The Man Born Blind and God's Creative Activity

The gospel reading for the fourth Sunday in Lent this year is a story about a man born blind and his encounter with Jesus and his experience of the divine. Despite his healing, people have a hard time seeing what God is doing in and through this man's witness. 

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Scripture quotations from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. © Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome back to Facets of Faith. We are on our fourth week in this Lenten journey, our third week with John, and we are meeting yet another person on Jesus' journey here. Today we have a story of a man who also has no name, like the woman from last week, a man who was born blind. And we hear about how Jesus spits mud in his eyes, and this man is healed and he can see. But we realize that the story is not necessarily just about him, or even necessarily primarily about him. It is about the Pharisees and the disciples and our own preconceived notions, and how Jesus reminds us that sometimes we just need to get out of our own way and be open and receptive to the creative work that God is doing in faith in us.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man who was blind from birth. Jesus' disciples asked, Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind? This man or his parents? Jesus answered, Neither he nor his parents. This happened so that God's mighty works might be displayed in him. While it's daytime, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. After he said this, he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and smeared the mud on the man's eyes. And Jesus said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, and this word means scent. So the man went away and washed. When he returned, he could see. The man's neighbors, and those who used to see him when he was a beggar, said, Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg? Some said, It is, and others said, No, it's someone who looks like him. But the man said, Yes, it's me. So they asked him, How were you now able to see? And he answered, The man they called Jesus made mud, smeared it on my eyes, and said, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see. And they asked, Where is this man? And he replied, I don't know. Then they led the man who had been born blind to the Pharisees. Now Jesus made the mud and smeared it on the man's eyes on a Sabbath day. So Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see. The man told them, He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see. Some Pharisees said, This man isn't from God, because he breaks the Sabbath law. Others said, How can a sinner do miraculous signs like these? So they were divided. Some of the Pharisees questioned the man who had been born blind again. What do you have to say about him, since he healed your eyes? He replied, He's a prophet. The Jewish leaders did not believe the man had been blind and received his sight until they called for his parents. The Jewish leaders asked them, Is this your son? Are you saying he was born blind? How can he now see? His parents answered, We know his he is our son, we know he was born blind, but we don't know how he now sees, and we don't know who healed his eyes. Ask him. He's old enough to speak for himself. His parents said this because they feared the Jewish authorities. This is because the Jewish authorities had already decided that whoever confessed Jesus to be the Christ would be expelled from the synagogue. That's why his parents said, He's old enough, ask him. Therefore, they called a second time for the man who had been born blind and said to him, Give glory to God. We know this man is a sinner. The man answered, I don't know whether he's a sinner. Here's what I do know. I was blind, and now I see. They questioned him, What did he do to you? How did he heal your eyes? He replied, I already told you, and you didn't listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too? They insulted him. You are his disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses, but we don't know where this man is from. The man answered, This is incredible. You don't know where he is from, yet he healed my eyes. We know that God doesn't listen to sinners. God listens to anyone who is devout and does God's will. No one has ever heard of a healing of the eyes of someone born blind. If this man wasn't from God, he couldn't do this. They responded, You were born completely in sin. How is it that you dare to teach us? Then they expelled him. Jesus heard they had expelled the man born blind. Finding him, Jesus said, Do you believe in the human one? He answered, Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him. Jesus said, You have seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you. The man said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Jesus. Jesus said, I have come into the world to exercise judgment, so that those who don't see can see, and those who see will become blind. Some Pharisees who were with him heard what he said and asked, Surely we aren't blind, are we? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you wouldn't have any sin. But now that you see, we excuse me, now that you say we see, your sin remains.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

If you're just tuning in, we have been with John now for a couple of weeks. We started our journey with John this Lent with Nicodemus in chapter three, and then we went to the woman at the well in Samaria and chapter four, kind of back-to-back episodes there. And then we stepped out of John for a few chapters. Now we're back in here at chapter nine. So in those kind of middle chapters there, um, we see the tensions between Jesus and the Jewish leadership growing. Um, we see Jesus is starting to teach more, we see uh people struggling with Jesus teaching more, we see people trying to figure out how Jesus does or does not fit into their culture, their understanding of the religious teachings, um, and they're finding that Jesus is a little uncomfortable sometimes, and they don't necessarily love what he's saying or how he's doing it. And so we see some of these tensions starting to rise because shortly after this, we hit kind of the middle point in John. And once we get to the middle point in John, it is all about the cross from there on out. So just after this, we're gonna skip a chapter next week. We're gonna get to Lazarus. I'll leave that for next week, but then after that, it's a lot of cross talk from there on out. So this is kind of the beginning of, I don't want to say the end, but the beginning of the next phase of the journey of Jesus in John. So obviously, there is a million and ten things we can talk about with this story, A, because it's long, and believe it or not, the story actually goes on for another 21 verses, but we're not reading those on Sunday, so we'll just leave it at this. Um there's a lot that happens in here, there's a lot of directions we can go with this. So rather than me telling you what to hear, you tell me. What do you hear? What curiosities do you bring, or how have you heard this preached in other ways that have offered you um questions or struggles?

SPEAKER_02 7:38

I think it's interesting how a couple of weeks ago Nicodemus came in the darkness, and then this the last week we had uh the woman at the well, and she was coming in midday, and here we have this whole scene where we're talking about blindness and then being able to see. So there's this whole light, dark um thing still going on in this story, too. And I think that's that's a nice uh thread that that keeps going through John.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah, and it is throughout all of John. This idea of night, day, seeing, unseeing, um, light, dark, that's a definitely a theme for John. And it for him, it often is connected to belief or faithfulness or um uh understanding and living in connection to God present in Jesus. And so seeing obviously is belief, lack of sight is not. And so we literally see a transformation of unseeing to seeing with this man born blind. But it's also interesting because on some level the Pharisees are maybe the ones who are a little blind in today's day.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Oh, very much, yeah. Yeah, and I mean they keep questioning the man, and and he's he's getting exacerbated by them too, because he's saying, hey, look, I don't know if he's a sinner or not, but he he cured me. I can see now. Why don't you go ask him? Yeah, and Keith, I love the way you read that.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

You're like, why are you asking me? You're not gonna believe me.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Always that was that was good.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

It's always fun when we can put a little tone of voice into these readings. Uh we don't know what the actual tone of tone is, but I imagine it was a little exasper exasperation.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Exasperation, yes. Also, um, it's interesting too how Jesus remarked that he's gonna be judging. And yet we heard a couple of weeks ago that he, you know, God sent his son into the world not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. So now there's a little bit of a change there, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

So when we're at Nicodemus, Nicodemus is a person who is within the Jewish tradition, very much within keeping the status quo of religious culture and teachings, and he's kind of a defender of the faith, uh, Nicodemus is. And so Nicodemus is coming to Jesus with questions, and he's unsure, and it's it's night, and things are a little unsteady, and so that's when we get Jesus saying, I came into the world because God loved the world, and I didn't come to condemn the world or judge the world. I came to save the world, I came to show what God's reign looks like. I came to be God's kingdom here on earth. And then when we get to the man born blind, um suddenly now it's not people who are approaching Jesus with questions or curiosity, it's people who are approaching Jesus with a sense of superiority. They're coming to Jesus saying, Oh, we know. And so now Jesus, I think, is getting a little more pointed with them. And this is where I said the tensions are rising. And so it's not someone coming in humility and curiosity, it's someone who's coming and saying, Jesus, this is how this goes. And Jesus is saying, um, all right, I'm gonna give you a hard truth right now. The hard truth is that, you know, the the way that you are existing in this dichotomy of sin and shame and hierarchy and that kind of stuff is not the way that I'm going to operate in the world. And so I think maybe it is a shift in the way that Jesus is presenting things, partially because of the audience to whom he's speaking. And so this is this text sometimes gets used to kind of reclaim the idea that people who are born or develop disabilities or whatever you would like to call them, um they are still welcomed within God's kingdom and they are still used to glorify God in their present condition. They don't need, I mean, here we he here we have healing, but it's not actually about the healing, I don't think. It's about talking about what the Pharisees and the disciples are struggling with, and that is seeing this world outside of cause and effect, sin, punishment.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

And then he goes and spits on the ground and makes a mud pie. Like, what is that all about? Doesn't he heal another person of blindness and he just like does something radically different? Like just lays his eye, he lays his hands on the person. Like, there's two heal the blind stories in the Bible. At least two. This is the most like gross one.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Uh so because I mean Jesus does heal in many capacities, sometimes with touch, sometimes from a distance, because there's other stories where someone comes and asks Jesus to heal a child, and Jesus says, Go, they're all better now. Um, but in this particular case, Jesus makes the mud with the spit and the dirt. And for John, there are many parallels to uh the beginnings of scriptures, Genesis. And so at the beginning of John, in John 1, in the beginning was the word. And how does Genesis begin? In the beginning, and God's word is creating and creative, and so now we've got mud, aka dirt, and dust, and God did what with dust, took it and formed it, and created people, and breathed life into it. And so we have again this connection to the earthiness and God working in and through creation and all this neat stuff going on in there too. And so I think the mud, while maybe dramatic from our lens, is also I think a neat connection to the earthy earthiness and embodiment of God's work in this world and Jesus' way of carrying it into our lives.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

In in past discussions, we've talked about the importance of community and in the in the Jewish culture and the in the in the faith at that time of you know civilization and being part of the synagogue, right? Being part of that community was important. So one of the other things I see in this in this particular man is that he's he's fervent in his in his truth, in his faith. And he doesn't back down. And like even to the point when the Pharisees expel him, they they kick him out. I mean, I don't even know what the what the implications of that could be, but I'm I'm sure that it's more than just getting kicked out of your home church. Like, I feel like that could be a big deal.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah, like shunning or excommunication or something.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, yeah. And and but he stays fur you know firm, stands firm to his belief in what Jesus did for him. And then on top of that, Jesus comes and finds him and says, you know, like, hey, yeah, here I am.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

But it's ironic that you know there he was blind all his life, and then something happened, and now he believes, and yet you've got the Pharisees who are all learned in the in the and all the rules of Judaism, and yet they still are blind. They still can't see the Christ is standing right in front of them, and you know, giving those examples, and yet they are the blind ones.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

And I think all that comes down to those last few verses that we were talking about earlier. Jesus said, I have come into the world to exercise judgment so that those who don't see can see, and those who see will become blind. And so, on some level, like when you can't see, you're very aware that you can't see, right? Like you're very aware of your need, you're very aware of um how how that has changed the way that you interact with the world and whatnot. And then so, therefore, you're aware that there's a space for Jesus to enter into, to kind of stretch the metaphor a little bit. But these Pharisees who are like, we understand how everything works, or then the disciples too, to be fair, they're all coming into this with we see everything, we understand everything. And Jesus basically says, Well, guess what? You're gonna be confounded because you got it wrong. And so Jesus is turning it upside down from that perspective. And that's why I think he goes on, if you were blind, you wouldn't have any sin. And if we remove the idea of blindness being a physical thing here and go with just the spiritual blindness, if you are, if you were blind, if you were aware that you know nothing and you are just an empty vessel waiting for God's word to fill you, then you wouldn't have any sin. Because you have no none of that pride, you have none of that ego, you are just simply accepting God's mercy as it is. But since you say we see, your sin remains. Because you think you know better, because you think you understand all the ways that God works in the world, you clearly have separated yourself from God and are not letting God fully into your life.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

So doesn't that speak to that truth speaks across the millennia? Yes. I can't believe I said that. Oh, yeah. Like that, I mean, seriously though, that truth is evident even today. We we have our own blindness, our own Pharisaic beliefs inside of us that we struggle with, I'm I'm sure, right? Like we may not even be aware of it. So how do we how do we deal with that? How do we remain because I I do think that there's a difference between the disciples and the Pharisees. The disciples may have come from the same starting point, but they were willing, uh it sounds like they were willing to have their eyes opened, you know, spiritually, right, by asking questions like, hey Jesus, what's going on with this guy? And they listened, right? And then they watched. They watched what Jesus did. So how can we be more like the disciples and less like the Pharisees? Where where do we see the blind man and then see God's work in our world?

SPEAKER_00 17:57

I do want to defend the Pharisees a little bit here, because I feel like we often rag on the Pharisees in the Gospels. To be fair, John often uses the word Pharisees as a very flat character. They're not necessarily truly representate representatives of Pharisaic tradition and things like that. So they do sometimes act in some hyperbole.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

But maybe too, you know, Jesus was threatening their authority in in their teaching, and they wanted to poke holes in any of the kinds of things that his his followers were trying to promote. So, you know, there may have been a curiosity on their part as to why these things are happening, but then too, I think they were threatened.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

I wonder if it's a little bit like a little bit like the curiosity or the the way that the Pharisee Nicodemus approached Jesus, where there was some fear and there was some curiosity, and they were intermingling, and it created a just a very uncomfortable environment for them where they didn't know how to be faithful leaders of the faith, faithful leaders of the religion in that space, because they're experiencing things that are incredible and seem to be of God, but at the same point it doesn't fit in with what they expect to see. And so they don't know how to navigate those waters. And so, how often do we too also, when we encounter things that we don't know how to process, we sometimes process with a little bit of antagonism, a little bit of anger, a little bit of reactivity. And so I wonder if that's some of their fear and mixed in with a little bit of curiosity, because it seems like a good thing, but they want to make sure it is a good thing and not something that is nefarious that is going to lead the people astray.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Yeah, so if you to that end, Pastor, if you read 16 through 17, some Pharisees said, This man is not from God because he breaks the Sabbath. Others said, How can a sinner do miraculous signs like these? So they were divided. And like so they're and and then literally, as I was kind of rereading certain sections here, only in verse 16 do the Pharisees actually poke on the Sabbath. If they were trying to, if the Pharisees, you know, in that very linear stereotypical lens were like just interested in trapping Jesus, they would have just leaned in, I assume they would have just leaned into, oh well, he did work on the Sabbath, and therefore he must be guilty, you know, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, because you broke all the rules. Yeah, you broke all the rules. Yeah. But most of the following questions, like the the next ten verses, are all like how, why, where, like they're they're not when they're action questions, which does imply curiosity. Like, we just want to be sure. And I and I do think that there's obviously there's value in that because you're you're right. And the the Pharisees are just trying to look out for the for the people. And they just don't want they just want to know like that this Jesus guy is legit. Now, he's doing all these miraculous things, and they can see, but they're blind. Yeah. So there's that, there is that tension there. But they probably do are starting, they probably are starting from a a place of like good faith, uh, if you will. They just they can't get over that. They they can't go over they can't get over the miraculousness of Jesus, the divinity of Jesus. They just see the human is is is what I'm kind of thinking.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Well, I think even too, today, I know people that you know I've I talk with that um are close to me that maybe don't have a belief in God, and they ask me how, why? They they have the same questions, you know. And and I I try to come up with reasons why I have faith. You know, so i i i it it's kind of the same arguments but going on for two thousand years.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Which then brings us back to that tagline, if you will, that we kind of developed last week of you can't necessarily explain some of these things. There weren't we're not going to satisfy the questions of these Pharisees. We just simply have to encounter and then experien encounter the human and experience the divine and be open and willing to experience that divine, even when it comes in surprising ways through surprising people, um, in ways that we don't expect or ways that might push us into directions that are new to us.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Well, be willing to be willing to see. Yeah. Be willing to to listen and to see and to and to ask questions, honest questions, without having a preconceived answer. Yeah. Just ask open-end questions and then let God do the work.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah, because I mean, if you compare how the man born blind and everybody else and the story responds to all of this, the man born blind, all he does is receive. I mean, he like I said earlier, he didn't ask for anything. He just was there. He just received, he just experienced, and he's like, all right, I got it. Jesus, Messiah, like it. This man born blind is just simply an open recipient, whereas everybody else is is trying to fill something that they see, they're they're trying to they're trying to look for something that they know what it looks like, they're trying to find what they think they know they're looking for. I don't know how to put it. Um it's like when you go into a room, if you go into the room expecting to see a homey environment, and then you're met with something different, you you you're taken aback. Whereas if you go into a room and you're just saying, I'm just gonna see what there is to see, all's good. And so I think there's some of that kind of broken expectation that the Pharisees and disciples are experiencing here. They expect things to go one way. Man born blind, clearly there's a sin, clearly there's a fault, and Jesus will tell us about that fault, and then Jesus will tell us how to avoid it or deal with it or whatever. But then the interchange is nothing like what they expected, and so there's that taken abackness, there's that shock value to all of this. Um and so I think that's where sometimes faith is being open to just simply receiving in whatever surprising ways things happen. And because if we would if we don't let faith surprise us, if we don't let faith be creative with how it works in us, then we sometimes turn into the disciples and the Pharisees where we just assume we know things and we assume what things are going to look like, and we're not ready to or able to receive the gift that God is offering us.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

I like that I like the way that you leaned into the creativity, letting God be creative in your life. That's that's a cool that was a cool segue or ex like explanation because that is interesting. It it's just again, just listening and allowing God to yeah, allowing God to you said it well, allowing God to be creative by breaking down the preconceptions and reforming your your your mind, your your thinking, your your faith, like to be creative with you know, to allow him to be creative with your faith. And we're just along for the ride. You you just have to be along for the ride. I've often found that when I get out of my own way and let God kind of do the work, if that makes sense, then yeah, it usually like goes better. Like it usually goes better. Not usually, always goes better.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

I've had many sol moments in my life. Yeah, you know, where and it like the old joke is you know, if you want to make God laugh, tell him you have a plan.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

You know, but it's like I got this one under control, don't worry. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

It that that doesn't work that way, and then pretty soon you have a soul moment and God comes in, and then if you you finally say to yourself, All right, I'm gonna let God take this, and then it does work out. I'm not saying that the road isn't bumpy, and sometimes you can't see the road signs, but you just pray that you're gonna see those, and God will won't let you down. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yeah, and I think a lot of this comes down to the Pharisees are just learning to get it out of their own way.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

I like that analogy.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

I do too. Thank you for joining us again for a great conversation of facets of faith. We hope you had as much fun listening as we did talking. And I hope you will join us next week when we talk about Lazarus, a man who was dead, a man whose death Jesus grieved, and a man who brought new life and shows us the new hope and new life we have in faith, thanks to Jesus Christ. And with all that in mind, let us take a moment to open our hearts to God's movement in and through us as we come to Jesus in prayer. Bend your ear to our prayers, Lord Jesus, and come among us. By your gracious life and death for us, bring light into the darkness of our hearts and anoint us with your spirit. For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Until next time, this has been Facets of Faith.