Reflection on John 9:1-41

John 9:1-41 (NRSVue)

¹ As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. ² His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³ Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. ⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶ When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, ⁷ saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. ⁸ The 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?” ⁹ Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” ¹⁰ But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” ¹¹ He 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.” ¹² They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

  ¹³ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. ¹⁴ Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. ¹⁵ Then 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.” ¹⁶ Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. ¹⁷ So 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.”
  ¹⁸ The 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 ¹⁹ and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” ²⁰ His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, ²¹ but 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.” ²² His 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. ²³ Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
  ²⁴ So 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.” ²⁵ He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” ²⁶ They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” ²⁷ He 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?” ²⁸ Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. ²⁹ We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” ³⁰ The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. ³¹ We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. ³² Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” ³⁴ They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

  ³⁵ Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” ³⁷ Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” ³⁸ He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. ³⁹ 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.” ⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

 

Reflection

Everyone who sees this blind man sees a scandal, but Jesus sees a person.  The world wonders, “Who should we blame?”  Jesus wonders, “Who should we heal?”

The disciples see the blind man and wonder whose sins caused the man to go blind; the man’s own sins or the sins of his parents?  It is like when I saw a guy with hair that resembled a rat’s nest walking down the street the other day.  I uncharitably thought to myself, “What is that guy on?”  He was a problem.  He was a scandal.  He must be nasty in some way. 

Of course, it was completely possible that the man was actually very sick and just needed to get out of the house for fresh air.  Maybe, he had done nothing wrong.  That very likely possibility never crossed my mind at the time.  I was too interested in imagining the scandal.  Like the disciples, wondering if the blind man’s life is tainted by sin, I wondered what this crazy haired man had done wrong.  We tend to see scandals walking past on the sidewalk, but Jesus sees a person.  The world wonders, “Who should we blame?”  Jesus wonders, “Who should we heal?”

As he and his disciples are walking along, Jesus sees the blind man.  He sees his distress.  He sees the man’s need.  He sees that the blind man needs to be restored.  In a flashback to the beginning of creation where God takes some mud and shapes it into a human, giving the human life, Jesus spits into some dirt, mixes it into mud and spreads in on the man’s eyes so that his life can be restored.

Children do something like this all the time.  Whenever a beloved creation made out of Play-Doh gets broken, like an arm getting broken off, creative children simply open the Play-Doh container and fashion a new arm. 

Of course, some children get distracted trying to figure out who broke the arm.  Who caused the harm?  Who caused the scandal?  And, then a fight ensues where one says, “She did it!”  And, another says, “No, you did it yourself.”  And the bickering goes on and on and on and on until a certain parent’s head starts to pound.  Does this sound familiar?  When it is all about the scandal, what was broken never gets fixed.  The scandal becomes a distraction to seeing the need.

But Jesus sees the need and heals his beloved creation.  Jesus makes the special mud to heal the blind man’s eyes.  The blind man goes and washes in the waters just as instructed.  And, after the man has washed, he can see!  It is amazing.  This man, who has been blind from birth, can finally see! 

It should be a wonderful day, but that is not how the world works.  Remember, where Jesus sees a person, the world sees a scandal.

            “Is that the guy who was blind?”

            “It’s not him.  It just looks like him.”

            “I’m the man!  I’m the man!  I’m the man!”

            “You can’t be.  How did your eyes get opened?  It is impossible.”

“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.”

“Where is this man Jesus?”

The man was healed of a lifetime of blindness.  It was supposed to be a day of rejoicing.  Sadly, the people do not see him, not really.  They only see the scandal.  They only see a hoax being played on them.  They are blind to the man.  They do not see him.  They do not rejoice with him.  They do not welcome him, and eat with him, and discover his amazing story.  They become fixated on the scandal.  The world wonders, “Who should we blame?”  Jesus wonders, “Who should we heal?”

Here is the scandal: Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath.  Jesus had done work.  The Pharisees forget about the man and become fixated on the scandal of Jesus.  “Is the formerly blind guy who he says he is?”  “Did the healing actually happen?”  They drag the man’s parents into the situation to establish that he really was blind and thus was really healed. 

The religious leaders then turn their attention back to Jesus.  They focus on what a sinner Jesus must be since he healed on the Sabbath.  And, though they are giving the formerly blind man lots of attention, thoroughly interrogating him, they do not actually see him.  They are distracted, worrying about establishing how sinful Jesus is for healing on the Sabbath, against the Law of Moses.  The world wonders, “Who should we blame?”  Jesus wonders, “Who should we heal?”

The religious leaders are blind to the formerly blind man.  They cannot see him.  This is why they fail in the end.  Sin still clings to them.  The scandal has blinded them to a very real person.  The scandal has blinded them to the work of the Lord to restore the world, one person at a time.  The scandal has blinded them to the amazing goodness of Jesus.  And, because the scandal has blinded them to Jesus, it has blinded them to God.  They cannot see.

When I first saw the young teen, I glanced briefly into her room in the children’s psychiatric ward at the hospital where I served as a chaplain.  She was singing quietly to a young girl, cradling her, rocking her back and forth as the young girl cried over and over about how she missed her mom and dad.  The nurses had placed the little girl into the bottom bunk of the teen’s room, and they were wise to do so.  She was a gift to that psychiatric ward.  She was a gift to that little girl.

Later, in the children’s spirituality group that I led, I had a chance to talk to the loving teen.  The little girl was still clinging to her arm, even at group time.  I asked the teen why she was in the children’s psychiatric ward.  She responded, “I do not always make the right choices.  I am here a lot.  But lots of kids don’t make good choices.  Do you want to know what I think?  I think it is because my parents don’t see the good that I do.  They can only see the bad.  Plus, I think they wanted a vacation this week and couldn’t convince anyone to take care of me.” 

Of course, you and I know that parents cannot just put children into a psychiatric ward because they want to take a vacation, but there was still some truth in what she thought.  It seemed as if her parents did not really see her.  They did not see her the way the staff saw her, as a loving asset; someone who would love a little child in the throes of grief.  They did not see her the way the little girl saw her either, as a loving someone to whom she could cling. The parents seemed distracted by the scandal of their own daughter, and the scandal caused them to push her away.

The formerly blind man would relate to the teen.  He would have nothing but sympathy for the girl because the Pharisees drove him away from his family and community also.  The formerly blind man tried to convince the Pharisees that Jesus could not possibly be a sinner, because God does not obey sinners.  Jesus must be the real deal because God listened to Jesus and healed the blindness.  The Pharisees did not buy it, and they threw the guy out of their community, even though he was telling the whole truth.

Everyone who sees this blind man sees a scandal, but Jesus sees a person. The world wonders, “Who should we blame?”  Jesus wonders, “Who should we heal?”

Jesus finds the man.  Jesus searches for the man who had been cast out.  Jesus finds the man who had been lost, not because of anything that he had done, but because he was pushed into being lost by those who need to blame. 

I wonder how many good people are pushed out, even today, for no good reason, becoming lost?  How many people have nowhere to go and no one to care about them?

Fortunately, the formerly blind man has someone who cares.  The formerly blind man has someone who searches and finds.  The Bible says: 

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

Everyone who sees this blind man sees a scandal, but Jesus sees a person.  The world wonders, “Who should we blame?”  Jesus wonders, “Who should we heal?”  

Because Jesus sees him as the beloved child of God that he is, someone who needs healing, someone who is lost through no fault of his own, Jesus welcomes the man and invites him to be one of his sheep.  The formerly blind and scandalized man is found. 

What if we, the followers of Jesus, did a little more seeing of people rather than scandalizing?  What if we, the followers of Jesus, committed ourselves to look at a person, not as a problem to be taken care of, but as someone who needs to be healed?  What if we admitted to Jesus that sometimes we are the blind ones, only seeing the scandal and not the person?  What if we admitted that sometimes we search for someone to blame rather than searching for someone to heal?

What if Jesus comes and finds us?  What if Jesus seeks us out whenever we become lost, like a sheep who has wandered away?  What if Jesus walks into our dark valleys and finds us, not wanting us to live in fear?  What if we who are lost are found? 

We are found, after all.  Jesus finds us and draws us close.  The world pushes people away, but Jesus embraces us all.  That seeing, that finding, that embracing of the people of the world, is called, “grace.”  It is a grace that opens its arms wide on a cross to embrace the entire world.  What if we embraced that person of grace back?

Seeking to embrace Jesus in return, the man declares to Jesus, “’Lord, I believe.’  And he worshiped him.”  The formerly blind man trusts in the Lord.  He trusts the one who saves rather than blames.  He trusts the one who welcomes and heals, rather than pushing away.  The formerly blind man trusts in Jesus, and so do we.