John 9:1-41
“Look for the Shepherd”
March 19, 2023
A little bit of miracle.
A lot of conjecture, arguments, discussion – call it what you will.
Jesus spit on the dirt, made mud, and there was healing.
But little to no rejoicing.
His skeptical disciples talk about the blind man as if he’s not there.
The neighbors argue about the man’s identity – is it the guy who was blind or not.
If that wasn’t enough indignity, they play show-and-tell with the man in front of the religious authorities.
And then they drag the man’s parents into all of this, they are both loving parents and terrified of authority all at once.
And woven through this all, they badger and demean and question the man who should be celebrating his new ability to see but instead he is berated and driven away.
Instead of joy, all those around him are obsessed with sin and rule-breaking.
It would seem to be more important that the world order and status quo be preserved by those around him rather than recognizing and embracing and celebrating with the man who can now see.
He has been surrounded by these people his whole life and most likely they never saw the person he was – with feelings, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs.
He was not a full-fledged human being to them.
He was blindness.
Once he was no longer blind, they didn’t recognize him.
It seems their judgment and ability to place him neatly in a box meant they could ignore his humanity.
Whose humanity are we missing?
Who do we think of using visible or easily recognized descriptors to name them?
I remember as a child sometimes hearing adults refer to people, especially those whose outward characteristics set them apart in the 1960s and 70s middle class suburbia I grew up in, as the “black lady doctor” (that was my pediatrician as a child) or as the “Jewish family.”
This made them easy to identify for some but also said nothing about their talents or sense of humor or skill or values.
When the formerly blind man, without a name for us to refer to him as, appears at the Temple suddenly able to see, everybody around him starts tearing him down because his regained sight is seen as a challenge to all that they know and are comfortable with.
Fear of change is a powerful weapon.
This week I was reminded of the fear that had been a part of the conversion of each of the facilities that the Bennington County Coalition for the Homeless faced when wanting to establish shelters, first in the former North Bennington Congregational Church parsonage and later on Main Street in Bennington.
The immediate reaction was one of fear – of a rise in crime, of drugs, of housing values, of “those people hanging out.”
All of these issues were and continue to be problems for our communities but it was the rare person for whom these were issues that concerned them enough before these efforts to write letters or attend selectboard meetings or sign petitions or demand change.
This story today uses physical blindness as a doorway into something more, something we all live with.
Jesus flips the narrative here, moving from literal blindness to spiritual blindness, the kind that makes us think we have all the answers.
Recognizing that we do not know it all when it comes to faith, that there is mystery, that we will never fully understand all that God is, is the acknowledgment that we still have room to learn and grow – that this is a lifelong process.
Operating in the world as if we are fully sighted spiritually is dangerous.
Admitting that our vision is not perfect, then leaves room for wonder and awe and God-at-work around us.
Perfection or even an attitude of I’m right and everyone who disagrees with me is wrong, is unrealistic.
It also bumps the need for God out of the picture.
Jesus here proclaims that he himself is “the light of the world.”
John often uses light as an image for Jesus in his Gospel.
What does that light do for our sight?
Do we see the world as lit up by the presence of Jesus?
Do we pay attention to the light Jesus shined on the lost and forgotten or do we tend to look away or turn the channel?
The man who regained his sight in this story is strong enough and truthful enough to speak up about what has happened to him because of Jesus, in spite of the anger and fear and disbelief of those around him.
He goes from being “the man blind from birth” to a believer and disciple of Jesus, not listening to those around him but forging a new path, one lit with the eyes of Christ.
What if we were to see the world as God sees it?
That includes how we see ourselves and everyone and everything around us.
Imagine all that we might see.
Consider then these words of the late great Irish writer and poet John O’Donohue in his work called “The Eyes of Jesus:”
I imagine the eyes of Jesus were harvest brown,
the light of their gazing suffused with the seasons;
the shadow of winter, the mind of spring,
the blues of summer, and amber of harvest.
A gaze that is perfect sister to the kindness that dwells in his beautiful hands.
The eyes of Jesus gaze on us, stirring in the heart’s clay
the confidence of seasons that never lose their way to harvest.