As a child, and for most of my adult life, I
had perfect vision. I must admit that I took it for granted. But things do change over time, and when I got
to that age where my arms weren't long enough to read the fine print I began my
quest for glasses. I started with
drugstore readers…bumping my way up the magnification scale. When I could
no longer “see the writing on the wall” I humbled myself with a
trip to the optometrist.
It turned out that I needed corrective lenses for both reading and distance so she
suggested bifocals. I was a little
surprised by that (aren’t bifocals for old folks?), but I gave them a
try, and got a pair of those no-line bifocals so that no one would be the
wiser. I never really got used to them…when I walked around in them it
seemed that my knees began somewhere near my shoulders. Just about that time my sister was fitted
with a pair of bifocal contacts and I figured that might be the answer for me
too, but when I went back to the optometrist she said that there wasn’t
much point in doing anything until I had my cataracts removed. Cataracts!
Talk about adding insult to injury!
How in the world did I get cataracts at my tender age, but sure enough
there they were in both eyes.
After two simple procedures I had them removed, and was told that it was
possible to correct for distance with contacts by wearing reading glasses over
the contacts. Well, I don't want to wear glasses over my contacts. Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose
of wearing contacts? So I’m back
to considering the bifocal contact lens. They sound awfully complicated. They
alternate distant and close correction in concentric circles on the lens.
Something about the way the eye works would allow me to look through about 70%
of the lens that I need whether I'm looking far or near. I’ll give you fair warning if I decide
to try them, because you may want to stay even farther away from me than
usually do when I’m behind the wheel.
Vision was the issue in our scripture today. We heard another extended story in
John’s gospel about an encounter with Jesus…in this one, the story
of a man born blind. Jesus gave him new eyes, but by the time the story is
over, we wonder who is really blind and who can see. We are led to ponder the
relation between sight and insight. The tragedy turns out not to be a man who
was born without sight and can see, but those who are born with sight, but
refuse to see. We learn that only Jesus,
and the one Jesus heals, are actually able to see.
The tale begins like most Jesus stories. Jesus is walking along when he comes across
this man. This poor fellow was born
blind. He couldn’t even imagine a sunset or the image of his friend's
faces. Congenital blindness is a challenge for someone in our day; so imagine
what it was like in those days. Jesus, who could resist the temptation to turn
stones to bread to feed his own hunger, could never resist the opportunity of
compassion … to heal a person in distress. So the first and most
important detail of this story is that Jesus sees the blind man.
Stop right here and think about that for a moment. Most of the time,
we don't see people. We don't look to see the person inside the people we
encounter: the emotion in their faces … their body language … the
image they try to project … the realities they can't hide. We don't even
look carefully at our own families … let alone the stranger at the gate. The homeless speak of feeling invisible,
because so many people walk by without even glancing their way, without even
acknowledging their existence with a "hello," without even seeing
them. But Jesus saw them. And Jesus sees us.
And our story from the Hebrew Scriptures is the original Cinderella tale. It suggests
that God sees us as we are, not as we want to be seen, not even as we see
ourselves. Samuel looked at Jesse's sons and saw some fine manly specimens who
looked exactly like what we might want to see in a King. But God looked at a
spindly shepherd boy … dirty from his days in the field and said: there's
your King! God is not impressed with fine clothes and a good haircut, with nice
makeup, or with finely chiseled six pack abs. God sees who we are within. God
sees what we do and what we don't. God sees what we might become. God sees us
from the top of our head to the tip of our toes and from our sunburned skin to
our life-burned heart. God always sees us, and God always loves us. And that's
the way Jesus saw this man born blind. He saw a person. He saw the glory of God
planted in a human soul. He saw the object of God's affection.
The disciples didn't see this man in the same
way. They were academic,
like a teaching physician doing rounds with students … talking about the
patient as if he were not there! They were analytical, like a committee formed
to talk about helping people in need, which is a world away from actually
helping people in need. They were arrogant, like some televangelists and some
denominational conventions … using their beliefs to define the man;
instead of letting the man define their beliefs. And from their aloof spiritual perch, it's
clear they didn't care one whit about the person they were discussing.
"Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?" The age
old question: Whose fault is it? They presumed we should feel less compassion
for those whose suffering results from their own choices. Much human suffering
is the result of our own bad choices, but most is not. Amazingly, even
uncomfortably for us, Jesus “blamed” God. That is, he dismissed
their intellectualizing of this man's pain. He just said, "Watch this! See
what God's love is going to do." He spat in the dirt, rolled up two balls
of mud, and just as God formed Adam from the dust of the ground, Jesus formed
new eyes for this man. Here's mud in your eye! And when the man was baptized
… when he washed off the mud in the pool of Siloam … he could see.
He could see!
Now we might expect that a spontaneous party
would ensue, everybody happy
that this man has been healed, a son of their own village, given a new
beginning… flowers…cards…a fatted calf…a chocolate
cake. But no, look at the reaction of the man's neighbors. They won't believe
it's really him. They won't see him as he is, only as he was. They continue to
see the old beggar. One of the reasons people don't change is that we won't let
them. We won't let go of their past. We won't change ourselves to make room for
them to change. I recently attended a seminar about families of alcoholics. The
scenario that was presented was as follows:
Dad gets drunk…gets treatment…gets dry, and comes home. But
the family is still stuck…so accustomed to the drinking … the
system and roles are so conditioned to the drunken behavior, that they don't
know how to help. All of the pressure of the family system, most of it
unconscious, pushes Dad to drink again. It turns out that family systems need
treatment too.
The man in our gospel today also has a system that needs healing. He
told his neighbors his story, but they weren't ready to change everything
… they weren't ready to change anything…they weren’t ready to
believe in Jesus, so they went to the clergy to get an explanation. Well, certainly the clergy will do better.
All of us religious folk know that when somebody's healed the clergy will tell
us to rejoice and praise God and to help that person adjust to a new life. Right? Sadly, no. The Pharisees didn't see this man either. They
saw a breach in their rigid beliefs. They saw an anomaly in their spiritual
system. They saw a threat to their power in the name of God. They saw their
ideology at stake.
It's just amazing how what we see can be shaped by what we
expect to see, how we will deny seeing what we just don't want to see, even
when it's plain as the nose on our faces. I have to admit, I have an inner
Pharisee myself. She doesn't want me to see any good in those people who
disagree with me and don't believe the same things I believe. She doesn't want
me to see people who have hurt me as authentic human beings who are also
beloved of God. She doesn't want me to see people that I don't like as human.
She tries to convince me that they are evil…that they are
enemies…that they are crazy…that they are somehow less than human.
You know, belief is a good thing, but not when it's linked with arrogance.
Arrogant belief, no matter how you label it, liberal or conservative,
fundamentalist or progressive, religious or patriotic, dehumanizes others.
Ideology can blind us, and blind ideology gives people permission to kill. When
you don't see your enemies as human like yourself, it isn't so hard to put them
out of your misery … for God's sake or the sake of the nation or for the
good of the people.
A student once asked a rabbi: "Master, when do we know the dawn is
coming and night is past? Is it when we can tell a sheep from a goat in the
pasture? Or when we can tell an oak from a cedar tree?" The Rabbi
answered, "No, when you can look into the eyes of a stranger and see that
he is your brother, that she is your sister, then you
will know a new day has dawned. Until that time comes, we are still in the
night."
The Pharisees brought this guy in. "Just give us the facts!"
"Well, this fellow put mud on my eyes. I washed it off. Then I could
see." "Aha! He broke the Sabbath! You aren't supposed to make mud
balls on the Sabbath. The Bible is clear about that! He broke the Sabbath, so
he can't be from God, so you can't really be healed." Doesn’t it
seem that we're always telling God what God can and can't do and even how God
can and can't do it? We must be so smart! But I remember another time, when
Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the
Sabbath." I wonder if he wouldn't also have said, "The church was
made for people, not people for the church." Or, "The Bible was
written for people, not people for the Bible." What do you think? I just
know that people were awfully important to Jesus … more important it
seems, than following somebody's interpretation of the rules or avoiding association
with sinners or protecting the clergy's beliefs about God.
The Pharisees demanded: "What do you see in this healer?"
"I don’t know," he said. "A prophet
maybe?" Then they saw red. Here was a grown man, but they brought
his mom and dad to testify. "Tell us the truth. Your son's crazy. He
wasn't really born blind, was he? Or are you in this conspiracy, too?" I
hate to think of those parents put on the spot. They did see their child
… like any good parent would … like God sees all God's children,
but they also saw the threat. They were blinded by fear. They said, "Well,
uh, yeah, that's our son, and he was born blind, and it appears that he can see
now, but it's not our fault." Funny, isn't it? First the disciples wanted
to blame his parents that he was blind, and now the Pharisees want to blame his
parents that he can see.
The Pharisees pressed the man harder, trying to get him to
recant…making him tell and retell his story, trying to catch him in a
lie. All these learned Pharisees argued with an untrained, uneducated beggar.
It would seem that he didn’t stand a chance; except, he could speak to
his truth. They knew so much. He knew only, "I once was blind, but now I
see." For this, they had no answer. The argument went to the beggar. So
they drove him out. This kind of testimony infuriates ideologues who try to
force people into their beliefs instead of trusting God seeing what God is
doing with people.
I promise you, there
is a lot I don't know. My insight, like my sight, can be a little fuzzy at
times. I do study the scripture, but I'm no expert, and there is much I don't
understand. I don’t know why we
continue to struggle with things that should be as plain as the nose on our
faces. I don’t know why we are so
fearful of those who do not look or act just as we do. I don’t know why we are satisfied to
live in a world that tolerates the unjust distribution of wealth and the power
of corporations in our country, regardless of its effects on people or the
environment. I don’t know why
issues of global prosperity take a back seat to homeland security. But I do know this. In my lifetime I have heard women preach the
word of God as effectively as any man. I have seen gay and lesbian persons filled
with the Spirit of God bringing honor to Jesus' name. I have seen people of all
races and faiths worship together as brothers and sisters, children of the one
God.
There were people who wanted to tell me all
this was impossible. I only
know that once I was blind, but now I see. I have seen people overcome
addiction. I have seen others surprisingly, if not miraculously, healed. I have
seen people forgive someone who hurt them badly years before. I have seen
people change and systems change by the grace of God. There are people who want
to say none of this can happen. I only know that once I was blind, but now I
see. The story ends with Jesus and the
man whose eyes he has opened seeing each other. The man has been given both
sight and insight. He trusts in the one who opened his eyes. What happens when
Jesus gives us eyes to see? It changes everything. Or, nothing changes, but we
change, and that changes everything for us.
Jesus did this for a man born blind. Jesus saw him, and then he saw Jesus. But,
tragically, the neighbors, the disciples, and especially the Pharisees still
didn't recognize what God had done.
Consequently, they will soon find a way to have Jesus arrested. The
Romans, blinded by their own power, will plait a wreath of thorns and thrust it
upon his head. They will strip him, beat him, and nail him to the cross. They
will place a sign over him that says, "Here is your King." They will
intend this ironically, because, hanging on that cross, he doesn't look like a
king that any sane person would follow. In greater irony yet, God will see all
this and all of us and will say, yes, there is your King who brings the dawn of
a new day for you and me!
May we pray?
Open our eyes, dear
God, to see the stranger as our sister and our brother. Open our eyes to see your
face in the faces of people around us. Open our eyes to see your hand at work
in human lives and in the opportunities you give us to care for them. Give us
sight and insight to recognize the grace we have received and rejoice in Jesus'
name. Amen.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa