Blind from birth

John 9:1-41

          I don't know about you but this all sounds a bit repulsive. Talk about practicing medicine without a license, Jesus takes his spit, makes mud with dirt, places it in a blind man's eyes and asks him to wash it off in the pool of Siloam. The shocker is that the man can then see. Then the trouble really begins.

          There seem to be so many things wrong here. The mud. The ancient notion that a man could be blind from either the sins of the man or even his parents.  Is that how God's world works?  Then there is the nonsense about Jesus doing this "work" on the sabbath and finally ( I think ) is the issue of the Pharisees who simply refuse to see what has happened themselves because it does not jive with their rules. The Pharisees will come up with any excuse or logic to deny what has really happened.

          Of course it's easy to see now in retrospectivision ( see, new words: Chris Christie ). Try and place yourself in the scene at the time though. In a effort to understand why someone was blind, there was a belief that it could be your sins that caused it or even the sins of your parents. Making mud with dirt and spittle? That is disgusting even now but probably even more so then. Dirt was the crud on your feet, always in need of being washed off (remember, everyone wore sandals). You greeted house guests by washing the street dirt off their feet. Lastly, if you were an observant Jew at the time, it was all about rules and strict worship. That also has not changed even today and even extended to Roman Catholicism and a few other notable religions.  So it would be a challenge on many levels for anyone to understand Jesus making a blind man see.  I have no doubt that he did however.

           As Jesus clearly states though, there is a greater purpose in the man's blindness. I do not believe God made the man blind but that Jesus saw the human condition and was able to use it for the glory of the Father.  Jesus saw and felt the Father's presence everywhere and at all times. But know, God did not strike the man blind. I do not believe in such orchestrations that make us nothing more than puppets.   

Jesus did use this man's blindness to show how blind we all are. In this case he used it to also show how far afield the Pharisees had become.  God cannot cure on the Sabbath?? Wasn't it God that created the Sabbath? Wasn't it God making the cure?  In true circular logic (and it made complete sense to them), Jesus could not be God or even the son of God because he disobeyed the rules of the God's sabbath). Hey, makes sense doesn't it?

           So by our own rules and logic and biases, we fail to see. That is the message. We can rationalize anything. Something considered dirty cannot be of God. Something that breaks the rules cannot be of God. 

          What are the situations we encounter in our world today that seem dirty, messy, unruly or against God's "rules" (really rules that man makes in God's name). I am sure I am one. A gay man who is honest, decent and faithful. There's a whole heap of hurt in that statement to some.  Oh, and I am married to a man.  The hurt goes off the charts. 

           What do you fail to see? What do you rationalize away?

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.

His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

Jesus answered, "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; night is coming when no one can work.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

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,

saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

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?"

Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man."

But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?"

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."

They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

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."

Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided.

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."

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

and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?"

His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind;

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."

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.

Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

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."

He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."

They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"

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?"

Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from."

The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.

We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.

Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.

If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.

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."

He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him.

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."

Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?"

Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.