This week's sermon (early)

BORN BLIND March 19,2023

        The man was born blind. That is vital to the story we heard in John’s Gospel today. He was BORN blind.

        His blindness was not the result of disease or an accident or even what we would call a genetic predisposition to blindness that shows up some time after birth. He was BORN blind. It was a birth defect. Most likely his optic nerve did not develop in his mother’s uterus. He did not ‘lose’ his sight—he never had sight. He could not see because he was born that way.

        So, what Jesus did by smearing dirt and spit on his eyes wasn’t merely ‘correcting’ something that had happened to him. Jesus did not “restore” the man’s sight—he created it, out of nothing.

 

        The rest of the story involves everyone else besides the man born blind and Jesus.

        The disciples, for example, wanted a “reason” for the birth defect. They wanted to blame the blindness on either the sin of the man or the sin of his parents. It’s important to remember that in the theology and physiology of first century Judaism, “sin” could be visited on up to seven generations. Sin could be blamed over decades for the problems and defects of the moment. The disciples were so distracted by their theology that they did not appreciate the miracle Jesus performed. The disciples were so locked in their presuppositions, that they were blind to Jesus’ healing.

 

        Then there are the people who had known the man from birth. When they saw him ‘sighted’, they were not sure it was him. Some of them said, “Well, it looks like him—but he can see, so it must not be him….” They were so blinded by their limited understanding of reality that they could not see the miracle of a man born blind suddenly seeing the world around him.

 

        Even his parents—the mother who gave birth to a blind child and the father who helped raise him with his disability—were too frightened by the questions of the religious authorities to celebrate their son’s sight. They were blinded by their fear of the Pharisees and could not see their son returned to them all new—restored to sight.

 

        And the Pharisees were blinded by their slavery to the Law—to the rules and doctrines and dogmas of their religion—to see the miracle Jesus did as something beyond law and rule and regulations. They were so blinded by Tradition that they could not acknowledge the wonder of sight created out of nothing—of an accident of nature being corrected by God’s love.

 

        All of the characters in today’s drama were “born blind”. The blindness of the man Jesus healed was nothing in comparison to the blindness of the witnesses to his healing love.

 

        So too are we born blind.

        So too are we unable to see the miraculous love and grace of God.

        Our vision is impaired from birth and limited even more by the blindness of our culture and our faith and our imagination.

        We divide the world into “the good” and “the bad”. We divide the world into “the saved” and “the lost”.  We divide the world into “those like us and those who are not. We divide the world into the “familiar” and the “foreign”. We divide the world into two sides—“those on OUR SIDE” and those who aren’t.

        And in doing that, we create a world torn by conflict, ruled by fear. In doing that, we create a society of the “welcomed” and the “unwelcomed”, the “haves and the have-nots”, the “acceptable” and the “rejected”, the “safe and the dangerous”, those who “fit into” what our tradition and dogma and prejudice tells us and those whose ‘pieces’ aren’t part of our puzzle.

        We are ‘born blind’—and the darkness ever deepens as we grow.

 

        A wise and revered Rabbi was sitting by the river with his followers after a night of study and prayer. Dawn was breaking softly in the East. The old Rabbi looked at his disciples in the dim glow of first light and asked: HOW MUCH LIGHT IS ENOUGH LIGHT TO SEE?

        One of his star pupils answered, “THERE IS ENOUGH LIGHT TO SEE WHEN WE CAN SEE THE BRANCHES OF THE TREES ACROSS THE RIVER.”

        “NO,” the old man said, “THAT IS NOT ENOUGH LIGHT TO SEE.”

        Another student answered, “THERE IS ENOUGH LIGHT TO SEE WHEN WE CAN TELL THE LAMBS FROM THE GOATS AS THEY PLAY IN THE MORNING.”

        The Rabbi shook his head. “NO,” he said, “THAT IS NOT ENOUGH LIGHT TO SEE….”

        Everyone sat in silence as the sun pushed its way above the horizon, bathing everything in a wondrous golden hue. Finally, the Rabbi spoke: “THERE IS ENOUGH LIGHT TO SEE,” he told them, “WHEN YOU CAN LOOK INTO THE FACE OF ANY HUMAN BEING AND SEE THE FACE OF GOD….”

That would be enough light to see, even for those born blind.  Ponder our blindness for a while….Amen.