Looking for What God is Doing
John 9:1-7, 13-41[1]
We turn to faith for comfort. That’s one of the main roles
faith plays in our lives. It offers us comfort when the realities of life can
feel like they’re too much to bear. That’s why we love Scripture passages like
Psalm 23. It’s a beautiful expression of the comfort our faith offers us. But
when we only look to faith for comfort, it’s too easy to focus only our
ourselves, and lose sight of those around us. That’s why our faith also
challenges us. Faith that’s worth its salt not only offers us comfort, it also
challenges us to see the suffering of our sisters and brothers in the human
family. Especially those who suffer the most in this world, the very ones we
may prefer not to see. When we let our faith turn in on itself, it becomes too
easy to convince ourselves that their suffering is somehow their own fault.
Instead of seeing them as beloved children of God who are suffering in the same
way we all can suffer, which can be a scary thought, we convince ourselves that
they must have done something to bring it on themselves. The idea that they
must have done something to deserve their suffering somehow assures us that it
won’t happen to us. But in the process, we let our desire for comfort and
safety blind us to the compassion God wants us to give to the people who suffer
the most in this world.
Our Gospel lesson for today addresses this issue. It’s the
story about Jesus’ encounter with a man who had been born blind. But the irony
is that it turns the tables on how we might expect the story to go. In this
story, the “religious” people who claimed that they could see were in fact
blind. They were blind to the compassion of God, they were blind to truth that
Jesus restored this man’s sight. But it was a man who was despised as an
ignorant vagrant was the one who was able to see what they couldn’t or wouldn’t
see. The narrator emphasizes this irony by calling the one Jesus healed “the
man who had formerly been blind.” But irony is that in this story, he was the
one who was able to see the truth about Jesus. On the other hand, the
“religious” people were blinded because of their assumptions.
The basic assumption in this story that blinded the
“religious” people is that anyone who is suffering must have done something to
deserve it. That’s an assumption that we still make. In the Gospel story, it
was Jesus’ own disciples who voiced this assumption, asking, “who sinned, this
man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). The very fact that he
had been born blind meant that someone had to have done something wrong to
cause his suffering. But Jesus exploded the centuries-old myth that suffering
comes from sin. I like the way Gene Peterson translates Jesus’ response in The Message: “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, MSG).
The hard truth is that we live in a world where any kind of
suffering can affect anyone at any time. And we tend to use rationalizations
like “they must have brought it on themselves” to assure ourselves that we
won’t have to suffer the same pain! But Jesus turns all that on its head. He
says that the suffering people experience in this world isn’t about blaming or
shaming. Rather, it’s an opportunity for those of us who claim to follow him to
demonstrate “the works of God” (John 9:4): kindness, compassion, and mercy! The
suffering that people endure is an opportunity for us to “look instead for what
God can do” (John 9:3, MSG), even and especially in the worst of the
pain people can suffer!
Because Jesus healed “the man who had formerly been blind”
on the Sabbath day, the religious people believed he had “broken” the Sabbath
and therefore he must have been a “sinner” (John 9:16). They believed that
following their “rules” about the Sabbath carefully and completely would act as
a kind of magical protection from the suffering in the world. Because Jesus
didn’t follow their rules about how to observe the Sabbath, he called into question
their assumptions about God and the world. To keep their assurances intact they
concluded that he must have been a
sinner! Only if Jesus was a sinner could they keep their assumptions intact,
assumptions that gave them false and shallow assurances that they would never
have to deal with that kind of suffering. We still do that: we tell ourselves
that if we follow all the rules, we’ll be spared from the worst hardships of
life. And we reinforce that line of thinking by assuming those who suffer the
worst must have “broken the rules,” and therefore they must be “sinners.” I
would think that most of us have had enough experience with life to know that’s
not the way life works. We can follow all the rules and still be hit with some
of the worst kinds of suffering.
Again, in the Gospel story it was “the man who had formerly
been blind” who exposed all these false assumptions. The religious leaders kept
pressing him, trying to find a way to avoid the obvious conclusion that Jesus restored
his sight. Finally, in exasperation they said, “Give glory to God! We know that
this man is a sinner” (John 9:24). And an unlearned, marginalized, ragged, and
dirty man, who just that morning had been living on the street, showed a depth
of insight beyond all that they possessed. He said simply, “I do not know
whether he is a sinner” (Jn 9:25). There’s probably a lot of wisdom in that
when it comes to using the word “sinner” about someone else. But he said, “One
thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (Jn 9:25).
This man who had been blind was able to see the truth about
Jesus. Those who claimed to see and know God’s truth were blinded by their
false assumptions. That’s what the story is about. We see it in the end when
Jesus makes an ironic and somewhat confusing statement about enabling those who
are blind to see and making those who can see blind. The Message translation
puts it this way, “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, MSG). I don’t think Jesus ever meant to keep anyone
from seeing the truth about God, the truth about themselves, or the truth about
life. I think what he was trying to do was to expose those who “make a great
pretense of seeing” as people who can actually be blind. The story is about
bringing to light something that happens all too often: those of us who think
we see the truth about God and therefore view ourselves as “holier” than others
are the ones who can at times be the most blind to God’s grace and mercy and compassion!
The hard truth about life is that we never know what we may
have to go through. There are times when suffering just happens, not because of
what we have done, but in spite of all we may have done. It’s natural in those
times for us to look to our faith for comfort. But when we take that to an
extreme and try to use our faith as an assurance that it won’t happen to us,
we’ve missed something. Jesus made it clear that we’ve missed something when we
use our “faith” to brand those who are suffering as “sinners” as a way of
reassuring ourselves that we won’t have to suffer like them. What that really
boils down to is an elaborate means of making ourselves feeling better at the
expense of others. But Jesus framed the suffering people experience in this
world entirely differently. He framed it as an opportunity for us to “look
instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG).
The Bible says that “nothing will be impossible for God.”
We oftentimes think that some people may be beyond hope. And we tend to point the
finger at them and assume that they must have done something to deserve it. It’s
their fault somehow. But we really don’t know what life experiences have
brought people to where they are. We really don’t know the burdens that people
are carrying. I think that’s why Jesus taught his disciples and us to look at
the suffering people experience not as a reason to point the finger and blame but
as an opportunity to “look instead for what God can do.” Instead of shaming
people, he challenged us to look for the good that God can do even and
especially in the worst of human pain. After all, God raise Jesus from the dead
after his suffering on the cross. If that’s true, what experience in this life
is there that God can’t bring good from? And when look for what God can do when
someone is suffering, not only does it change our whole perspective, but it
also helps us to see that we have the opportunity to share God’s mercy and
compassion with them. Maybe that’s what God “wants” to do. Maybe God wants to
open our hearts to show kindness, compassion, and care, especially toward those
whose suffering challenges us. I think Jesus challenges us to find the faith to
look at the sufferings of this life and trust God enough to look for what God
can do in any situation, come what may, and then try to join him in doing that.
[1] © Alan
Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/15/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian
Church, Hickman, NE.
