis of identity prompted by the newly baptized, the one sighted by a maverick prophet who has no business doing what he does in the way he does it.

Wendell Berry, the Kentucky poet, is fond of what he calls plain speech. The new baptized one knows plain speech. I was blind. He touched me. Now I see. He is a prophet. What else is there to say?. That is the ordinary witness of the baptized, transformed by God’s touch, who go about in the world seeing life as never before.

Act IV The Parents’ Testimony

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.’

Who is blind and who can see? The parents’ flee the truth, refusing to be involved in what they fear will change their lives, too. To stand with their son whom they don’t even recognize in his new status is to stand with the One who healed him. Better to not be involved. Leave things alone.

Who is blind and who can see?

Act V The Investigation continues, tension escalates

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.

And they drove him out.

It’s a tragic scene and one all too common. Religious authority is threatened. Tempers flare. Sarcasm ensues. Choices are made about the One whose healing has divided the house. Either he is the Son of God, healer of all or he is an imposter and the baptized must be banished along with him. And thethe blind man didn’t even ask to be healed! “Those who are blessed by Jesus soon run into trouble because good news has enemies.” (Fred Craddock)

Act VI Spiritual Blindness

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 worshipped 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.

Surely we are not blind are we?

This is a crucial moment pregnant with possibility. Listen closely. Jesus utterly disturbs the peace and so turns the question on everyone, including you and me. The sighted man, like all the baptized in this odd world need only bear witness, Lord, I believe! This is the gracious judgment of God: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear and good news is proclaimed to all.