Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Mystic, Connecticut

Sermon from March 6, 2005

“Adventures In Missing the Point”

Rev. Patricia L. Liberty

Scriptures:

1 Samuel 16:1-13

John 9:1-41

“The story of the man born blind is a one-act play in six scenes, with a large cast of characters, as biblical stories go.  There are the twelve disciples, a crowd of nosy neighbors, some Pharisees, two parents, the man himself, and Jesus.”  The story revolves around the blind man and Jesus, for the most part, because they are the only so-called sinners in it—the man because he was born blind which, in his day, was a sure sign of God’s judgment, and Jesus because he broke one of the Ten Commandments by healing the man on the Sabbath.  So writes Barbara Brown Taylor in her book, Home by Another Way.

It is a comedy of sorts, written for an audience of believers toward the close of the first century.  Those who heard this comedy were people who never knew the historical Jesus and were trying, not unlike the rest of us, to figure out how to live in the increasing number of days between Jesus’ first coming and his second.  Maybe, that’s the biggest difference between them and us in that, after almost 2000 years, any sense of urgency that we have about it is pretty much past.  They were still sleeping with one eye open just in case Jesus came back in the middle of the night. 

If Biblical editors were less uptight, the page heading might read “Adventures In Missing the Point” rather than “Jesus Heals a Blind Man” because the whole cast of characters, with the exception of the two identified sinners, does just that again and again.  They just miss the point completely. 

Doesn’t it seem a bit strange that not one person in this whole cast of characters says, “Wow!  Congratulations, I’m so happy for you. So what’s it’s like to actually see?  Does the light hurt your eyes?  Am I as good-looking as you imagined me to be?”

Nothing.   Not one word.  It’s a problem right from the beginning, and here’s one of the many funny parts .  It’s not even the problem that some of the characters think it is:  The Pharisees pose the question in terms of sin.  Who sinned, this man or his parents?  They asked that ageless question about human suffering.  Why do people suffer if God is all-good and all-powerful?  How does this happen?  Somebody has to be blamed and since it can’t be God, it must be because of sin, either the man’s or his parents.   They asked the question supposing all the while that they knew the answer.

It’s a question that is never far from the lips of people of faith—first century Christians or twenty-first century Christians.  We want to know how.  We want to know why.  We want to have somebody to blame.  Earthquakes, the tsunami, illness, tragedy, violence and pain …  We can’t help but ask, “Why?”

To the Pharisees’ question of who sinned, Jesus replies, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.  We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.” 

It is a kind of non-answer to their question.  Jesus acknowledges that disease and disability and disasters happen in the world; he doesn’t say God caused them.  What he does say is that even in such unfortunate circumstances, God can be known, and the main way for that to happen is for all God’s followers to lend a hand in alleviating the suffering.   The point they missed is that all God’s people are agents of God’s light.  All people of faith are to join in the work of God’s realm. 

As biblical scholar Sarah Dylan Breuer suggests, “When folks wanted to sit around and think deep thoughts, the message was: Get back to work.”  This opening scene sets the stage for the rest of the comedy.

Scene Two:  Mud, spit, wash … sight to the blind man. Enter nosy neighbors.  “Isn’t he the beggar?”  “No, it’s just someone who looks like him.”  “No, it’s me, it’s really me.”  “What happened?”  “Well, a man named Jesus ... I don’t know how it happened.  I can see.”  On and on it goes.  The nosy neighbors didn’t even recognize him.  They kept thinking, “It’s someone who looks like him.”

Point missed:  How hard it is for us to acknowledge that God really does change lives.  How hard it is for us to really believe that discipleship and faith change the human journey.  But also, at some level. don’t you hope that someone, who knew you 25 years ago and meets you again today, would think you had changed and grown at least a little bit?  I don’t mean only in girth and gray hair.

When I was ordained almost 25 years ago, the comment from my family and closest friends was, “We never thought you’d make it.”  On the other hand, there was a woman named Edith from my home church in Agawam, Massachusetts.  On the day I was ordained she said, “I hope you come to know half of the fullness of God’s vision for your life.”  I’ve never forgotten her or her words.

It’s the point made in the reading from Samuel that Julie read—that reminder that God sees with different eyes than we do; that when God does God’s thing, we need to get some new eyes so that we can see.

Scene three.  Here’s where it gets interesting.  Enter Pharisees.  Before we move, on let’s establish one thing:  the Pharisees are not the bad guys that we make them out to be.  While they appear to be fanatical and narrow and intolerant (and in many ways, they were), they held an important role in first century Judaism.  They were so in love with the law and they were so in love with their relationship with God and they were so sure it was the only way to God’s heart that they wanted everyone to know and follow the law.  If they were guilty of anything it was overzealous passion for one way of being in the world. 

Here’s the heart of the turmoil caused by this wonderful miracle of restoring a blind man’s sight.  The Pharisees are painted into a theological corner of their own making.  On the one hand, Jesus cannot be the son of God, he cannot be of God in any way because he healed on the Sabbath.  They were convinced God didn’t work on Sunday and no one else should either.  Of all the 613 commandments in the Old Testament, the one about not working on the Sabbath made the top ten.  So, it must have been very important. 

On the other hand, they couldn’t figure out how a sinner could do such a miracle.  So they either had to rethink the Sabbath and what God wants and doesn’t want or they had to deny that Jesus actually did the miracle.  They were divided.  They couldn’t quite figure it out.  So they go to the parents seeking more information.  The point they missed—sometimes, what we believe will challenge what we know.  Sometimes, our heart needs to lead the way.  Sometimes, more information isn’t going to help and we just have to take it on faith.

Scene Four. The parents.  “Yeah, he’s our kid and he was blind.  If he isn’t now, I don’t know anything about it.  Ask him for yourself.  Shut the door, pull down the blinds and hope those proper religious people, who must know more than they do, will just go away.” 

Point Missed:  This is a direct jab to the religious leaders of the day and an appeal for the early Christians to be strong in their faith in Jesus even when it clashed with the prevailing religious wisdom of the day.  In other words, religious leaders and preachers don’t know everything.  People of faith have a God-given responsibility to work things through for themselves and not take what leaders say hook, line, and sinker.  This is part of the reason I’m so glad we’re doing sermon talk-backs now because you get a chance to tell us what you think.  It’s an important part of a faith journey.

Scene Five:  Back to the Pharisees again.  I think it is just hysterical.  The Pharisees do what people of faith in every age have done when they can’t figure out a problem.  They get rid of the person who causes the problem:  they threw him out.  “If you don’t agree with us, it’s our way or the highway!”  It’s an interesting approach.  Rather than rethink the Sabbath and what can and can’t be done, they denied that Jesus performed any miracle and just dismissed the man completely.  Problem solved.

Here’s where the writer of John’s gospel points at the audience of his own time and the audience across the years and asks, “At what point do we give up a cherished religious tradition so there can be openness to the new thing God may be doing that doesn’t quite fit the mold?”  Can we let God be God and work in ways and through people that God chooses even when we don’t think it’s proper?  After all, Jesus chose a blind man, a beggar, a nobody.  Can we let God be God?  I guess it’s a question that’s still up for grabs.

 Point missed:  God will decide who’s a sinner and who isn’t; God will choose how God works.  Thank you very much. 

The final scene, Scene Six, of the play is the pièce de résistance.  The blind man is on his own in the world.  The most wonderful thing in the world has happened to him and, as a result, he has been driven from his home, his community and even his own family.  And Jesus finds him.  He seeks out the man and comforts him.  In the eyes of the Pharisees, they were two sinners sitting in their own darkness.  In the irony of God’s ongoing drama, they were the only two who saw the light.

I can’t help but wonder if the formerly blind guy thought, “Well, if Jesus is a sinner and a heretic, sign me up.”  I doubt, at this point in his journey, if he had it all figured out.  What he did know and what he stuck to every moment of the way was, “I used to be blind.  Now, I’m not.  Thanks be to God.”  Jesus was the one who made him whole, and he was going to stand with that no matter what the religious authorities or anyone else said was holy or right or true.

For those watching this play with six scenes and perhaps squirming in their seats a bit by now, all the points that they missed point to one point and one point alone—God is greater than all we can imagine and God will choose the who, the when, the what, and the why of God’s work.  The best we can hope for is that our own blindness gives way just a little bit so we can see just what it is that God has in store.  Amen.