Fourth Sunday of Lent A

"And Open Our Eyes to Behold Love's Face"
© Jan Richardson

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There was a man born blind.

On that point, everyone seems to have been in agreement.

He had become a part of the cultural scenery, so familiar that people forgot to look at him.

As a beggar he received food; but apparently he received little actual attention.

He was born blind.

Everybody knew that.

And that was how he was to be classified for life.

He had been neatly placed in the "blind and helpless" category, so that folks were free to go about other tasks in life.

Even today, society and daily culture depend upon people first being categorized and, then, staying in their place.

But all this changed on the day that Jesus walked by.

Everybody still agreed that the beggar who used to roam their streets was born blind‑there was a man born blind!‑but no one could get straight exactly what had happened to him.

The story of this dramatic event is one of the funniest stories in scripture, told in the entire ninth chapter of John.

The public investigation of how this blind man became able to see sounds like an early story line for the Keystone Cops.

Here is how it goes:

As Jesus walked by one day, he met a man born blind.

Immediately, this man born blind became for the disciples an object lesson.

They treated him, not as a man, but as an example, or a proof text, for their own theology. "Rabbi," they ask, "who sinned‑this man or his parents‑that he was born blind?"

Notice how attention is so quickly diverted from the need at hand, which is the man himself, to a theological or philosophical argument.

We do the same maneuver today.

In the face of human need, many of us prefer to use that need to shore up our own belief system or our own political agenda.

We see a person in need and we systematize.

That person is homeless; he must be too lazy to work.

On food stamps; must be spending money on booze

How can my belief system, or morality system, account for this phenomenon?

The maneuver is inevitable for most of us.

We have belief systems for good reasons.

But if we forget the actual person standing right in front of us, then our belief system‑and moral system‑is useless no matter what our persuasion is.

"Who caused this to happen," we ask, "this man or his parents?

Who is to blame here?

Why is there blindness in the world?

Why is there poverty, illness, or behavior which out and out does not match mine?

Who is to blame, nature or nurture‑this man or his parents?"

Jesus, as he so often does, answers with a third option, one that the questioners did not think of. Jesus said,

"Neither this man sinned, nor his parents.

This man is here, before us blind, so that the marvelous works of God can be shown."

What an amazing way to interpret human need or suffering!

When Jesus sees someone in need, he does not use that person's plight to develop a political or moral agenda.

Jesus sees opportunity, a chance to recognize God's work.

God's work is revealed, not in moral statement, but in an act of mercy, in an act which pays close attention to the need itself.

But, finally, at the end of the story, Jesus finds the healed man again.

Now comes the time for interpretation and reflection.

The act of healing has occurred.

Jesus asks, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

"Who is he?" responds the healed man, just as honestly as he always has.

"I who speak to you am he," Jesus responds.

And the healed man proclaims, "Lord, I believe."

With that proclamation, the healing is indeed complete.

The man born blind sees not only the world around him, with utter and complete honesty.

The man born blind now also sees Jesus himself, the Lord of that world, who can bring clarity even out of the mud made from human spit.

Our scattered speculations, emerging as they do only from a need to defend our own agendas, are only as clear as mud in the eyes of God.

As long as we seek only to fit the acts of God into our human picture, we are blind, unable even to comprehend what God may have for us in the future.

At the end of the ninth chapter of John, some Pharisees begin to see.

The evidence of that sight is their own questioning.

They question whether they can see at all.

They ask Jesus, "Surely we are not blind, are we?"

And Jesus' response is sharp and precise:

"If you say, 'We see,'" Jesus says, "then your sin remains."

Be careful, then, whenever we say, "We see."

Our human speculation, as fun and provocative as it may be, can never comprehend the amazing power of God.

We can never enclose the marvelous presence of God.

God will burst the boundaries and walls of our personal agendas with new light.

That light is Jesus, the Lord, the Light of the World, who shines a new light in our lives.

Jesus does that by focusing not on the reasons for illness, not on the philosophical justifications of reality, but by focusing on human need.

There are people around us whose needs are so familiar to us that we now ignore them.

They were born blind, we say, and that is that.

Jesus, however, refuses to walk right by them, just as Jesus refuses to walk right by each one of us.

Jesus wants to touch each one of us with sight.

And every person‑blind or seeing, Pharisee or disciple‑is an opportunity for Jesus.

Each of us is an opportunity for God to reveal light in utter and elegant simplicity.

Let Jesus touch our eyes today; and we will see the Light of the World