A little clarity here, please

On this, April 1st, AKA April's Fool Day, we take a moment to appreciate the gospel of John because John is the master of double meaning and mis-direction.  He takes a blind man, gives him sight, and plunges the unbelieving crowd into darkness.  With John, something like 'sight' or 'sees' never has only one meaning.

The man was blind from birth.  Out of the blue, he is given the gift of sight (although truthfully it must have been an enormous adjustment for him, very unsettling).  It takes him a couple of tellings of the story to figure out that this was such a miraculous occurrence that he had to have been touched by God's servant.  We watch as he progresses from calling Jesus 'a man' to 'a prophet' to 'a man from God' to 'Lord'.  His sight came immediately but his 'sight' developed over the course of the story.

Of course the dis-believing onlookers took the journey the other direction.  At the beginning they could read the eye chart at the DMV without any trouble, but any suggestion that a miracle had occurred; any suggestion that God could be at work on the Sabbath with this man and counter to all their expectations was rejected and mocked.  In the end, Jesus points out just how blind they are because they cannot see the miracle right in front of their face.  They cannot see who Jesus is.  Their blindness causes them to be separated from God; lost.

The Pharisees don't believe any of it.  They even mock Jesus when he claims they are blind.  Isn't that the way with us?  We think we are knowledgeable, faithful, pious but in truth we can't see the hand in front of our face nor the darkness which covers our vision.  I wonder if, any time we find ourselves saying, 'Oh no, God couldn't be acting like that' we shouldn't take a moment and consider this story.  We might just be missing the miracle of God at work.

It wasn't just the anonymous man who was blind from birth.  We are all born blind - and it is only Jesus who can take a little mud and create a whole new life for us.

Let's talk about sin........

First it was Nicodemus.  We watch as he slips through the night to ask Jesus a few questions.  He walks away not at all sure what the answers were. Born again?

Then we met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well at high noon.  She needs water, Jesus starts making outrageous claims about the quality of his water and in the end she leaves with Good News for the entire community. Living water?

This week we meet the man born blind.  That's the only name we have for him: the man who was blind from birth.  He is simply sitting around, begging (that was his full time job) when Jesus approaches him.  It's hard to tell if the disciples see this man as a 'learning opportunity' or if they are trying to show off their smarts by asking Jesus who sinned, the man or his parents. Because you see, someone had to have sinned.  Otherwise, the man wouldn't have been born blind.

We don't get three steps into this encounter between Jesus and the blind man before everyone wants to talk about sin.  Ever notice how much fun it is to talk about sin?  Especially when we are talking about the sin of someone else?  I have often thought that we so urgently want to point the finger at the other - the sinner - so no one will look our direction and shine too bright a light on our failures and hurtfulness.

Many commentaries on the Bible will tell you that it was a common understanding that misfortune including disease and disability were a sign that God was not happy with you.  Your sin caused your illness or handicap.  They are right, it was common.  It is still common today.

A baby is born with physical challenges and we default to 'what did the mother do?'  (or 'not do' which is an equal possibility).  A friend is diagnosed with lung cancer and everyone feels obligated to point out that he was a smoker.  A neighbor joins the ranks of the long term unemployed and we are prone to comment that she should have been out there upgrading her skills if she wanted another job.

We have a tendency to blame the patient for the illness......and I believe that this is not mean spirited at its core but rather a sort of 'knocking on wood' for us.  If we can figure out what they did wrong, we will do it right and be spared!  At the same time, if we are leading fairly pulled together lives at the moment, we can give ourselves a ribbon for doing it right.

And we all know that is a bunch of hooey!  Matthew reports Jesus teaching "...for God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."  5.45

So while the disciples are trying to figure out who sinned, and the Pharisees are trying to figure out exactly what law Jesus broke, and the man born blind tells his story again and again......Jesus is only interested in sight and belief.  Do you see?  Do you believe?  Everything else in the story is just commentary.