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Sermon - March 2nd, 2008
Acknowledgement
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: John 9:1-41
Prayer: We give thanks, O God, for sacred stories. Through the holy scriptures you nurture our imaginations, increase our awareness, and challenge our assumptions. May the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
This story is complex. It is full of symbols, metaphors, nuances, and subleties. After all, it’s in the Gospel of John. And when we read the Gospel of John, it leaves us wondering…is there more going on here than what we see? And the answer is, yes, it’s the Gospel of John. We have to not only look at the surface. We have to look deeper. We have to peel off the layers and look deeper. And this particular story is one of John’s works of art. Live in the story for a while, and you may discover why it is called a masterpiece by some scholars.
Let me tell the story again. Jesus walked down a road, saw a man who had been blind his whole life. Jesus healed the man, and then moved on. The man was left alone to explain what happened to him. This was no easy task.
First, he was harassed by his neighbors who weren’t even sure he was the same person, the one who had been blind from birth. Then they weren’t sure that they like this changed person. They turned him over to the Pharisees for further interrogation. The Pharisees told him that if it was Jesus who healed him, they knew Jesus to be a sinner because the healing took place on the Sabbath. Therefore, the healing was in violation of the law. “So, Mister former blind man, what do you say to that?” And the blind man answered, “He is a prophet.”
Doubting his story, the Pharisees brought the parents in for a positive identification. The parents pleaded ignorance to everything, except, yes, this was their son who had been blind from the day he was born. “That’s all we are going to say because he is old enough to speak for himself,” they said.
So they asked him to tell them again what had happened. “I told you already. Did you not listen? All I know is that once I was blind, but now I see.” And the Pharisees drove him out. The story ends with Jesus coming back, concluding with a parting blow for the Pharisees, saying, “You are the ones who are blind in this world.”
Now, the Gospel of John likes to use darkness as a metaphor for the human condition. Such as, the birth of Jesus was announced in the first chapter of John as: “The light has come into the darkness of this world, and the darkness has not been able to overcome it.” Last week we saw that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, in the dark. Jesus told him that those who do what is true come into the light. Jesus says several times, “I am the light of the world.” He said it in this story. In all four gospels, Jesus heals people who cannot see. It happens so often that it must mean something more than just reporting a miracle.
Look at what happened to the man in this story. Jesus took a handful of dirt, he spit on it to make mud. The last time something like that happened in the Bible was in the Book of Genesis, when God created human beings. So what is the writer of John saying? Are we witnessing a “new” creation, a person being born again? Jesus placed the mud on the man’s eyes and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He did, and when he returned, the man known as the blind man who sat and begged was changed. He could see. His eyes were opened. The light had overcome the darkness. However, he was the only one who could see it. Everyone else could not see. “It looks like him,” they said. “But no, it must be someone else.”
This story is loaded with theological matters of major importance. The disciples asked about the relationship of suffering to sin. Jesus acted on his own initiative and not in response to the blind man’s faith. In other words, faith follows rather than precedes healing. There is no statement from Jesus saying, “Your faith has made you well.” We also learn that the blind see and the seeing are blind. Also, this story is unique in and of itself because Jesus heals the man, disappears, and then re-appears again at the end. And the time of Jesus’ absence is no picnic for the healed man. In fact, the man could have said. “I never asked to be healed. If this is what it means to be blessed by God, I think I would like Jesus to take it back. Thanks, but no thanks.”
This is one of those truths that the church does not want to acknowledge. I only have to drive past a few reader boards to see that not one church dares to say, “God’s favor more often leads into rather than away from difficulties.” Or, what about this, “A relationship with God will place you in the line of fire.” Have you read that lately? We cannot read this story of the healing of the blind man and preach about faith bringing the cessation of pain, suffering, poverty, restless nights and turbulent days. And those who proclaim this are offering false comfort. Notice what happened to the healed man while Jesus was gone.
Scene one: The healed man tries to go home again but cannot. So radical is the change in him that his return to the neighborhood is greeted by doubt and questions. He comes home walking upright, assured of place and direction, quite independent, only to discover that he has no place anymore.
Scene two: The healed man is hauled before the religious authorities. The healing occurred on the Sabbath; therefore, they conclude it was done by someone opposing God’s law. Are you sure you can see? Were you really blind? Who did it? Further investigation is needed.
Scene three: The parents are grilled by the religious leaders. Whatever joy they may have had is drowned in fear. Expulsion from the synagogue and social disgrace is a high price to pay for having a son especially blessed by God.
The final scene: The healed man is grilled a second time more intensely. They try to intimidate the man into denouncing Jesus as a sinner. The man only has his experience and his logic. He cannot believe a sinner could have the power of God. Anger and frustration rule: the man is denounced along with Jesus and is expelled as a sinner. A few days previous the man’s life was blessed by Jesus and now his old friends disregard him, his parents reject him, and he is no longer welcome at his old place of worship. What a blessing!
Then Jesus returns and declares, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” This is not good news for everyone. There are some people who thrive on the status quo. There are some people who do not want the boat rocked. There are some people who do not want miracles to happen. There are some people who do not want to see anything except what they want to see. And they are not just the Pharisees. They are you and me. There is a part of each one of us that is the Pharisee. It is true. It is how we survive. It is how we cope. It is part of our defense mechanism. It is also how we self-destruct.
This is a story for our postmodern time, I believe. Especially if the scholars are right in believing that the Gospel of John was written at a time that the followers of Jesus were being thrown out of the synagogue—the separation of church and synagogue. The healed man represents a new community that is not recognized not acknowledged by the old community. Today, we are in danger of being the old community, the old guard who even though we have perfectly good eyes, we can’t see what is really happening right before us. We don’t recognize ourselves. We read the story and take the side of the healed man. We know the old ways. Now we find ourselves blinded by the light, when the light could be showing us the way.
It is an exciting time for the church. But the church as we know it just might be dying. The church as we know it might need to die. A terrifying thought for us professional clergy, believe me. And we know how to protect ourselves, just like the Pharisees. Get rid of the radicals. Get rid of those who see the light. We remain blind to what is right in front of us and refuse to believe that God is still creating, still healing, still doing a new thing in our world.
It is time for us to not take anything for granted. The gift of sight and hearing and taste—even life itself it just that—a gift! What we need to do in the church is to do what we do best—start over. An remember that we do not do this alone. Oh, how I have keep learning that. We can’t do it alone. We need God who will never give up on us…never stop loving us…. Never stop believing in us. And what a gift this is because God knows we don’t deserve it.
So, when we receive the gifts of the bread and the cup today, we need to remember that Jesus came to make us new, to open our eyes so we can see. Our tendency is to keep them closed, to blindly take the bread and cup in our hands, and go through the motions, because we have been doing that for years and years. We need to get off automatic pilot because it’s killing us. Our old ways are killing us. This is a new day. And I don’t know any more than you, what God is creating or who God is healing. But I do know I want to be one of the people who can see what is happening when it happens. I want to be one of the people who sees the truth and stands in the light. The Pharisees ask Jesus, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Not us, Jesus. We are not blind are we?
May God open our eyes and ears and hearts—so that we can truly be part of the new creation that God is showing us. May God help us lead the way. It won’t be easy. We will be changed. Some won’t recognize us. Some won’t want us around anymore. Let us go forward with courage… saying once we were blind, now we can see.
Amen.