The Reading— Acts 9: 3-19 (portions)
[Paul] set off. When he got to the outskirts of Damascus, he was suddenly dazed by a blinding flash of light. As he fell to the ground, he heard a voice: "Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?" He said, "Who are you, Master?" "I am Jesus, the One you're hunting down. I want you to get up and enter the city…” His companions stood there dumbstruck—they could hear the sound, but couldn't see anyone—while Saul, picking himself up off the ground, found himself stone-blind. They had to take him by the hand and lead him into Damascus. He continued blind for three days. He ate nothing, drank nothing.
There was a disciple in Damascus by the name of Ananias. The Master spoke to him in a vision: "Ananias." "Yes, Master?" he answered. "Get up and go over to Straight Avenue. Ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus. His name is Saul. He's there praying. He has just had a dream in which he saw a man named Ananias enter the house and lay hands on him so he could see again." Ananias protested, "Master, you can't be serious. Everybody's talking about this man and the terrible things he's been doing”,… But Jesus said, "Don't argue. Go! …So Ananias went and found the house, placed his hands on blind Saul, and said, "Brother Saul, the Master sent me, the same Jesus you saw on your way here. He sent me so you could see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than something like scales fell from Saul's eyes—he could see again!”
The Gospel Reading: John 9: 1-11
Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, "Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?" Jesus said, "You're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world's Light." He said this and then spit in the dust, made a clay paste with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man's eyes, and said, "Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam" (Siloam means "Sent"). The man went and washed—and saw.
Soon the town was buzzing. His relatives and those who year after year had seen him as a blind man begging were saying, "Why, isn't this the man we knew, who sat here and begged?" Others said, "It's him all right!" But others objected, "It's not the same man at all. It just looks like him." He said, "It's me, the very one." They said, "How did your eyes get opened?" "A man named Jesus made a paste and rubbed it on my eyes and told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' I did what he said. When I washed, I saw."
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God, we turn to you for understanding and transformation. Guide us this day and may my words and our thoughts be attuned to your Holy Spirit. Amen
All of the stories of Jesus’ healings are impressive but this story is full of layers of truth and theological meaning. It is also a story that it is easily misunderstood as shown by the confusion of the disciples and in later verses the Jewish authorities. This story follows a passage in John we did not study—let’s just say, it was not going well for Jesus. If we were to examine the context of this story, we would find Jesus just barely escaping stoning at the end of the eighth chapter of John. He slips away and we pick up the story where we find Jesus walking down the street. He comes across a beggar who was blind from birth. Though often missed, this is an important element of the story. The wisdom of the day suggested that handicaps, disabilities, or difficult situations were most often punishment meted out by a vengeful God who made people “pay” for their sins. We could, of course, say that the conventional wisdom of today is not so much different. Everything from AIDS to poverty to world hunger has been blamed on God who supposedly is punishing those who are different from who others think they should be.
Because the man has been born blind, the disciples have a bit of a conundrum to work through. And so, they ask Jesus, “why was this man born blind—because of his sins or the sins of his parents?” Jesus says quickly, “you are asking the wrong question. While looking for someone to blame you have completely missed the opportunity to see what God can do to ease the burden of blindness this man has carried from birth.” Oh, uh, not the answer we were looking for—surely someone is to blame. When bad things happen, even today, even in this church so full of joy and anticipation of good, we can stumble and look for reasons, someone or something to blame when things don’t go the way we had planned. And in this one answer, Jesus settles for us the question that we allow to eat at us, to gnaw at us, rather than looking for what God can do now. I know that there are those of you sitting here today or reading this sermon later who will be unsettled by what Jesus says. As we retrain our hearts to turn away from blame, we will naturally find room to explore God’s miracles, great and small, in our current situation and in the situation of others. And, in the first miracle, we find the energy to work for God and all the children of God.
So, let’s return to the miracle about to unfold in this story. Jesus spits in the dust, makes a clay paste with the saliva, rubs the paste on the blind man's eyes, and says, "Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam". The man went and washed—and saw. Sometimes Jesus used parables to show us the truth—sometimes the truth was shone through actual events such as this one. This event was, for both the man and his community, a miracle. But there is lots going on behind, in the midst of, and beyond a simple miracle. Along with the formerly blind man, three groups of people were being encouraged to see things in a new light, if you will.
First, there were the disciples—blinded by their own lack of theological understanding. “You’re asking the wrong question,” Jesus says. How often are we so immature in the faith that, not only do we come up with the wrong answer, we don’t even have the knowledge to ask the right question. Caught in the morass of blame-seeking, they were unable to see the glory that God was about to display. Jesus wanted his disciples then, and I believe, now, to begin asking the right questions—questions like how can God change this situation—how can God use me to bring hope, or transformation, or light to this or that situation, and, to whom belongs the glory for what is about to happen? God, perhaps? God, of course. Pushing ourselves beyond the need to blame and shame, we find ourselves in new territory—territory made bright by the light of God.
Second, there were the people in the man’s community. They were made blind by their denial—they saw what they saw and, yet, they could not bring themselves to believe. Do we not use denial in similar ways? We see a need, an opportunity or place where we could fill the gap. But, we do not want to make the effort to respond to such enlightenment, and so we deny it in several ways. First, we may deny that the need even exists; and, secondly, we may deny that we have the skills, abilities, funds, or wherewithal, to allow God to use us to ameliorate or improve the situation. In psychology, denial is a defense mechanism—a form of thinking we utilize, consciously or not—to avoid being present to the issue at hand. In theology, or our understanding of God, it is not so different—if we remain blind to what God wants to do in our lives, we avoid the light of God’s truth altogether.
A little later on in the story, the third form of blindness appears. The Jewish authorities hear of this miracle and can think of only one thing. Jesus has broken the Law. Since this was the Sabbath, the doing of any work was prohibited. According to a strict understanding of such a prohibition, Jesus, when he made paste from the mud and spit, worked. They could see nothing else. Their blindness of righteous indignation allowed them to declare that Jesus was a sinner, and, as such, could not have performed any miracle, much less one of this magnitude. We will always have those who are blinded by the Law or a sense of legalism which precludes seeing the miracle for the miracle that it is. Nevertheless, Jesus calls us to expose the darkness of legalism, denial, and immaturity through the light that he brings to this world. “I am the light of the world” says this Jesus, worker of miracles, bringer of new sight and new light.
Of course, one can make a metaphor of this story, and it’s not a bad thing to do. The “blindness” of the man’s eyes can represent the blindness of our hearts. But Jesus is there, offering us the light of freedom from the Law, revitalization of our lives and the knowledge that we need to proceed. The man himself, living out the miracle, does not look for a sophisticated answer to the people’s question. “I was blind, a man named Jesus put mud on my eyes and told me to wash. When I washed, I saw.” The Pharisees tried to get him to say more, but there was no more to his understanding at the time. He knew the truth—he followed what Jesus told him to do and, in an instant, he saw.
Interestingly enough, after the temple authorities questioned the man who could now see, they threw him out of the Temple. He was rejected when blind, made to beg for the necessities of his life; and, when restored to wholeness, he was rejected for being a part of something too big for them to understand. He found himself alone again, except for Jesus who sought him out. When he found him, Jesus asked the man if he believed in the Messiah. The man, in his innocence said, “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. And, then, Jesus explained it all at once: “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” The ever-present Pharisees reacted to his declaration: “What? Are we blind too?” You can almost hear them sputtering and hopping around in their rage. Jesus, answered them simply, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains”.
When, we allow God to open the eyes of our hearts and see, we have faith just as the man born blind. We can even see that God is working when we don’t know why or how. Much of the time, we hold on to the blindness as a shield against the change God wants to bring to our lives. We feel secure, wrapped in our blanket of sameness and status quo. We hold on to old ways of being and giving and praising, because we are comfortable and just a little afraid of what it will feel like if we allow God to enable us to see with new eyes and new sight. Jesus, though, is all about this new way of seeing—to understand that our health problems or losses do not occur because of our sins, to push past denial to a new way of thinking, to live in grace instead of blame and shame. New sight will give us the ability to perceive God’s grace—to comprehend the very best in our healed selves and in the healed and whole selves of others. We do not serve a vengeful, punishing God—we serve a God who loves us and calls us to a life of grace.
Nietzsche, a philosopher, who did not hesitate to critique Christianity once said, “You Christians should look more redeemed.” We serve a God who calls us to dance in the light with Jesus, the Lord of the dance, and to open our eyes, to stay alert for the opportunities to praise God for the miracles in our lives and to stay ready to be the miracle that brings sight to the blind and healing to the hopeless. We serve a God who calls us to dance! Amen and Amen
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