John 9:1-34; March 19, 2023; Fourth Sunday in Lent
“You were born entirely in sins, are you trying to teach us?” – John 9:34
Such hubris! Let’s begin today by correcting what is wrong.
1) This notion that certain people are born with sins while others are not. No. Either sins are original and we all have them, or they are learned and we all commit them. But either way, we all got them, from birth or not.
2) The idea that God does not listen to sinners (John 9:31). For starters, most of scripture is made up of sinners petitioning and praying to God and getting responses in return. Jesus himself tells us to knock and the door will be opened. And though sometimes the door doesn’t open as much as we would wish, he is still saying that you and me – all of us sinners — can talk and pray to God and that we will be heard.
3) “Never since the world began has anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing (John 9:32).” Now this is mostly true, since Jesus is from God, and he can do a lot more than nothing! But while we don’t have other Biblical evidence of mud and spit healing people, we do have countless psalms and prophetic messages speaking of God opening eyes; as well 2 Kings 6 where God explicitly opens the eyes of those who had them previously shut.
4) “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. (John 9:3).” Though it’s great that Jesus refutes that this man’s blindness was due to sin, allow me just a quick minute to speak a little bit on the danger of this text if read incorrectly. For if we were to take this as a global statement of truth – that he was born blind so that God’s works would be revealed in him – then this would suggest that kids who are born with non-functioning kidneys or some other terrible deformity or hardship, or into poverty or war-torn places still, are so because of a divine stroke of ego. It would further suggest that the traumas that we are subjected to are in some way authored by God, rendering us pawns in some cosmic game of chess. So no, I don’t believe that — that God authors our pain; nor that God predetermines for certain children to be born blind, hungry, or still. No.
Rather, I like to put greater emphasis on the word “might.” Such that it reads more correctly, in my opinion, “he was born blind so God’s works might be revealed in him.” God did not make him blind, nor offer a guarantee that all will be healed or revealed in this fallen world. But it is possible, that through him, something surprising may happen…Much like my sermon last week, when I talked about my time with the Compassionate Friends group, how even in their suffering they have found hope, I believe that God is present and working in places where both traumas and sins are apparent; and in those workings and in those places, surprising characters, like the blind man in our story, mayemerge and possibly show us and teach us things that we would otherwise be too blind to see and too stubborn to learn from.
For instance… years ago when I was a teenager, I was a royal pain in the butt. I was a frustrated curmudgeon even though I was only 15. I would wear these Jesus T-Shirts to high school, I would doodle these little crosses on my hands; and I would carry a little pocket Bible in my backpack and place it on my desk for everyone else to see. And although I didn’t see it then, in truth it was all a farce to protect my fragile sense of self, as I used each as a weapon to judge others. It is true. “You who were entirely born in sins, are you trying to teach me?” — this was how I reasoned, and what I thought of my peers. I was a Pharisee without the education. …I never really went to youth group; I thought they were phony. I never went to a Bible study; what else could I learn? I never went on a work project or a service trip; because my heart was already pure and that was works enough. All lies of course. But at that time, those were my “truths.”
Well one day, a new Youth Minister came to our church and said I should join them on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. My first thought was “yeah, right. With all of them? Plus, they’ve got those mosquitoes and spiders down there, so, thanks but no thanks.” And though I was steadfast and stubborn, she started to work on me, and some months later, I ended up packing my Jesus T-Shirts, my pocket Bible, and my pen for crosses, and went with them down to the DR.
But honestly, I felt confronted the whole way down. “Why am I doing this?” “Why am I with these people?” And so, I was the last one out of the dorms and the first one back in. Until one day in the middle of the week, when I went to go pee in the dark and was startled by a tarantula in the urinal. I can remember the fear like it happened yesterday. My roommate, who I absolutely could not stand, heard my loud screech and cried out in return, “what’s wrong, what did you see?” I screamed “A GIANT SPIDER.” He said, “oh, I’ve always wanted to see one, show me.” And so, confused, I showed him, and instead of being afraid or disgusted, he was interested and excited! He went on to explain how they eat all sorts of insects and mosquitoes, especially those in the area that might carry and transmit diseases. And then he just walked away, and went back to sleep, like it was all nothing and that the spider wasn’t there, hairy or scary. This floored me. What on Earth was this guy talking about? How could this be? How could he of all people know so many things about tarantulas and be so calm and insightful about them? And so I went to bed with these questions frustrated into the morning.
That next day we went to work on a foundational wall that we were building for a nearby school. A local boy about my age came up to me and asked if I would like to play basketball. I said, “what?” He had no shoes on his feet, you could see his ribs, and he had scars on his skin from unknown injuries. He asked me again if I would like to play basketball, and I told him I couldn’t really because of my knees. He said, that’s okay, let’s just shoot around. So, cautiously leaving the work site, Ariel (this was his name) took me to this court which was more like a dried-up mud patch. And there as we shot around, he worked on me, and told me how fortunate he was. And how good Christ has been to him. I took another look at his feet and his ribs, and I asked him, “How can you say that?” He said, “Brother, I am alive.”
When I came home from the Dominican Republic, one of the first things my mom asked me was, “where are your shoes?” I think I remember telling her that “I gave them to a friend who just changed my life.”
Now unlike my story from two weeks ago, all of this is true. Ariel, the tarantula, and the shoes. And while I do not know where Ariel is today, if he is playing basketball somewhere, or even if he is alive, and while I do not believe for a second that God put him there in that place just for me to learn something, I do believe in my heart that through his testimony of faith, and his manifestation of the good news of Jesus Christ, he helped opened the door that I had been long but wrongly knocking on, and I was changed and blind no more.
And it wasn’t just Ariel of course, whose name means Lion of God. But it was also the spider. And my surprising roommate who knew a lot about them. And my new youth minister who didn’t give up on me; who all in the presence of God were working on me, to stop me from being so pious, so stubborn, and so resistant to change and a new outlook on faith, creation, and life.
The blind man in our story today kept saying “I am him…I can see…” but no matter what he would say, the Pharisees and the people wouldn’t believe him. For they couldn’t see. In their stubbornness, they asked him twelve questions. Twelve! And in their disbelief and their unwillingness to learn and change, they interrogated him and exposed their hardness of heart.
He said to 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?’
But they couldn’t because they couldn’t. See, they were only capable of thinking of themselves as the shareholders of righteousness. And so, they wanted to believe that they already knew everything, saying, “This is the way we have always done it, and the way we’ve always seen it, and no one will tell us otherwise. Especially not him.” And so, they elected to stay blind and stuck in their ways. Just like I did for a long time. And perhaps just like you have too.
But my friends, as Christ’s disciples, we are charged with using today, and everyday, as an opportunity to meet the Ariels of this world, to re-engage God and creation (maybe even spiders), to re-examine and correct our bias, our ignorance, and where we have gone wrong. Where we have misunderstood lies for truth. Where we have deceived ourselves thinking that others are beneath us, and that only they are sinners.
No. For we all fall short.
So let us instead trust that our faith begins and grows by also letting go. Of antiquated ideas and traditions, of egos and hubris, of everything that blinds us from what might be surprising and new and happening all around us; in Christ who is not dead, nor relegated to a footnote in history, but who is from God, and thus alive and with us still, working on us, in all things, in all peoples, in all places, both now and forever more.
Amen.
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First Lesson (John 9:1-17)
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. 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.’
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.’
Second Lesson (John 9:18-34)
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.’
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.
