THE JOURNEYS OF LENT
A MAN BORN BLIND – THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Scriptures:
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-9; 35-38
How are your Lenten journeys going? We’re now in the fourth week for following some really interesting Biblical characters who have something to tell us about our own stories: Adam and Eve being birthed from the Garden of Eden, Nicodemus being re-born as Jesus led him through an inner journey, and Moses being born into faith as he willingly accepts a command from God to strike the stone in order to get water in the wilderness (we also looked at the Samaritan woman Jesus meets at Jacob’s well as part of the Moses/water/wilderness/faith story).
Today’s passage from the gospel of John brings us to another person Jesus meets along the route of his own spiritual journey. And like the woman at the well, he is a man who has no name. We simply know him as “a man born blind”. How frustrating. Wouldn’t it be better if the gospel writers, like our modern novelists, gave names to their characters so we could better identify them and refer back to them? Someone’s name was really important in the Hebrew culture – it summed up who that person was; anyone misusing another’s name was committing a serious crime. That’s why God’s response to Moses at the burning bush when Moses asks for God’s name is so central to his – and our – understanding of the Divine One: “I Am Who I Am”. Great mystery. But that’s another sermon.
We want to know the name of this man in John’s gospel and perhaps something about his community or background. Or would we? At one level maybe it’s better not to have a name for this man born blind or the woman at the well, because then the story becomes more about us. And as we have said, these stories that we are following are important not so much because of what they tell us about people in the Bible but because of what they tell us about our own actions and reactions.
We’re shifting our focus now (pun somewhat intended) in terms of Biblical imagery from water to light. Both are really important symbols for John. We’ve already heard about his use of baptism, being born of water and the spirit, and “living water” in order to point to what Jesus is all about. The symbol of light also threads its way throughout John’s gospel – from that opening, powerful prologue (“…and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” [1:4b-5]), to Jesus’ last words before the Passover meal he shares with his disciples (“The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness does not overtake you….. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” [12:35-36]). In both of these passages Jesus clearly identifies himself with the light. But even more importantly, he is inviting us to identify ourselves with the light. We’ll talk more about that later. First, let’s explore our story a bit.
The first thing we are told about him is that this is a man who has been blind all his life. Can we who are sighted – or even those of us losing our sight as we grow older – even begin to imagine what this must feel like? Sure, we know that other senses – like hearing and touch – are sharpened in such a circumstance, but even so to inhabit a world in which you get no visual clues, to stumble around all of your life (of course, we’re talking about a time when there were no seeing-eye dogs, no Braille, no lasik operations)…..well, about the only thing that could happen to him is exactly what did: he became a beggar – one of the lowest of the low.
Last night Ann and I went to see the Las Vegas Little Theater’s production of Bleacher Bums. A main character in it is a blind man who 1) is the most whole and sanest of all the characters, 2) gives a great play-ending speech which extols the magnificence of the Cubs (if you can believe that), and 3) walks off with the pretty girl. It’s fascinating how much of contemporary literature romanticizes what it means to be blind. But none of these attributes are given to the man born blind – at least, initially – and so that means that the always dense disciples assume that there’s some sin attached to him – they just don’t know whose: his or his parents. Underlying their question is the not-so-subtle suggestion that their sightedness is deserved, whereas his lack of sight must have come about through some error in judgment. Later in the story the Pharisees pick up this same theme – “we are not blind,” they assert – and Jesus slams them as remaining in sin because of their attitude.
There is always this tendency, isn’t there?, to feel that our possession of something like sight makes us just a little bit morally superior to the one who doesn’t have it. So – again, quite naturally – Jesus uses this as a teachable moment. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him,” he tells them. What are those works? Jesus is about to make that clear.
This particular story invites us to see the man born blind as a mirror for all we are called to be as Christians. What Jesus does for him – that is, the miracle he performs -- is our miracle. And as this man makes each choice, he is seeing himself, revealing God’s image within him. Step by step, the image emerges as the man chooses a new way of being in the world. The purpose of the miracle is not to give him the ability to distinguish, say, red from green, but to give him the ability to distinguish truth from illusion.
The first step is one of obedience. Jesus has done this kind of silly thing: he’s put mud with spittle over the man’s eyes and tells him to go wash it off in the pool of Siloam. Would you or I have followed such a command? Oh, maybe we’d want to get that mud off of our eyes, but would we conceive of it in terms of a healing? The pool of Siloam is a play on words, since it means sent. Like most of the word plays in John’s Gospel, this one has many layers: Jesus is sent to be a living incarnation of God’s love, the blind man is sent to Jesus so that God’s works may become visible to the people, the man is sent by Jesus to the pool to complete the healing. In each case, the response to the sending is obedience, because without obedience no change, no miracle can happen.
The second step is one of personal witness. We actually skipped over this part in reading the scripture passage in order for it not to be too long, but what happens after he testifies to his neighbors that he is a new man is that he is taken before the Pharisees, who are upset because all this happened on the Sabbath. But the man does not back down: he declares of Jesus, “He is a prophet.” And even after the authorities keep after him, wanting him to denounce Jesus, he refuses, sticking to the one true thing: “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” Even after they drive him out, he refuses to recant. The establishment does not really want truth; they want affirmation of what they know to be safe and familiar. And the terrible irony of this part of the story is that they, along with his family and neighbors, cast him out of the community for becoming more whole! He has found his wholeness.
So, to pick up again with the passage as we read it, when Jesus hears about this he comes to the man and asks him if he believes in the Son of Man (this is a messianic title from the Hebrew scriptures). When the man born blind asks who that is, Jesus for the second time in John’s gospel reveals himself: “…the one speaking with you is he.” (You’ll recall that we said last week that Jesus first reveals himself as the messiah to the woman at the well.) Suspect people – people considered to be pariahs in that society – a Samaritan fallen woman and a beggar who was born blind – are the ones to whom Jesus offers his greatest secret, his greatest gift. In response to this gift the man born blind takes his third step: humility in the light of what has happened to him, which becomes a kind of powerful courage. He doesn’t demonstrate any self-importance just because of what has happened to him. But on the other hand neither does he abase himself. He makes no extravagant claims concerning his healing, but neither will he change his testimony in order to please the priests. He does not attribute the miracle to his own righteousness. He speaks the truth and he continues to speak the truth simply because it is the truth.
Obedience, personal witness, humility, courage – these are the traits we find in a man who had been living a pitiable life but with one act on the part of Jesus becomes someone who blossoms into an example for his family and community. He is enabled to see himself now – not merely see with his eyes but look inwardly and see himself as an image of God. And because this is so, he recognizes Jesus as the image of God as well. He has stepped into the light.
As we said at the beginning, the symbol of light is a very powerful one for John. This gospel writer understands God as the light coming into the world which illuminates and reveals our lives. So, what has happened to the man born blind stands as a metaphor for what God has done and what we are challenged to become.
We all have our areas of blindness. It may be prejudices that we’re not even aware we hold, or grudges held onto long after the actual wrong had occurred, or stubbornness in the face of new experiences (the “my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts” syndrome). Identifying our blindnesses and then working on them as the man in our gospel story did to come to a point of obedience, personal witness, humility, and courage, is a most significant part of our Lenten journeys. The good news of the story is that the man born blind does not remain blind. We do not need to remain blind, either. Jesus offers the man the chance not only to see the light, but to be light. That promise is for us, too.
Paul in Ephesians picks up this theme: “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.” Not that you have come into the light but that you yourselves are light. This is what it is to lose our blindnesses. And so Paul encourages us: “Live as children of light…for everything that becomes visible is light.” In this way we become a people who can shine into all the dark corners of our worlds and illuminate them with God’s special grace. The true light that enlightens us has come into the world. He has come to us in our blindness and covered our sightless eyes with clay. If we go to the pool to wash, it is not only so that we can see the light, but so that we can be light in the world. God’s clarity will shine through us because there will no longer be anything to disguise it. Thus do our Lenten journeys bring us into that kind of illumination. As we receive communion together this morning, may we shine with the light of God’s love and reflect it back to all the world.
Amen
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
March 2, 2008