Adapted from a
sermon shared at First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN Match 27, 2017
Gospel
reading: See text (John 9:1-41)
One
recommendation for pastors on preaching this passage is simply to read it
completely with no interruption because the message has a two-way flow to it
from blindness to insight and from seeing to spiritual blindness. This is how
I’m going to do it with a slight modification. First, I offer some information about
John’s gospel to establish a perspective on the passage as we listen (see Day for more on John); and after
the reading I’ll close by reflecting on the deeper meaning in it for Christians
living in today’s world.
Introductory words. I would like to remind you that the Gospel of John
presents a unique view of Jesus. John does not read like the other three
gospels. From the beginning, Jesus openly admits being Christ, God’s son, and states his
purpose is to bring light into
the world, something we do not read in the other three gospels, or if we do
it is at the end of them.
The
gospel of John appears to have been composed
in two steps over a significant time interval. Most likely, the first writer recorded his
personal experience of the events in the life of Jesus among the Jewish
community some of whom believed Jesus and some opposed him. Some years after
the first composer when was open conflict in the synagogue between those Jews
who recognized and called Jesus, Christ, and the Jews and leaders of the
synagogue who accused them of false belief a final editor, appears to have added
and polished text relevant to this later time, adding chapter 21.
Two
groups reoccur in the gospel. One is the
opponents that are called “The Jews.” These are probably contemporary Jewish public
worshippers who rejected his teachings. The other is the “Pharisees” or elders who
rejected Jesus in a time of open controversy after the life of Jesus who challenged
avowed Christians and expelled them from the synagogues.
There
are particular recurring themes in John. One is that Jesus is light and
disbelief as darkness. The other is that Jesus is the constant source of
division among listeners. The division arises because in the light of Jesus people
choose either to accept the truth of Jesus or to embrace darkness and unbelief.
There
is another important issue in this passage readers must understand before
reading, otherwise, it may miss the words of Jesus that physical burdens are
not a sign of sin but, like our righteousness as a Christian, an opportunity by
God to show God’s glory in his love for us. In the days of Jesus some believed
illness, deformity, and birth defects were caused by sin (the temple practices
show this).
There
are persons within every group that hears this passage who carry a physical
burden or a mental worry, or know persons who do. In this text, both may will latch
onto the criticism that this man’s blindness is a sign of sin by him or his
parents and wonder, “Are we punished by illness because we are sinners?” The scripture says it, even though many “preachers”
discredit Jesus’ own words even in this story; namely, physical burdens
are not a sign of sin but, like our
righteousness as a Christian, an opportunity by God to show God’s glory in
his love for us.
John
also shows us there are two ways of looking at blindness, as the physical
condition of no eyesight, and as a spiritual problem of no faith. Two people may
see the same thing, one believes, the other does not.
Related
to seeing and believing, this passage is heavy with the fact that words can have
a more than one meaning, even words about salvation. It caused me to remember a
“pun” the smartest guy in my middle school class told me. Some say puns are the highest form of humor
and others the lowest, but here it is. In retrospect, this pun clearly
illustrates the irony of double meanings of words in this passage. “Once upon a
time there was a blind carpenter. One day he picked up his hammer and saw.” You may have to wait to the end to see how
that pun relates to the story.
Before
I begin, as you read it, notice how the blind man’s awareness grows with
the narrative as the blindness of his critics increases. Notice the story of
the blind man is broken into four major sections, his healing, a trial with the
public and Pharisees and his time with Jesus, and the time of the Pharisees
with Jesus
The Text. Please read John 9:1-41, start to end,
and return to this blog.
Reflection.
This
is a beautifully crafted narrative full of guidance for faithful living.
First,
Jesus acknowledges that we are born sinners. His tells his disciples who want
to see illness as sin that no earthly trial, sickness or parent makes a person
sinful or is a punishment for sin. We may suffer consequences of a sinful act
or not, (good things often happen to “bad” people in this world) but our
tendency to sin is “in our blood.” The
post last week took great length to explore Paul’s teaching about
righteousness and forgiveness. Paul writes that because of our faith in the
light of Jesus, our sin is erased and we are reckoned righteous regardless of
sin. Confidence in our faith gives us confidence in our future regardless of
what happens on this ground we call “Earth.” Therefore, it is always
appropriate to glorify God (See
v3).
Second,
do not think that faith and seeing will exempt you from difficulty. We heard
Jesus say peril and sickness are beyond our control – they are not signs of sin
but are opportunities for God’s glory to shine.
The
blind man is a hero is the sense that he changed from thinking himself a sinner
due to his blindness, to thinking Jesus must be a prophet because he was healed,
to knowing he was healed because Jesus is from God. Still, he was ostracized
from his synagogue and criticized by his fellow Jews and Pharisees who saw he
was healed, verified who did it and disbelieved.
Third,
Jesus says that God does not listen to sinners but to those who worship and
obey him. (v31) Those who
listen to Jesus and hear are enlightened because Jesus is the light of the
world. They listen and see(understand). A human cannot gain enlightenment by
one’s own action, it comes from Jesus by the Holy Spirit because he is the
light from God (v33).
Fourth,
Jesus said he came for judgment - not to judge but to be judged by humanity (v39). Literally, those who do see and believe (who
have faith), escape judgment as they are reckoned righteous, but those who see
and do not believe judge themselves by their own blindness. Those who judge Jesus
rather than accept him thereby judge themselves as darkness.
In our
world of double meanings, a sinner who can sees Jesus for who he is and does
not believe is blind to grace (v41).
As I
introduced this passage, I remarked the final composition reaches across time
not only from those Jews, Gentiles and the blind man contemporary with Jesus,
or llater Christians in Jewish congregations whose belief in Jesus caused trials,
tribulation and expulsion from fellowship in the synagogue by opponents, but
also for us today.
Two
weeks ago, I wrote about being
holy and being right. The real message there was that Christians are
reckoned holy before judgment and discover who God is by living one’s faith. This
passage in John using the idea of seeing and believing says the same thing in a
different way.
We
don’t discover God by being disciples of Moses like the Pharisees, or by lip
service as one-day-a-week-Christians. Certainly, we need and recharge
our batteries and support each other by participating in a worship service, but
- we don’t always easily discover who God is only by coming to a church worship
service. We do discover God by worship. But know that the blind man showed the
truest form of worship. He told people what he saw and glorified God by his
very gift of sight.
You find
your sight… you find God, when you go into the world and do your level best to look
beyond its distractions to meet those who cry for your Christ-like compassion.
That is the true life, living the way Jesus taught us to live.
Two
brothers, Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr lived over the span of most of the last
century. They strongly shaped the face of Western Christianity. One was
instrumental in resisting the dark forces of Hitler and Stalin, the other pointed
out the dents from our wrecks over time that need some body work in this van we
call the Church. (Some of those dents
were ones his own brother Reinhold put in it.) Their daughters and sons kept a
focus on faith as editors in publishing and national newspapers, seminary. This family left
an enduring legacy on Christian thought.
Richard
Reinhold Niebuhr, of Harvard Divinity School, wrote a book called “Streams
of Grace*” in 1980. Dr.
Niebuhr explains that on its deepest level the way we perceive and understand
grace fundamentally shapes the way we understand meaning in the world. That is,
our spiritual sight shapes the way we see the world, and that gives meaning to
both the world and our self. His words reinforce Jesus’ kind of seeing in John’s gospel:
“To see one must be like a mother and carry
the world as a child. The world lives in us according to the purity and fidelity of
our imagination (i.e., our faith)
(and as such) we become…living symbols of (God’s) world. If we imagine
faithfully and critically, then the world comes to new life in (us); and we in
turn give something of ourselves to the world.
(This is) the great responsibility we all have on this green earth…the
responsibility of seeing… (and) of imagining (God).” (the parenthetical additions are mine.)
Returning
to my bad childhood pun, the only way I can guarantee you may gain spiritual
sight is to pick up your hammer and go out into the world with your saw and see.
Then you may answer the question, “Do you bring light to the world, or are you
blind?”
Amen.
*Streams of Grace - studies
of Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William James, The Second
Neesima Lectures, May 10,14 and 28, 1980. Kyoto, JP: Doshisha University Press,
1983. The book is out of print and good copies may be hard to find.
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