March 22, 2020
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois
John 9:1-41, selected
My friends, we are living through a strange and difficult
time. We are watching as things break down. Friendships and family
relationships are broken over disagreements. Marriage and family look different
than we remember. Institutions and government structures meant to support us
are failing. Leaders elected to serve us are instead serving their own
interests and taking what they can for themselves. People who fear not having
enough are emptying the shelves of grocery stores.
We are isolated from one another. I’m not just talking about
social-distancing or stay-at-home orders. We share fewer common experiences. While
we may be watching more people through social media, we really only scratch the
surface of what others are experiencing. I’m watching old NCIS episodes, my
friends are watching Outlander, and I never did watch (or read) Game of
Thrones. I mostly read the news on my phone or computer, reading short snippets
from a variety of sources, while others may only watch one network on TV.
We’re probably less happy, too. Not just because of our
current circumstances. Even introverts like me need connection and interaction
with family, friends, church, and community. It can be tempting to look to the
past, to feel nostalgia for what was. People were friendlier, more supportive,
happier. At least that’s what I remember. Am I selectively remembering, leaving
out the times when I was lonely, angry, mistreated? Do I forget when I left someone
else behind, when I shouted at someone who didn’t deserve it, when I blamed
someone else for my problems?
We forget, in our nostalgia, that even if things were great
for us back then, they weren’t great for everyone. We can look through our history,
if we dare, for how our society and others have brought great suffering and
hardship to others, and even our own ancestors. And we can look to our
scriptures, too, seeing things that have not really changed much.
The man born blind has been failed by his community, his
family, and his religious leaders.
The first thing the disciples ask when they
see him is “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born
blind?”[1]
We might think we’ve evolved past thinking that blindness is a result of someone’s
sin, but have we really? I’ve heard religious leaders in our own time blame disease,
natural disasters, and even poverty on what they perceive to be the sins of
others. The Pharisees, jealous of their religious power, argue that Jesus can’t
have healed him. He must be lying, or Jesus must be using some evil power.
His family distances themselves from him, fearing that they
will be shunned by the community. When they are asked about him, they say they
don’t know how it is that he can see. “He is of age, ask him.”[2]
The community fails to accept what has happened; they don’t recognize this man
who used to sit and beg. It can’t be the same person, the blind beggar. We must
be seeing things.
Long ago, and right now, we struggle to see beyond our
preconceptions, our own view of the world. When faced with someone else’s experience
of life that is different from our own, we get stuck. We stop listening. It is
uncomfortable to think about the difficulties of another, and we start thinking
“Well, if it was me, I would…” We choose to be blind to the experiences of
others. We choose to be isolated, holding on to a worldview that makes us comfortable,
even if it no longer matches with the reality we experience.
What is it like to be the man born blind? Can we really
imagine what it would be like to live in a different reality? In a world
structured around sighted people, to be blind means adapting and coping with a
world filled with obstacles. It means constantly teaching others how to interact
with us, how to relate to a world they don’t understand. And unless Jesus
happens to be walking by, it means living in a world that cannot be changed, a
world that is radically different from most others.
The experience of living in a different world is not limited
to blindness. A black person in America lives in a different reality than a
white person. Neither reality is right or wrong, good or bad, but they are
different. As a white person, I can be blind to the many obstacles that others
face, because they don’t appear in my world. It takes effort, listening and
learning and looking for the things I don’t see because I don’t live in the
same reality as a black person.
As a man, I don’t live in the same world, and face the same
obstacles, as a woman. As a straight, cis-gender person, I perceive love and
relationships differently that a person who is LGBTQ. As a person who is making
enough money to get by, but struggling to pay down my debts, I live in a different
world than people who buy and sell businesses, or who face eviction because the
paychecks stopped coming. I climbed the stairs to stand at this lectern, but
there are others I know who will never see this view.
The man born blind was transformed. He was healed, and his
world changed. And we can celebrate that and be grateful for God’s healing
power. But transformation happened in that community also. As the man began to tell
the truth of his experience, over and over to the crowds, the Pharisees, and
even his own family, slowly they began to understand.
They resisted, of course, because it is difficult and
uncomfortable to understand a different world. It takes real effort to listen to
the different experience of another and not overlay our own experience. To
imagine what life is like for a blind man, a black person, a woman, a gay or
transgender person, a differently-abled person, a different person, is hard. But
it is possible. Jesus 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.”[3]
Becoming blind, to not see for the first time, opens up a world that we never
knew before. To enter the different world, the life experience of another, and
seek to truly understand, is part of the gift of grace and healing that Jesus
offered to that community, and that Jesus offers to us.
I have always had friends who were different. The longer I
live the more different worlds I encounter. I have not always chosen to
understand their worlds, to accept that their world is not bad or wrong. But I
have been transformed. I have come to understand my own blindness, and, even when
it is painful, to see things in the different worlds of others.
I can’t tell you how or why it happened. All I can tell you
is that I was blind and now I see. Before, I saw things one way, now I see differently.
I am seeing things in a new way. Before, I believed the world worked in a
specific way, that my world was the only one. Now I understand things differently.
Now I am seeing things I didn’t see before. And I believe it was Jesus who put
mud on my eyes so that I may see. I believe that Jesus is the light of the
world, and with that light I have received my sight.
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