Rev. Debbie Cato
John 9:1-41
Fairfield Community Church
March 19 , 2023
God of
Good news, there is reading your Word, there is hearing your Word, and then
there is tunneling ourselves into your Word— harvesting your Word, building a
home in your Word, wrapping ourselves in your Word, knowing your Word like the
back of our hand, and planting ourselves like a garden in your Word. God, we
could listen to scripture like we listen to the news, or we could cocoon
ourselves in your Word and it could change us entirely. So bundle us up. Give
us the latter. We want to know you. With hopeful hearts we pray, Amen
Who Sinned – and Other Bad Questions
There is
no such thing as a dumb question. How
many times have you heard that? I’ve
said it myself many, many times.
Whenever I’m teaching or leading a Bible study. There’s no such thing as a dumb question. And that’s true. I hold fast to that. When you are learning, everything is open for
questioning, for asking, for seeking. How
will you know if you don’t ask? But as
we learn in today’s scripture passage, there can be bad questions.
When it comes to faith, questions that are formed by assumptions, questions that lead us to judgment or isolation, are bad questions. When Jesus and the disciples encounter a blind man along the way, the disciples immediately ask, “Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" They ask a bad question. Their question assumes that illness and disability are the result of sin; who sinned, the man himself or his parents? Their question assumes that the man deserved to be born blind; it assumes that physical blindness is a form of failure.[1]
This scripture passage challenges us to see the world as God does, rather than from a normal human perspective. To see things as God does is an essential part of being God's people in the world. This sounds well and good, but to see as God does encounters the two dangers of audacity and futility. Who in their right mind would be so rash as to claim to share God's perspective? And on the other hand, who isn't aware of how many ways our perspectives are shaped, limited, and compromised? To see like God does requires radical vision correction, for God doesn't look at the world like we do.[2] And thank goodness for that!
1 Samuel 16:7 says, “… for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” God sees the humanity, not just a single thing about a person.
This passage in John tells of the healing of a beggar who was born blind. Jesus spits on the ground and with his spit he makes mud, smears it on the man’s eyes and tells him to go to the pool and wash the mud off. When he does, the man can see. He is no longer blind. What a miracle!
But the details of the miracle itself are only about a third of the narrative. Most of the story revolves around the disputes that the miracle provokes, and how different people draw different conclusions even though they all see the same thing.
Dan Clendenin, a scholar says, “There are so many fascinating details in this story that merit attention: precise descriptions about spit, mud, and the interrogation of parents that characterize an eyewitness account; the disinterest about Jesus on the part of the blind man who received the miracle; the inexcusably cruel insinuation by the disciples that the beggar's blindness was an act of divine punishment; the inherent skepticism and suspicion surrounding the plausibility of a genuine miracle; the complex factors that can prevent a true miracle from eliciting genuine faith; and the interactions among the characters in the larger drama — Jesus, his disciples, the blind beggar, his parents, the religious elite, and even the larger community.”[3]
You see, the professional clergy make all the wrong moves in this story. They refuse to believe eye-witness accounts of the miracle. They are more concerned at maintaining ritual morality about Sabbath-keeping than to love another human being and rejoice in his wholeness. They blabber pious cliches. They scapegoat the victim and "hurl insults" at him. They condescendingly claim a spiritual exclusiveness that intentionally humiliates the beggar. They demonize him as a "sinner." They throw him out of the synagogue. All their actions and words confirm their own tragic blindness. We learn that it was their spiritual blindness, and not the physical blindness of the beggar, that is really the central plot of the story.[4] This. This is what we are supposed to learn. How are we spiritually blind? H0w and where and when do we need our eyes opened?
The passage today uses physical affliction as a tool to point out how we always want to be so sure and secure about the world and that rather than really seeing – seeing as God see, we rationalize. The crowd is certain that there must be a cause and effect at play in the man’s blindness - God’s judgment caused this man’s blindness; he or his parents sinned. So when a miracle occurs and the blindness is cured, they refuse to believe and give what Jesus did the credit.[5]
You see, too often, we want to believe, but only on our terms.
We want to believe that people should be held accountable for their circumstances, and generally speaking this is not a terrible thing for society, but in this case, we are talking about a human’s personhood and the assumptions made about the person. The disciples' first reaction is to debate the blindness and not deal at all with the human. Intellectualizing and theologizing outside of seeing the human being, created in God’s image, right in front of them led them to ask bad questions. Rather than ask, “How can we heal and help?” they ask, “Whose fault is it?”[6]
We do the same thing today when suffering, pain, and affliction are revealed right before us. Empathetic inquiry is set aside and we rush to judge before we even know the nature and depth of the problem we are trying to address . . . or if it is a problem at all. We rush to judge before we know anything about their story; their circumstances. We too easily view one another through a one-dimensional lens so that all we can do is start down a path toward misplaced questions and actions based on mistaken assumptions:[7]
v “We know people are poor because…”
“We know people are in prison because…”
“We know people are sick because…”
Or worse
yet,
v “She
deserves to be poor or homeless because…”
v “He
deserves to be in prison because…”
v “She
deserves to be sick because…”
The truth is, we don't know. We assume we know. We put people in boxes and we rationalize to make ourselves feel better. But the hope is that we could know more if only we would take the time to ask better questions and see the way God sees.
This passage concludes with a punch line that is disturbing: Jesus
says, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will
see and those who see will become blind." When some Pharisees asked if
they were blind, Jesus responded, "If you were blind, you would not be
guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."[8]
But Jesus flips the script and moves from the literal to the
spiritual — the claim to see is far more tragic, for it masks a blindness
to our need for corrective vision.[9]
One of the most dangerous spiritual places that we can live is
in the
deluded notion that we are fully-sighted, spiritually-speaking. On
the other hand, the healthiest place to live is not only to acknowledge our
spiritual blindness, but also to embrace that as an acceptable place to live.[10]
He knows better than anyone that there is pain and suffering in the world. Jesus was fully human as much as he was fully divine. He experienced hunger and thirst. He experienced sickness and the death of dear friends. He mourned and he suffered fierce opposition, persecution, pain, and suffering. He died for us. Jesus understands us.
Let‘s pay attention to the questions we ask. Let’s be aware of our own blindness.
Today’s questions to take away might include: What assumptions do we carry? What is our intent? When seeking clarity or understanding, what are better questions we can ask? Where am I spiritually blind? Where do my eyes need to be opened? Amen.
[1] Sanctified
Art.com The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Seeking: Who Sinned? Theme Connections.
[2] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.
A Man Was Born Blind. By Dan Clendenin.
Posted 12 March 2023.
[3] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545. A Man Was Born Blind. By Dan Clendenin. Posted 12 March 2023.
[4]
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.
A Man Was Born Blind. By Dan Clendenin.
Posted 12 March 2023.
[5]
Sanctified Art.com The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Seeking: Who Sinned? Commentary.
Bruce Reyes-Chow
[6]
Sanctified
Art.com The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Seeking: Who Sinned? Commentary.
Bruce Reyes-Chow
[7]
Sanctified
Art.com The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Seeking: Who Sinned? Commentary.
Bruce Reyes-Chow
[8]
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.
A Man Was Born Blind. By Dan Clendenin.
Posted 12 March 2023.
[9]https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.
A Man Was Born Blind. By Dan Clendenin.
Posted 12 March 2023.
[10]
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.
A Man Was Born Blind. By Dan Clendenin.
Posted 12 March 2023.
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