Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-march-27-2023
John 9:1-17
Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in his life. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was.
Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”
10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they demanded.
11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”
12 “Where is this man?” they asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The Pharisees Investigate the Healing
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.
17 Finally they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”
The man replied, “He is a prophet.”
Every six years, this story comes up in the Sunday lectionary for worship and the daily lectionary at about the same time. Just eight days ago, it was our text for Sunday worship. I could just skip it and base our Reflection on one of the other readings for the day, but it seems like such a great story I’ll risk being repetitious for the sake of those who didn’t worship with us that Sunday.
One of the things I really like about the story is that it has a very human strain of humor in it. That humor is used in the service of the story, and you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to see what the character has in mind by it. It’s humor at the expense of some very self-important and humorless bigshots.
The story centers around a miracle in which Jesus gives sight to a man born blind. But it’s really a story about what that restoration of physical sight reveals about the intellectual and spiritual blindness of people who think they see just fine.
The story starts out with a conversation about why the man was blind, whether it was because he sinned or his parents did. (And some ancient Hebrew rabbis taught that it was possible to sin in the womb.) But Jesus says that neither is true – that this particular man was blind because through him, God would be glorified. From the perspective of our understanding of Jesus’ miracles, this man was about to serve as a sign of the coming kingdom of God. In that kingdom, the blind will receive their sight, just as those with all kinds of suffering and disabilities will be made whole.
We often hear Christians say that “everything happening for a reason,” implying that if something bad happens to a person, it’s God’s will. But Bible scholars warn us that it’s a mistake to assume that’s the case, and they point out that Jesus said the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The man in this story, they say, was a special case connected with Jesus’ earthly ministry.
And in this story, the man was also intended to serve as a ‘sign’ of another important truth: Those who genuinely encounter Jesus and experience his power in their lives, may well come to ‘see’ things in a new and different way. They may come to have a kind of ‘spiritual sight’ that allows them to see what God is doing in the world in ways that others do not. In fact, I think you could make the case that those who really encounter Jesus will usually see things differently.
After his encounter with Jesus, the man who was born blind comes to see things with greater and greater spiritual insight as the story progresses. Meanwhile, the Pharisees in the story think they see the truth clearly, but they’re shown to be, in various ways, blind.
But it’s probably the man’s neighbors who are the first to be shown to be victims of a sort of blindness. The man has lived among them and begged for alms for years, and maybe for his whole life. But once Jesus gives the man his sight, the neighbors can’t even agree about whether it’s the same man or not. (There’s probably at least a somewhat practical reason for that – a person who was suddenly seeing would look you in the eye, and that might make them seem like a completely different person.)
The neighbors are so suspicious of what has happened that they drag the man to the Pharisees to be questioned. And when he tells his story, some of the Jewish leaders declare flatly that they can see that Jesus was “not from God.” So much for their ability to see things clearly.
But the formerly blind man, as we said, is shown to be gaining in ‘sight’ – coming to a clearer and clearer understanding – as the story progresses. At first, the man just explains what he has experienced, with no interpretation. But later he identifies Jesus as ‘a prophet.’ And that’s more significant than it might seem at first. In the ancient Hebrew world, a prophet was understood to be someone whose words carry the authority of God. So the formerly blind man sees what the leadership does not – that Jesus is speaking and acting with God’s authority.
When I think about this story, I can’t help wondering if we’re meant to see ourselves as naturally inclined to the kinds of blindness that afflict the neighbors and the Pharisees. The neighbors were used to seeing the man as a blind beggar, so when he turned out to be something different, they couldn’t even recognize him as the man they’d seen every day. I suspect it can be uncomfortable for us – maybe even threatening – when God works transformation in the lives of others. They no longer fit in the box we’ve put them in.
And of course, the Pharisees were pretty certain they saw the truth clearly – the truth about how God works in the world, and about the Messiah he had promised to send. So when Jesus turned out to be much different than their expectations, they couldn’t see him for who he was. I’d love to think that we see more clearly what God is doing in the world. But I’m afraid we’re subject to the same mistake the Pharisees made – of dismissing God’s action when “it’s not the way we’ve always done it.”
The story probably challenges us to be on guard against that mistake – and to remind ourselves frequently that we serve a surprising God, one whose acts we can easily miss unless we’re careful to avoid being blinded by our own expectations of what he should do.
Tomorrow, our Reflection will consider the second half of this story.
Let’s pray. Lord, we pray that you would help us to see more clearly the great truths you express to us in Jesus. Open our hearts and minds to accept those truths when they are surprising and unexpected, and to remember that you have always been a God who works in surprising and unexpected ways. Amen.
Blessings,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 6 and 121; Jeremiah 24:1-10; and Romans 9:19-33. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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