Sermons

March 2, 2008

“A Tale of Two Sinners”

Rev. Phil Blackwell

John 9:1-41

I had my wallet stolen last month, and I had to replace everything – the charge cards, the bank card, the health insurance card, and my driver’s license. This also was at a time when I was feeling really lousy with a heavy winter cold. My sinuses were congested, my eyes tearing, and my head hurting.

So, I went next door to the lower level of the County Building to get a new license. The woman instructed me to sit down in the chair so that she could take my picture. I sat down, she aimed the camera, and the flash went off. She took a moment to look at the picture and said, “We’d better do that again.” And I thought, “How bad must I look when the photo is not good enough for my driver’s license?”

Always the worst part of getting a new license for me, though, is the vision test. From birth I have had very bad vision in my right eye. So, I looked into the little viewfinder and read the letters there, and I did okay with the left and middle panels, but I could not read the right panel. It was blank to me. My optometrist had told me, “I have bad news and good news. The bad news is that you have cataract developing on your right eye. The good news is that you can’t see out of that eye, anyway.” One of these days I am afraid that I will be limited in driving for having defective vision, but not last month. I got the new license.

I suspect that each one of us has something about our physical selves that we would change, if we had the chance – vision, hearing, height, weight, hair, skin texture, mouth, nose, or conditions even more disabling than these things. In our more desperate moments, we may wonder, “Why is God punishing me this way? What did I do to deserve this?”

These are the questions which begin today’s story in the Gospel of John. Remember that John is a storyteller, not a reporter. He crafts this encounter into several scenes so that we learn something about Jesus, something about the 1st Century Church, and something about ourselves. The disciples see a blind man sitting along the side of the road, begging, and they ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Do we hear the underlying assumption? God is punishing this man with blindness. What did he do to deserve this?

You see, there was a Greek idea that the source of light was internal, not external. Light emanated from the human soul and was projected onto the world through the eyes. So, if one’s eyes were dark, then that person’s heart must be dark, as well. Blindness betrayed a sinful soul.

Back to the question at hand. Maybe his parents sinned, and those sins are visited upon the son, who now is suffering for what his parents did. Or maybe he sinned, but if he was born blind then his sin would have to have happened before he was born. Sin in the womb, now that is a tough judgment to hear.

But that was the basic assumption of the day. His blindness was a result of his sinfulness, and he must be barred from the community. So, in this “tale of two sinners,” the first sinner is the blind beggar along the side of the road.

Immediately, Jesus rejects this assumption. As always in John’s way of telling the story, this instead becomes an occasion for Jesus to reveal the love of God. The blind man begging is not a pretext for arguing theology but a moment in which to bring healing in the name of God. So often in the history of the Church we have seen human need and fallen into debating the finer points of theology rather than alleviating the suffering at hand. Jesus does not make that mistake here.

He declares, “I am the light of the world,” and then he gets his hands dirty working a miracle. He spits onto the dust, makes a pack of mud, smears it on the blind man’s eyes, and commands him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash it off.

I wonder if this is where the toast, “Here’s mud in your eye” comes from? It is sort of like saying, “To your health.” Some have traced the saying back to farmers going out into the fields to plow in springtime. “May the fields be soft and the soil rich, and as you walk behind your horse and plow, ‘Here’s mud in your eye.’” Others say, No, it’s a horseracing term, with one horseman good-naturedly taunting another, hoping that the other’s horse will finish second to his own mount, “Here’s mud in your eye.” But here in the Gospel of John we have a perfectly fitting reference for the saying because it is through putting mud on the blind man’s eyes that Jesus gives him release, health, a possible future.

At this point in the story Jesus leaves the scene and the authorities of the synagogue enter, all in a rage over what has just happened. “How did this miserable sinner from birth get relief from his punishment? Who did this thing, and by what authority?” Power and authority, always at the heart of the gospel. It is what finally leads to Jesus’ crucifixion. The authorities could not tolerate the unorthodox ministry of Jesus.

The newly-sighted man says what he knows. “A man said that he was the light of the world, put mud on my eyes, and instructed me to wash it off at Siloam. I did, and now I can see.”

“What did he look like?” At least the religious authorities were not dumb enough to ask that question since the man never saw Jesus, just heard him and believed him. Instead, they say, “Are you really the man who was a blind beggar?” “Yes, I am he.”

Then, the authorities call for his parents. “Is this really your son?” “Yes.” “Was he really blind since birth?” “Yes.” “And how was he given sight?” “We do not know anything more than he has told you. Ask him again; he is old enough to speak for himself.”

Let us read between the lines here. The parents know that if they claim that Jesus is the Messiah then they will be expelled from the synagogue. The parents are Jews; so is the man born blind. So are Jesus and the disciples. Therefore, when John says that the parents are “afraid of the Jews,” he means the “Jewish authorities.” They are not to be feared because they are Jewish; everybody in this story is. They are to be feared because the authorities are the ones who set the rules and make the definitions. So, who is the first of two sinners? The blind man. And who is the second sinner of this tale? Jesus.

Why? Because this healing takes place on the sabbath. Jesus works on the sabbath, a direct contradiction of God’s commandment: “Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.” Well, that means do nothing on this day, even good things. And now, the authorities have a big problem on their hands. If Jesus did this deed on the sabbath, then he is a sinner. But if he did this deed, no matter when, he must be a man of God because no sinner would have the power to heal a man blind since birth.

So, that is why they grill the man and his parents. Are you really the one? Did it really happen? Were you really blind since birth? If he had been born with sight and afterward became blind, then what Jesus did would not be such a great miracle. But born blind – a sinner to the core, then the gift of sight is more than physical healing; it is spiritual healing. But the religious authorities had jurisdiction over such spiritual things, not some itinerant preacher.

A tale of two sinners . . . the man blind since birth, and Jesus the healer on the sabbath. So, what do the authorities do to the healed man? Celebrate with him? Lift a toast, “Here’s mud in your eye?” No, they expel him from the community. They drive him out.

“So,” John tells the early Christians, “see what happens when you accept Jesus as your savior? You get excommunicated. You must find a new community of support. When your eyes are opened, you see things in a new way that can be unsettling, as well as comforting. Gaining sight, gaining insight, can be a very challenging thing.”

Those first generation Christians knew the price of challenging the establishment in order to follow Jesus. That is why they met underground, behind closed doors, and had their own language of symbols.

Keepers of the tradition, whether it be religious tradition or civil tradition, are outraged when something uncontrollable happens. They prefer order to healing. What is the rule book of the United Methodist Church called? The Book of Discipline. Here is the codified tradition by which we are to live as an organized body. Most of its contents are good; it is good to have ground rules. But beware if the Spirit breaks out in ways not prescribed in these pages.

Next month our General Conference will meet. It is an international ingathering of United Methodists that happens every four years. And watch as the denomination struggles to hold form while trying to sense where God’s Spirit is offering new sight and insight. What assumptions, what “sins” will be revisited?

Barbara Brown Taylor, a wonderful preacher in the Episcopal tradition, says about this passage of scripture that the question the authorities forgot to ask is, “What if this action is from God, and we do not believe it?” She goes on, “They were so sure of everything: that God did not work on Sundays, that Moses was God’s only spokesman, that anyone born blind had to be a sinner and ditto for anyone who broke the sabbath, that God did not work through sinners, that God did not work on sinners, and that furthermore no one could teach them anything.”

In the end, how is this a story about us? It depends on where we place ourselves in the story. If we place ourselves in the role of Jesus, we are taking on too big a responsibility, even if we are called to be the Body of Christ. If we see as the tradition-keeping authorities, then we must admit to the blindness of our own ways. If we cast ourselves as the one blind since birth, then the story tells us that there are possibilities for life beyond our own limitations, possibilities that are offered by God’s love revealed through Jesus Christ.

“Sin,” in the Gospel of John, does not describe behavior but a broken relationship. It is a matter of how we relate to Jesus, the light of the world, the light that comes to us in the world rather than the light we must generate from within ourselves. Do we accept the healing that he brings? Do we embrace the reconciliation he offers so that we can embrace all others, even those who do not think, act, or look like we do? Do we exhibit the courage he expects in order to stand up to the tyrannies inherent in the assumptions of those in control? Do we reflect his love in a world blinded by hatred and callous disregard? Do we embody the healing he brings to all?

Jesus delivers the moral of the story at the end. “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” The man along the side of the road moved from physical blindness to spiritual sight. The authorities moved from physical sight to spiritual blindness.

Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth thou has for me;

Place in my hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set me free.

Silently now I wait for thee, ready, my God, thy will to see.

Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!

Amen.
Philip L. Blackwell
The Chicago Temple
March 2, 2008