Once Blind
John 9:1-41

March 2, 2008


The captain of the airplane came on to the public address system during a bad storm with one of those dreaded requests. The pilot asked passengers if a priest was aboard who could say a prayer. No priest. “Is a minister aboard?” Silence. “Is a rabbi aboard?” No. “Is anyone with a religious affiliation on board?” A synagogue president spoke up. “Please do something religious,” the pilot implored. The president took up a collection.

There is a one of the oldest games going on here in Jerusalem, and it is something religious, just deadlier than an offering being taken on a sinking ship. It starts out intellectually, theologically. Who sinned, this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?

After the blindness of September 11, there were plenty of theological propositions. Richard Dawkins declared that this proved the dangerous corruption and bankruptcy of the monotheistic world religions - not just Islam, but Christianity and Judaism as well. I suppose that really falls under an anti-theological proposition. Meanwhile, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, among a number of others, made it clear that this was divine retribution for America’s sinful conduct, especially in the condoning of homosexuality. When bad things happen to otherwise good people, our reflex to do something religious is to point our finger at someone’s obvious sin.

Speaking about doing something religious, Judaism is known for its method of debate and argument over Scripture. One learns by arguing and defending a particular aspect of the law, and the Gospels witness to Jesus being engaged in a number of these arguments and usually winning. The losers, usually Pharisees who are the undisputed experts in the Torah, find their pride wounded and despise Jesus.

It’s actually one of Jesus’ disciples who asks the question about who sinned. Jesus throws the question out of court - that’s not the way things work. Nobody’s to blame here, as much as we want to lay blame. This is a situation where we should look to see what God can do. Before he even stopped talking, Jesus was stooping down to pick up a clump of dirt. He spit into it to moisten it up - saliva was considered in that age to have strong medicinal powers - and created a what some versions call a poultice. I am old enough to remember my mother’s concoctions of home remedy poultices for styes and other sores. He placed these quick and dirty poultices, I assume, on the eyelids of the blind man, nobody was asking, “Have you washed your hands?” Then the slightly hygienic part, Jesus tells him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. Blind though he was, he knew how to get there and when he washed off the poultices he could see.

Just for the record, for all you medical types out there: if this happened as written it was a double medical miracle. Not only could his eyes now function properly in order to be able to see, the harder part actually would be to get the brain working properly, to be wired so that it can transmit the image of an apple and enable the brain to know that that is an apple, and then there is that simple but very important matter of depth perception, how close and how far are things from you. The Gospel writers typically don’t get into that kind of detail for it gets in the way of the story, so now let’s get back.

It happens, doesn’t it, that when a burden is lifted from your shoulders that other people at first cannot recognize you. Is this the same blind guy, they asked incredulously? To paraphrase the lyrics of a recent popular song, some of his neighbours declared, “Nah, he ain’t blind, he just looks that way!”

Nevertheless, popular opinion realizes that this is now the “once blind” man and they ask him how? He knows it was Jesus, but after all, since he was blind until he washed in the pool he doesn’t know where this Jesus is now. They march him off to the authorities, the Pharisees who know everything. And they knew first of all that it was the Sabbath, and any miracles performed on the Sabbath are illegitimate. Jesus could not be a God-sent person, de facto.

However, there was a split among the Pharisees, for some recognized that healing a blind man is not the kind of thing Satan or another demon might be doing. The act of healing itself was “God-revealing.” They returned to the once blind man and asked the loaded question of what he thought about Jesus. “He is a prophet,” the sighted man replied, and everyone else gasped. No rending of garments is recorded, but there must have been some tears, for now the power game is on and the Pharisees are getting desperate. Others can see that they have dispensed with their religious logic for which they are renowned and are grasping at straws to put Jesus down.

They find the once blind man’s parents and interrogate the fear of God out of them. Was he really born blind or is this all a big hoax and scam? The parents feel viscerally the menacing power of the Pharisees’ words and say just the minimum - yes, he was born blind, but we don’t know who has made him see. He’s an adult, ask him.

The circus continues and it’s back to the once blind man. Now the Pharisees playing theological hard ball. Give credit to God, they pontificate, we know this Jesus is an imposter. They keep asking for a crack in the foundation, a loophole, a hint of heretical behaviour, but the once blind man is starting to get the message. At first I think he is fooling around with them, “Do you want to become his disciples?” That had them howling like cats, No, we’re disciples of Moses and we don’t know where this guy has come from.

He has caught on to the Pharisees’ game and is astonished at their stubbornness. No one has ever done this before, and no one without God would have been able to do anything. By the way, what have you Pharisees done lately that is godly? You’re nothing but dirt, they squeal, throwing him out of the temple. That fit, doesn’t it? He received his sight from dirt and spit. Thank God, nothing but dirt.

Jesus hears about all this and seeks him out and tells him who he is. The once blind man is overjoyed and now believes without a doubt. Jesus tells him he has come to bring light to those who were blind and to expose the blindness of those who pompously claim they see everything. Pharisees always seem to be hanging around and listening in, so they complain belligerently, are you calling us blind? No, Jesus answers, you’re not really blind, but since you think you know it all and see it all, there’s no excuse, you better see it.

I keep referring to the “once blind man” for the obvious reason. For most of this episode he is not blind and since he is new at this sight thing, he sees it all. He knows what has happened to him, but what he sees is that phenomenon we grimly call “the real world” in which the Pharisees are currently playing the role of retaining power at any cost. To the once blind man it is just not logical.

The problem with reading the Bible can be found in stories like this one. The issue for us 2000 years later is not really whether the Pharisees as a collective bunch of intense Bible readers were really that obstinate and hypocritical when it came to retaining their status in the face of a threat from the unschooled countryside. The Pharisees have been given a bad reputation that is not deserved historically. What matters in our reading today is that somebody always seems to take on the role of these Pharisees in the Gospels and acts just as poorly and obstinately. In a way this story acts more like a parable for our reading today than a historical record. The cast of thousands involved keep us alert, but confused. We want to be identified with the right side, but it isn’t that the story is switching characters, it is that you and I are different characters at different points in our lives. This man was blind from birth and none of us have avoided some kind of birth defect or other. Most of us would call it a social issue in our upbringing, an ignorance of another kind of person’s problem, but we can’t see it. Race or language, religion or culture or nationality, poverty or wealth, sexuality and substance abuse - is there anyone here who did not grow up without not being aware of some great human sin? Who sinned? Our parents are convenient targets, and then our culture and country and language determine for us at an early age who we are not and who we must not be like, and yes, who we must hate.

Once our eyes are opened we cannot believe how illogically the world runs. You and I would prefer to be the once blind man, especially with his incredulity over the actions of the power-mad Pharisees. Alas, we play the Pharisee card a lot more than we imagine in our community and country, in our province and politics, in our schools and in our church. But before you become smug in your comfortable pew and in the comfort of your opinion about what really goes on here, keep your once blind eye and your once deaf ear on the truth, the one thing that matters. Don’t look for someone to blame -whether it’s somebody else or even yourself - look for the way to love and to heal.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan