Sermons

Encountering Jesus: A Man Born Blind

John Wilkinson                               Third Presbyterian Church  March 6, 2005                               John 9:1-41

Throughout the Lenten season, we will experience the Gospel of John’s telling of encounters with Jesus. We began with a man called Nicodemus and then followed with an unnamed Samaritan woman. This morning we shall hear about an unnamed blind man, and next week it shall be a man named Lazarus. Several of these stories, including this morning’s, are long and detailed, almost short stories in their own right. They bear reading and re-reading, and any one of them on their own, could fill a season’s, if not a career’s, worth of sermons. This morning, in fact, we will hear the story a bit differently, in three acts, and spend a few moments reflecting on each act. You may want to find the words themselves on page 102 in your pew Bible. Let us hear God’s word…

(Verses 1-12) As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ 3Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

8 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?’ 9Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ 10But they kept asking him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’ 11He 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.’ 12They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’

A National Survey on Vision Loss, conducted by Louis Harris and Associates, found that 1 in 6 Americans (13.5 million) over the age of 45 reports some form of vision impairment, even with their glasses on. That number increases to 1 in 4 (3.5 million) for Americans over the age of 75. How much higher the percentage had to be 2000 years ago, and how much greater the social stigma had to be for those who could not see, or see very well.

One version of this is an age-associated progressive loss of the focusing power of the lens that results in difficulty seeing objects close-up. It is called, by the way, presbyopia. The root meaning of presbyopia and Presbyterian are the same!

That is not, apparently, what our friend had. He is unnamed in John. In the synoptic gospels, the fancy term for Matthew, Mark and John, he is named Bartimaeus, and he is identified as a beggar. He must have been some kind of social outcast because the disciples inquire of Jesus whether it was his guilt or his parents' that he was blind.

It seems so distasteful to us until we realize how we do the very same in our time – attach blame to illness and disease; assign guilt to a social condition; offer judgment rather than solidarity. Jesus will have none of it.

Notice how Jesus uses this encounter to speak of night and day, light and dark. And then he heals him, spitting into the dirt and baptizing his eyes with the mud.

I am enough of a 21st century scientific person to have questions about all of this, but I am enough of a person of faith, and perhaps we are as well, to leave open the possibility.

That’s not really the point, however. The point is that Jesus took this one seriously, when the world, when religion, did not. And that this man became a vehicle of grace and a vessel for proclamation.

(Verses 13-34)13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15Then 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.’ 16Some 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. 17So 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.’ 18The 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 19and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’ 20His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21but 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.’ 22His 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. 23Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’ 24So 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.’ 25He answered, ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ 26They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ 27He 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?’ 28Then they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ 30The man answered, ‘Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ 34They answered him, ‘You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ And they drove him out.

The late Raymond Brown wrote that this is not only “the story of how a man who sat in darkness was brought to see the light, physically and spiritually, but a tale of how those who thought (emphasis added) they saw were blinding themselves to the light and plunging into darkness.” (Anchor Bible Commentary, Gospel of John, page 376 and ff)

They cannot see the truth. In this interrogation scene, they seem to accept the fact that he can see, accept it reluctantly, angrily. They even bring in his parents as character witnesses.

Their problem is not with him, of course, but rather with Jesus. They accuse Jesus of healing on the Sabbath, which of course he did. Whatever has happened is entirely inexplicable, except to say that it had something to do with Jesus. Finally the religious authorities become so agitated that they drive him out of the proceedings. They cannot argue with what they see in front of them, so their anger is relocated to the source.

Gail O’Day (Interpretation Commentary, Volume IX, page 663) suggests that nestled between the actual healing and the proclamation that is to come, this portion of the encounter provide “profound theological irony,” that the religious authorities “who positioned themselves as judges of others, finally bring themselves under judgment as sinners.” That should be a call to confession for every religious institution, every leader in position of authority, and more so, all of us.

This is not about not judging, to double the negative. We judge and evaluate all the time, ourselves and others. This is about our posture and approach: humility and love, so that we and those whom God loves grow in love and discipleship and are welcomed ever more fully into the community.

When the authorities drive this man out of the synagogue, they do more than that. They testify to their own inability to discern God’s love all around them. We should be so aware.

(Verses 35-41) 35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ 36He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ 37Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ 38He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshiped him.

39 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.’ 40Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ 41Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see,” your sin remains.

The Gospel of John offers a consistent pattern. Au unnamed Samaritan women encounters Jesus, as does an unnamed blind man. Scholars assert that they remain unnamed to give us all access to their experiences, symbolizing our encounters with Jesus as well as the particularity of the episode.

An encounter happens and that person is transformed. And then they go and tell others the story.

Who would think that this woman, at the peripheries of faith because of her gender and nationality, and this man, at the peripheries of faith because of his medical and social condition, would instead serve as models of faith and belief and proclamation? How could that be? And yet it is.

“Lord, when did we see you?” the disciples famously ask Jesus elsewhere in the gospels. “As you minister to the least of these,” he replies, “you do so to me.”

That is what makes our outreach ministries so important. They are important in that they bring real resources – food, education, a place to sleep – to those in need. But more than that. We serve Christ as we serve in this way. But even more than that. We are called to be open to the possibility, the probability, that Christ meets us in the encounter, transforms us as we are open to it. And to shut any person out because of their poverty, or difference of worldview, or social condition, is to shut Christ out from the transforming power that we all need to receive, even as we give. That is true for the church as institutional religion; that is true for each one of us as well.

Eugene Boring and Fred Craddock write that “one cannot turn on the light without creating shadows. In an absolutely dark room, all are equally blind. But when the light is switched on, the coming of the light separates those who are truly blind from those who can see. The light does not create blindness but separates those who are blind from those who see light.” (The People’s New Testament Commentary, page 318)

Seeing the light is not a matter of credential, as John’s continual critique of religious authority would remind us. Rather, seeing the light is a matter of encounter, a matter of realizing what is missing in our lives no matter our station or status, and approaching the light with humility.

And we shall be transformed. That is the promise. We will be healed. We will be welcomed. We will be redeemed. We will move from darkness to light. We will be loved. That is the promise. And given such sight, we will be empowered to share this light with a world that yet walks in darkness, in humility and joy.

In the middle of this encounter, as the one who was blind and who no longer is so is peppered with question after question about Jesus, he finally says this. He says, “ I do not know. I do not know. But what I do know is this, that though I was blind, now I see.”

May that serve as our promise and our proclamation. And may we sing together… “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost and now am found. Was blind but now I see.” Amen.