Eyes to See
John 9:1-41[1]
We all have “filters” through which we process what goes on around us.
Those “filters” come from our perspectives on life and our convictions and
assumptions about truth. It’s the way we make sense out of the many and varied
experiences and pieces of information that come our way every day. In some
respects, it’s simply the way our brains work. But at times, we take our
“filters” too seriously. We assume that they are “truth” with a capital “T,”
and that anyone who disagrees with us is wrong. When that happens, our
“filters” become “blinders.”
Blinders have a useful purpose: they prevent animals from being
distracted or spooked by what’s going on around them. But when it comes to
people, blinders rarely turn out to be positive. Especially when it comes to
matters of faith. When we assume that our convictions are the absolute truth,
then we have no choice but to judge those who have a different perspective to
be “wrong.” In the history of the church, this has often played out in terms of
branding persons as “heretics,” shunning them, and even executing them for
their different beliefs.
I think our Gospel lesson for today is a story about how our convictions
can become “blinders” that prevent us from seeing what is obvious. In this story, the religious authorities are
blinded to what is the obvious truth, something they should be able to see
plainly. The episode is about Jesus’
encounter with a man who had been born blind. Part of what makes this story
ironic, however, is that while the Gospel continually speaks of him as “the man
who had formerly been blind,” the religious authorities go to great lengths to
try to discredit this obvious truth. As it turns out, they are the ones who are
blinded because of their assumptions.
The first blinder in the story is that anyone who suffers tragedy must
have brought it on themselves by some grievous sin. Jesus’ own disciples voice this belief,
asking, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John
9:2). Their question reflected a view as
old as the story of Job that if you do what is right you will be blessed by
God, but if you do what is wrong you will be punished. But Jesus explodes the myth. I like the way The Message translates Jesus’ response: “You’re asking the wrong
question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect
here. Look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, Message). Jesus says that tragedy in our world is an
opportunity for us to demonstrate “the works of God” (John 9:4): kindness and
compassion!
The next blinder has to do with the fact that Jesus heals “the man who
had formerly been blind” on the Sabbath day.
Because Jesus dared exercise God’s mercy by healing this man, the
religious authorities believed he had “broken” the Sabbath and therefore
assumed he was a “sinner.” Some of them
put it this way: “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the
Sabbath” (John 9:16). Since Jesus didn’t
follow their meticulous rules about keeping the Sabbath holy, in their eyes he
must have been a sinner. Ironically, it is “the man who had formerly been
blind” who exposes their blindness. The
religious authorities keep trying to find a way to avoid the obvious conclusion
that he had been born blind and Jesus had restored his sight. And this unlearned, very like unkempt man, simply
says to them, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (John
9:25). The irony is that sometimes it takes someone we consider beneath us to
make us aware of the ways in which we let our assumptions keep us from seeing
what is obvious.
That’s one of the great dangers when we let our convictions and
assumptions about faith and life harden so that they turn into “blinders.” As
Jesus often chided the religious leaders of that day, those kinds of prejudices
often keep us from seeing what is truly important. When our faith and our
assumptions lead us to brand another person as a “sinner,” it seems to me that
we have overstepped the bounds of our human limitations. Surely when it comes
to labeling who’s a sinner and who’s not, we should heed the humility that
reminds us that it’s not for us to say!
I think that is what the whole story is about. When we let our convictions and assumptions lead
us to hate another person, we’ve missed the point. We’ve closed our eyes to the
fact that Jesus himself said that the highest expression of our faith is to
love God and love others. At the end of the story, Jesus says “I came into the
world …, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a
great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind” (John 9:39, The Message). This story is about exposing how our
assumptions and convictions can make us completely blind to the grace and mercy
and compassion of God.
But I don’t think Jesus intended this story to stop there. I think the
point of the story is to make us take a hard look at the “blinders” we may be
wearing. I think it’s meant to challenge us to consider the ways in which we
may have allowed our convictions and assumptions to harden enough to make us
shun or even hate others. The fact that we all tend to do this is something
that we’d rather not have to face. It’s humbling, to say the least. But that’s
what the season of Lent is for: a time to humble ourselves and admit, at least
to ourselves, the ways in which we have been blinded. When we do that, it can
be like the scales falling off St. Paul’s eyes on the road to Damascus. When we
recognize the “blinders” we’ve been wearing, we can take them off so that we
have eyes to see the “works of God” all around us!
[1] ©
2017 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/26/2017 at
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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