Sightless
John 9:1–41
March 2, 2008
University Christian Church, Seattle, WA
Rev. Sandy Messick

• At first glance, this is a story of a healing. A man, born blind, receives his sight. It is one of several healing stories in the gospels, and with all healing stories, presents a problem for modern-day listeners. Simply put, the problem is that we know that not all people with physical challenges are healed. We know that people pray for healing and go to some extraordinary lengths to be healed, and aren’t. And it can be a struggle for us to wrestle and preach with compassion about these stories in which healing looks so easy. So please know that I recognize the difficulties of these healing stories. And I too struggle with it.
• But in this case, I’m not convinced this is a healing story at all. At least not in the sense that we usually think. What I mean is, I’m not sure John’s point in recording the story is to tell us that a man who was born blind can now see and that Jesus did it. I think, in this case, that while it is a story about blindness, it isn’t the man that Jesus healed who was blind. Let’s look at the story more closely:
• Jesus is out walking with his Disciples, and as they walked along, they saw a blind man spanging by the side of the road. Spanging is a word I learned in the Homelessness 101 class a while back. It’s a contraction of two words: Spare Change and refers to what we used to call “pan handling” or “begging.” Now it’s “spanging.” And there was this man, complete with cardboard sign, spanging by the side of the road.
• Apparently he was known to the Disciples because they knew that not only was he blind, but that he was born blind. So they used the opportunity to ask a theological question: “Jesus, who sinned? This man or his parents, since he was born blind?” The assumption is of course that someone must have sinned. And while it is true that sometimes the sins of the parents are visited on the child, for instance in the case of fetal alcohol syndrome, the assumption that blindness was a punishment from God was assumed by the Disciples. They just knew that someone had sinned. They wanted to know who. Jesus responded, “Neither. This isn’t about sin. The man was born blind.” In the New Revised Standard Version Jesus says, “so that God’s works might be shown in him,” which is problematic for me. That’s why I prefer the Laughingbird Paraphrase that says, “The important thing to look for is not what caused it, but what God can do about it.”
• Then Jesus goes on to stoop down and gather some dirt from the ground, spit into it and make a mud paste which he then rubs on the blind man’s eyes. Then Jesus tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. Now I know the man is blind, but you tell me! It certainly seems he had some vision, not physical, but spiritual. He certainly seems to have some faith because the rational response would have been to curse Jesus for messing with him and immediately wipe this disgusting dirty slobbery mess from his eyes. “Hey man, what you doing throwing mud and spit on my face. You’re crazy man. Picking on a blind man. That’s sick.” But in an act of faith that is an utter contrast from what happens in the rest of the story, the man goes and washes his face and comes back, able to see.
• And now the story gets really weird. The community starts to react. First the neighbors start to question: “You know, that man over there looks a lot like the guy who always sat on the corner with the cardboard sign, only that man was blind and this one can see.” And some of the neighbors said, “It’s him.” And others said, “Naw, couldn’t be, it only looks like him.” And the man kept saying, “No, it’s me. It’s really me.” But they didn’t believe him. “If it’s you, how come now you can see?” And he just kept repeating the fantastic story, “Well, there was this man, his name was Jesus and he made some mud and put it on my eyes and told me to wash at Siloam and I did and now I can see.” “Hmm, well, where is this man, this Jesus?” “I don’t know.” And the neighbors were confused. How could someone who was blind, now be able to see? Is it the same person or not?
• So they took him to the religious leaders. Now it so happened that Jesus did this healing thing on the Sabbath and that’s what the religious leaders focused on. When the man who had been blind told his stories to the religious leaders they weren’t as interested in the healing as they were in when it happened. “How could this be? For this man, this Jesus, couldn’t be from God if he did this healing on the Sabbath for that would be breaking the Sabbath laws against work, and therefore, he couldn’t be from God.” But others were arguing, “No, he must be from God, or how else could he have done this thing?” And the religious leaders started arguing among themselves. And unable to resolve the dispute, they turned to the healed man. “What do you say? It was your eyes he opened.” And the man replied, “He is a prophet.”
• Well that didn’t sit well with the religious leaders. Maybe like today the words of those with disabilities are discounted, so even though they asked him what he thought and he answered, his word wasn’t good enough. The religious leaders started questioning. Now they focused on whether or not the man had been blind to begin with. Not believing the man himself, they called his parents in. “Is this your son? Was he born blind? If so, how do you explain that now he can see?” The parents were afraid. They didn’t want to offend the religious leaders, but they didn’t want to lie. So they passed the buck. They affirmed what they could and passed the question back: “Well, we know this is our son. And we know that he was born blind. But we don’t know how he was healed. Why don’t you ask him? He’s an adult, he can speak for himself.”
• The religious leaders called the man back in. This time, they tried to bully him: “You better tell us the truth. We know this man is a sinner!” But the man just stuck to his story: “I don’t know whether or not he is a sinner. This is what I know: I was blind, but now I can see.” “Well, what did he do to you, how did this Jesus open your eyes?”
• The man who had been blind threw up his hands in disgust and despair. “What do you want from me? You asked me how it happened and I’ve told you, over and over. Why do you want to hear it again?” And then he threw in the zinger, “ Do you want to become his disciples too?”
• Which really angered the religious leaders who zinged back: “We are disciples of Moses but we don’t know this man at all.” But the healed man just lobbed the sarcasm ball back: “What an astonishing thing! You don’t know anything about him, and yet he opened my eyes. You know that only one from God could do such a thing.” Then the religious leaders did the only thing they could do at that point short of accepting him and rejoicing in the miracle: they denounced him and drove him out.
• Jesus, hearing about this, went and found the healed man and asked him: “Do you believe?” and he replied, “I do.” Jesus responded, “I came into this world so that those who were blind could see, and those who thought they could see would recognize their blindness.”
  One of the religious leaders, overhearing Jesus, replied, “You’re not saying we are blind are you?” Jesus said simply, “If you were blind, you’d have an excuse. But since you can’t even see your own blindness, your guilt remains.”
• There is a bumper sticker that says, “I’ve made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts.” The religious leaders, for all their knowledge about God and holy matters, couldn’t believe that God could work in new and mysterious ways. Because the healing of the blind man didn’t fit in with their expectations they started challenging: it didn’t really happen, it wasn’t really from God, it must not be true. And because of their insistence that God must behave in the way they expected God to behave, they missed the miracle that was in their midst. The man who had been born blind went home seeing the beauty of the world around them and the face of Christ who walked beside him. But the religious leaders, well they just went home frustrated and confused, not even realizing they had been blind to what God was doing right in front of them. I wonder how often we miss the activity of God because it doesn’t fit with our ideas of how God should act. I wonder when we’ve missed the healings that took place right in front of us.
• Open my eyes that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me. Place in my hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set me free. Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!