Sermon - John 9:1-41

In today’s gospel reading, we are invited into a story, a story that simply did not just take place a long time ago, but a story that is truly our story, here and now.  Because of the nature of this gospel passage, I am going to do something different.  Before we hear the reading, I would like to share just a few insights with you. 

The community to which the Gospel of John is addressed may very well have been expelled from the synagogue for confessing Jesus as Messiah.  They may well have felt isolated and abandoned.  So, as you experience hearing today’s reading about the isolated blind man, ask yourself how this passage might address the isolated and the abandoned, not only within John’s community, but also the isolated and abandoned among us today.  How does this story address us as we face a whole new form of living in isolation?

Not only does this reading address the nature of this early Christian community, it also works to undermine a simplistic understanding of sin.  When the disciples voice a common view of the day that disability or hardship is the result of sin, a view some people today even continue to suggest, Jesus sharply disagrees.  Also, when the Pharisees assume that knowledge of the law automatically grants righteousness, Jesus counters their thinking by saying that precisely because they feel so certain regarding their understanding, because they deny their sin and claim to “see,” they are in fact sinning because they do not recognize and trust God’s very saving presence to them in the person of Jesus. So, are they really the blind ones?

With these insights in mind, I invite you to listen or follow along and enter into this story. 

John 9:1-41

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

8The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” 12They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

13They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” 16Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. 17So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” 18The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” 25He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 28Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

35Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” 37Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” 38He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.

39Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” 40Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” 41Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

 

Friends, to follow Jesus is to see differently.  Sometimes, to follow Jesus is to be brought into a messy situation, maybe even a crisis.  But, in the mess, we are called to trust that God is present and at work doing a new thing.  Sometimes, this newness means discovering that we are actually the blind ones when we think we see perfectly.  My friend, Pastor Bill Uetricht, quoted theologian John Petty on Thursday and then added some thoughts of his own. He wrote:

“John Petty speaks of Lutheran irony, the notion that ‘it is precisely when we are most spiritually confident that we are in greatest spiritual danger, that it is precisely when we feel strong in faith, precisely when we are feeling the most committed, precisely when we are the most religious, that sin lies closest at hand.’”  My friend Bill then said, “I suspect that in the craziness of these current times, this wisdom is worth clinging to. Who knows for sure what it is all about? The call in the midst of it is not certainty, but trust. That isn't coming easy for me these days.”

I agree with my dear friend, Bill.  That trust is not coming easy for me these days.  Yet, I do continue to trust God’s word to us.  That blind man was made new.  Theologian, Nadia Bolz Weber, writes, “New is often messy.  New looks like recovering alcoholics.  New looks like reconciliation between family members who don’t actually deserve it.  New looks like every time I manage to admit I was wrong and every time I manage to not mention when I’m right.  New looks like a very fresh start and every act of forgiveness.  New is the thing we never saw coming – never even hoped for – like our blind guy here.  But new ends up being what I needed all along.”  And, I would add, new is discovering the new ministries and new ways we are able to be together as people of Faith in the midst of the craziness of our present existence.

Such newness is also what we call grace, it is what we call love.  Nadia Bolz-Weber continues by saying, “God simply keeps reaching down…reaching down into the dirt of your humanity and resurrecting you from the graves you dig for yourself through your violence, your lies, your selfishness, your arrogance, and your addictions.  And God keeps loving you back to life over and over….There are times when faith feels like a friendship with God.  But there are other times when it feels….I don’t know….more vacant.  Yet none of that matters in the end.  How you feel about Jesus or how close you feel to God is meaningless next to how God acts upon you.  How God indeed enters into your messy life and loves you through it, maybe whether you want God’s help or not.”

In today’s story, one of the most remarkable things is the fact that the blind man didn’t seek out Jesus or ask his help.  Yet, he was healed and made whole.  And the powerful, life-giving truth of the gospel is that our suffering, our grief, the challenges we are currently facing, and even our sin will not have the last word. As our souls and bodies desperately cry out for relief, we hear the faint yet clear voice of the Christ calling us; reminding us that, through the cross, death and all its trappings have been swallowed up in victory. The final word rests not with suffering, not with blindness, not with this coronavirus and everything that we are currently facing and experiencing, but with the newness, life and peace that come through Christ.

These days, we hear people reminding us to wash our hands over and over and over again, and it is a necessary reminder.  But, this story reminds us that the most sublime words imaginable are, “Go, wash.” And, I don’t mean just go wash your hands yet again.  I mean wash in the waters of your baptism and the water of life in which God daily bathes each one of us, whatever our circumstances.  We may not always sense this, but we trust God’s promise to us.  And, as the cool and refreshing waters of life wash over all of us – those baptismal waters in which we daily live – our eyes and our hearts are opened to behold the living Christ, standing as the chains of death and hell lay broken at his feet.  There is no other response than to simply trust, raise our voices and cry out at last, “Lord! I believe!”