Fourth Sunday in Lent

March 22, 2020

The Song of New Sight

St. John 9:1-41

O God, give us the courage to enter the Song.  We continue our Sunday Series on entering the Song.

Watch the following video and count how many times the people in white pass the ball.  Be sure and pay close attention to the people in white.

(Begin with video of The Invisible Gorilla https://youtu.be/IGQmdoK_ZfY)

The Invisible Gorilla Experiment shows how people see.  Focused on one thing they may not see another that is right in front of them.  Who is blind and who sees?

What a drama?  What a comedy of errors?  This story recorded by John is full of reversal and irony and comedy.  It contains arguments and debates on several levels – who is really blind?  Who sees Jesus?  Who is blind to the truth?  There is a guerilla in this gospel and people are not seeing it.

This story is like the Invisible Gorilla Experiment.  People are focused on one particular thing and miss the gorilla in the room. 

The disciples see a blind person and ask a question of judgment.  This person or family must have done something wrong to deserve to be punished with a person born blind.  A colleague and professor a Luther Seminary lost his legs to cancer.  He once overheard a parishioner tell his mother – you must have given him an inadequate diet for this to happen.

The man born blind is an outsider – he is an object for pity.  He is a non-person – a nobody – worthless to the society of his day.

Imagine being born blind or losing your legs to cancer and being blamed for you plight.  Such judgment ostracizes the man born blind – make him into an object for pity or blame.  Jesus does not allow that to happen.  Jesus is about healing and mending people and relationships. 

The disciples are blind to this person.  Jesus sees the man born blind as a person in which God will work his work of healing.  Jesus is bringing light to the darkness of the disciples and Pharisees.  He is pointing out the guerilla in the room.

Like the first creation when God took the soil of the earth and formed the first human.  Now Jesus – the Word made flesh – takes the soil of the earth and spits on it and rubs mud on the blind man’s eye and imitating the first creation – gives him sight.

The Pharisees want to know who healed the man born blind.  How could this be?  The drama gets more intense since Jesus healed on the Sabbath he is subject to the ire of the Pharisees and they are badger the man to find out who the healer was.  The Pharisees announce – “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.”

The religious authorities stand in disbelief and think the man born blind is an impostor and not really the one born blind.  So they go to the parents – his mother – surely she will know who did this and if he is indeed their son. 

Mom says, ‘Yes, he is our son – but talk to him yourselves.’

The man born blind is once again questioned and he answers their inquiries with the ironic response:  “Do you want to become his disciples, too!”

The man born blind gives witness to Jesus, even though he does not know him.  Jesus hooks up again with the man who has now been driven out of the Temple.  Now, seeing Jesus he confesses and gives witness to Christ.

Those who are supposed to see – don’t see.  And those who are blind see.

The religious leaders are blind and don’t know it.  The man born blind sees and gives witness to Jesus.  It is a story of reversal.  Those who should see and get it – are the truly blind ones.

This story raises some questions about the church and what religious people see.  What do we see in Jesus? 

A milk toast nice guy who affirms the status quo?  Or a prophetic teacher who challenges the religious to open their eyes and see what God is up to?

We see Christ in public worship, in our ministry to the sick and dying, in our sharing of the sacraments of baptism and communion, we see Christ in the ministry actions of the church – marrying and burying – as well we should.

These are important ministries and part of what the church is about.

But if that is all we see than we are blind to the Christ who would

• §  March on a picket line for fair wages
• §  Preach a disturbingly honest sermon
• §  Knowingly lose money for the church by telling the truth
• §  Stand publically against war and warfare
• §  Point out the subtleties of institutional racism

Followers of the way are not standard bearers of the status quo.  Followers of Jesus receive new sight and empowered by the Spirit stand in solidarity with those born blind in this world – those who have no voice, no right, striving to eke out a living. 

The church dare never turn a blind eye to the needs of the community and the world.

This story is the story of seeing Jesus.  The Jesus we see will shape the kind of ministry we do.  Seeing Jesus spitting and using mud to heal opens our eyes to participate in God’s healing ministries. 

Jesus does not back down from the religious leaders who would prohibit mercy and justice.  So we, too, need to open our eyes in our churches and in our city to those elements that prohibit justice and mercy.

What do you see?  In your day to day life what do you not see that may be with the eyes of Christ you need to be seeing?

What do you see when you look at your church?

A struggling church trying to make it or a servant church giving its all?

What do you see in your financial commitment?  Dues that need to be paid to the church or opportunities to give generously for the rebirth of our church?

This story is about who really sees Jesus for who he is and who does not.  The irony is that the man born blind sees and gives witness to Christ while the disciples and Pharisees remain blind.

What about our sight?  Shall we pray for mud and spittle and the hands of the living Christ to touch our eyes lids and expand our vision?

Give us the courage to enter the Song of New Sight.  Amen.