Lest We Judge....: March 15

Year A, Lent 4                                                         John 9:1-41                                                                  

“Who sinned this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” When we hear this question in our modern ears and with a basic understanding of science, it sounds like a ridiculous and offensive question.  Two thousand years ago, they had a limited understanding of illness and disability.  Those who were monotheistic (meaning they believed in one God) believed that God was in control of all things.  If you were blind, or had any illness that was because you or your parents sinned. This unfortunately made people who were already isolated for practical reasons, become even more isolated, because obviously, it was there fault.  At the time, this was an almost universal belief, especially among those who worshipped an all powerful and all knowing God. 

However, when Jesus answered the disciples, he said, “neither this man nor his parents sinned.” Obviously, they had sinned at some point, but Jesus was saying that this man’s inability to see had nothing to do with sin.  It’s unlikely that he convinced the disciples in that moment.  It’s hard to let go of deep-seated beliefs, especially beliefs that allow you to feel superior to another just because you are relatively healthy and have no disabilities.  That belief helped them feel safe and secure.  Any belief that allows you to feel safe and secure is really hard to release. 

          Jesus often subverted the assumptions that people made about sin and judgment.  People assumed that those who had been cast out, those who had a disability, those who were poor---they were in that situation because that is what God decided they deserved.   Yet just in these last 2 weeks, we have seen 2 examples of people in the Gospel of John who were cast out by society, but welcomed by Jesus.  Last week we heard the story of the woman who had been married 5 times and this week is the story of man who was born blind.  These two people were living on the margins and assumed to be sinners, yet they were not the people who Jesus condemned.  In fact, they were the people Jesus raised up. It was the people who were self righteous, the people who were convinced of their own favored status…the people who pushed others out and judged them---those were the ones who received Jesus’ harshest judgments.   

          Now there is nothing that unites a group of Episcopalians more than talking about how bad it is to judge other people.  Just this week I saw again…Robin William’s top 10 reasons to be an Episcopalian.  They are mildly amusing, and if I hadn’t already seen them many times, it’s possible that I would find them riotously funny.  The one reason that I have heard most often quoted is that “you don’t have to leave your brain at the door.” The reason that is on this top ten list is because the Episcopal Church has long prided itself on being the “thinking person’s church.”  The not so subtle implication is that other Christians aren’t thinking critically about their faith. 

Before we a judge those other non thinking Christians too much, let’s remember who were the deep thinkers and most educated people in Jesus’ day---the scribes and the Pharisees.  Do you remember who Jesus judged and condemned the most? The scribes and the Pharisees.  Now before you think I am judging my fellow Episcopalians too harshly, I should point out that Palmer and I are the two people in this room who are most like the Pharisees...at least in the respect that we are trained religious professionals.

          So how do we free ourselves from this quagmire of judgment? The last line of our Gospel reading provides a good clue. After Jesus heard that the formerly blind man was pushed out of his worshipping community, he found him and told him who he was.  When the formerly blind man saw and heard Jesus, he worshipped him and said that he believed that Jesus was the Son of Man.  Jesus then said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.” Some Pharisees overheard him and said, “Does that mean you’re calling us blind?” Jesus said, “If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”

At this point, we are no longer speaking of literal blindness.  The Pharisees showed some degree of self awareness, at least enough to ask the question.  But they were still unwilling to take the next step. They were unwilling to admit that they might be wrong, that there might be another perspective on faith and God.  I think that is an important thing for us to acknowledge, none of us knows that we are right all the time. The only way that Jesus can teach us and reach, is if we are willing to admit that we need Jesus.  We are all unfinished products.  We all have more that we can learn, and some things that we need to unlearn. 

          The violence that we see in our country and world right now has a lot of causes.  I would love to blame it all on our current administration, but it’s so much more than that.  It comes (at least partially) from our unwillingness to admit our need and dependence on God. It also comes from this desire to separate ourselves from those who are different.

This week had been a particularly horrifying week.  We have seen images and videos of bombs in Iran and Lebanon. We hear of those who have died from our military and then children who have died just because they happen to be in the wrong place, the wrong country. Just over the last few days we have also seen targeted violence toward the Jewish community when someone drove their car into a synagogue and violence against future service members.  On Thursday, a man walked into a college classroom in Norfolk Virginia, asked if this was a class for ROTC students and then opened fire.

We all know that violence begets violence.  We know that Jesus abhorred violence and condemned his disciples when they engaged in it.  We know this.  Yet what I find particularly disturbing in the recent years is our reaction to violence.  We immediately start blaming one another.  Because at some point we stopped trying to end the violence and instead focused on how to justify it.  We have put blinders over our own eyes so that we no longer see the humanity in one another. I don’t think we did that on purpose.  Our sight has just gotten more and more limited and we eventually forgot what it looked like to see the whole picture.  

That is what happened with the Pharisees.  It didn’t seem to occur to them to be grateful that someone was cured, someone’s life changed for the better.  Instead it was all about finding fault with the people who weren’t following their rules. If you need to see a modern example of that, just listen to people analyze how the war and the rising costs of oil price will affect the midterms.  It seems like we are always trying to find ways to leverage disaster into a future win for our side.  

Who sinned? That is how this reading began.  Jesus didn’t reprimand the disciples for their ignorance.  What did he do? He healed the person.  There are all kinds of good reasons for examining the cause of something and making sure we don’t make the same mistake.  But then we need to move on and find places of light, love, and healing.  Those places exist. 

Our reading from Ephesians tells us to live as children of light (not grown ups arguing about the light, children who are so quick to believe in goodness and love).  Children of the light.  Jesus brought light to the world and it’s still here.  It hasn’t been defeated.  There are examples of light, even in these dark times.  After the man drove into the synagogue in Michigan, the children from the day school took shelter in a Chaldean country club across the street.  If you are not familiar with the term Chaldean, they are Iraqi Christians. Not only did they care for the children.  The next night they hosted Shabbat for the synagogue.  That is light...communities that once would not have interacted, now providing support for one another.  Instead of making enemies of one another, let’s find more reasons to see the light in another.

March 30, 2014: John 9:1-41

 Year A, Lent 4                                                       

                                                                   

            When I was living in Princeton, I would occasionally take the train into New York City to see friends.  This was a labor of love because I feared that city.  I felt like I could take a wrong turn and never be found.  Whenever I visited, I would ask my friend to meet me in one particular spot in Penn Station because I didn’t want to go near the subway where people have been lost for hours, if not days.  As I boarded the train, someone I recognized boarded with his guide dog. He was blind. I had met him earlier when he was visiting the seminary.  We ended up talking until we neared New York.

Then the unthinkable happened. The train stopped in Penn Station in New Jersey (I know, it’s very confusing, that’s why I am convinced that city is out to get me.)  The conductor announced that there was something wrong with the train and he had no idea how long it would take to fix it. He advised us to find another way into the city.  For me, finding an alternate way was like asking me to turn water into wine.  It would have required a miracle. I turned to my new friend and asked, “What other way is there?” He must have sensed my fear and anxiety because he told me that he would show me the way.

             There are a lot of amazing miracle stories in the Bible and we all know that Jesus was a miracle worker.  However, the Gospel of John depicts miracles in a different way than the other gospels.  For John, miracles were signs.  They were signs pointing the way to the truth about who Jesus really was.   They were opportunities for people to witness the glory of God.  Our rather lengthy Gospel story depicts a man who is blind from birth.   Unlike the story in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus also healed a blind man, this healing is not the result of a request. The man never approached Jesus.  Jesus healed him after a conversation with his disciples about the cause of his blindness.  He created some mud with his own holy spittle, spread the mud on the man’s eyes and told the man to go wash in the pool of Siloam. 

The man followed his directions and went from being completely blind to having his vision restored 100%.  There is no indication that he had trouble adjusting.  There were no blurry images or vertigo.   While his physical sight was restored almost immediately, he gained spiritual insight gradually through the course of the narrative.    When he was first asked about the person who healed him, he referred to “the man called Jesus.”   The next time he was questioned he referred to Jesus as a prophet, which means that he identified him as a man sent by God. 

However, the major turning point came when he saw Jesus for the first time.   It was then that he finally understood who Jesus truly was.  Now you might think, well of course he believed, Jesus just cured him of a lifetime of blindness.  That would be helpful for most of us on our faith journey.  However, we must remember that he did not receive his sight until he removed the mud from his own eyes.  Even before he was able to see (and before he really understood who Jesus was) he had enough faith and courage to find his way to the pool and wash the mud away.

While this man was able to believe despite living a life in darkness, others in the story had more trouble.  The Pharisees, who represented the religious establishment more than they represented the Jewish people, seemed almost obsessed with proving this man and Jesus wrong.  First, they hid in the rather murky water of religious laws and rules. It was the Sabbath and you are not allowed to heal on the Sabbath so obviously Jesus was not a man of God.  When the man maintained that Jesus was a prophet (and thus a man of God), the Pharisees tried to convince others that he was not actually blind from birth.  When this theory was proven false by the man’s rather frightened parents, the Pharisees tried to manipulate the man with guilt and lofty religious language.  The man responded to this new challenge with the clarity of someone who has experienced the truth of Jesus Christ.  “One thing that I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”  For the man who had been cured of his blindness, it was just that simple.  

Yet the Pharisees tried to complicate the matter by asking again how it happened.   When they realized that this man could not be convinced by religious law, guilt, lofty religious language or even theology, they removed him from their community.  They kicked him out of the synagogue. He was no longer welcome to worship there.  It was then that Jesus sought him out.  It was then when Jesus revealed not only his glory, but also his love and compassion.  

            In my trek through the New York public transportation system, my friend used one hand to hold the leash of his dog and one hand to stay connected with me.  I would read the signs and he would tell me if that was the right train.  When we finally reached the city, we were dropped a couple blocks from Penn Station.  When I asked him how I could get there, he offered to take me the rest of the way.  He led me through the streets of New York, me telling him what signs I saw, and him telling me which direction to turn.  He did not merely lead me to Penn Station, he took me to the exact place where my friend was waiting. She looked a little perplexed as I walked up holding the hand of a blind man.  I introduced them and explained how I came to know him.  We said goodbye and he disappeared into the crowd.  As I hugged my friend with relief she looked at me and said, “You do realize that you followed a blind man.”   That was true, but at least I had read the signs.

Some people are able to read, understand and follow the signs.  Some people can read and understand, but lack the courage to follow.  Others can read them but not make sense of them.   Then there are some people who are so blinded by the map that is in their head, they don’t even look for the signs.  The Pharisees were not bad people.  Most of them were very good people who had dedicated their life to their religion.  But somewhere along the way they stopped being open to new signs because they already had all of the answers.  Even when the signs were right in their face, they found way to get around them. 

Jesus gave the blind man sight, but in many ways (much like my friend) he already had sight.  He had insight and a heart open to invisible and visible signs.  We might not all have that insight naturally.  Some of us might be a little stubborn or maybe we are new on this journey and the signs all look a little alike.  Perhaps like me, you occasionally lack the courage to take risks and try new things.  Yet at some point, I think we will all find that Jesus has given us all the signs we need, even the courage and the miracle cure.  He gave it to us when he died for us, when he was resurrected.  He continues to give them to us in the waters of Baptism and in the Eucharist.  It is up to us to wash the mud out of our own eyes.