"The New Sightedness of Grace"
John 9:1-41
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
3/3/24
John tells three chapter-long stories—each a defining moment in his account of Jesus’ ministry. In chapter 4, Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman. In chapter 9, he heals a man born blind. And in chapter 11, he resuscitates Lazarus.
With each remarkable act, the religious leaders dig out more of the grave in which they will bury Jesus. And while he seems aware of the implications of his actions, Jesus cannot not continue his prophetic work. With each sign, he exposes more of the futility of self-serving religion and its suicidal inclination to try to save itself by affiliating with violent political power. Jesus does reveal salvation, but only through the most unexpected and paradoxical turnabout.
More about that on Easter. For now, let’s recall this revealing moment of grace.
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 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, 7 saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
8 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?”
9 Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” 10 But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”
11 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.”
12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 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.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. 17 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.”
18 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 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, 21 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.”
22 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. 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
24 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.”
25 He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
27 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?”
28 Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”
30 The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36 He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”
37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.”38 He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.
39 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.”
40 Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”
41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” (NRSV)
Born blind, the man has felt the warmth of the sun on his skin, but he’s never seen by its light. He’s tasted the earthy goodness of bread, but he’s never watched a field of grain dancing in the wind. He has smelled the flowers of spring, but he’s never even imagined the variety of color.
In Jerusalem, Jesus’ followers see this man and ask a question they consider both rational and justified: Whose sin caused this man’s blindness?
That’s not how God works, says Jesus. Then he says something that I find just as troubling as the idea of a retributive disability. Jesus suggests that the man’s blindness occurred “so that God’s mighty works might be displayed in him.” It’s the kind of answer that invites the fatalistic declaration that “everything happens for a reason.” Now, take this with as big a grain of salt as you like, but personally, I consider that a heresy. The “everything happens for a reason” mentality allows one to claim not only excess and ease but domination over others and over the earth as rewards from God. It permits us to create communities of exclusion and to distance ourselves from suffering. I’m sorry, we can say, since everything happens for a reason, you obviously deserve your blindness, illness, poverty, grief, oppression…or whatever else. And while some who practice such callous indifference can label themselves Christian, it’s much harder to be a disciple of Jesus and dismiss the suffering of people, animals, land, air, and water. The various aspects of God’s self-revealing Creation are too intimately connected for dismissal of suffering to be an option for people of faith.
Physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering are real and constant burdens for all Creation. And since suffering seems inconsistent with the presence of a loving God, human beings often look backward, trying to connect suffering to past sins.
The Message version of this story becomes helpful. In that paraphrase, Jesus answers his disciples-in-training saying: “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines.”
I hear Jesus saying, No one purposed this man’s blindness. God is the ultimate opportunist who enters our emptiness and anguish to demonstrate grace and to create new life.
Let’s look backward in a different way. In Genesis 1 we read, “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep…” (Genesis 1:1-3) And in Genesis 2, after organizing the chaos, God uses soil and God’s own breath to form a living, human being. And when the Creator creates life, all the elements—light, water, earth, and air—share a purpose. They proclaim God’s loving providence and sustain what God has created in love and called “good.”
Love is one of our faith tradition’s metaphors for God and for what we trust is the Creator’s essence—namely, an eternal yearning and pursuit at the heart of the universe. A yearning for union with the Creation, and the pursuit of wholeness for all things.
So, when faced with the chaos of the blind man’s anguish, and the cold curiosity of those who would to cast blame for the man’s suffering, Jesus follows the Creator’s creative lead. He reaches down and gathers some earth. He adds his own spittle and breath to make a paste with it. And after smearing the paste on the deep sea of the man’s blindness, he tells him to go wash it off. These details recall the darkness covering the deep in the creation story, the mixing of mud to make bricks for Pharaoh, the passing through the waters of the Red Sea, the blind wandering of exile, and then deliverance into the light of the Promised Land.
Jesus opens eyes born blind, and law-bound religion sees only that Jesus healed on the sabbath. In the darkly comical banter that follows, we’re reminded of Nicodemus asking Jesus, “How are these things possible?”
You can’t see what’s going on, says Jesus, because your legalism has rendered you blind to God’s grace.
Now, miracle stories are always about more than the miracles themselves. So, what else is there for us to see in this story?
In John 9, we meet a man who, from birth, was burdened with a blindness that excluded him from wholeness, that is to say, from relationship and community. Neither he nor his parents did anything “wrong.” He was not being punished for anything. He was, by grace, simply being restored to community. And when even one person experiences restoration, the whole community is invited into the healing. And isn’t that a kind of microcosm of Jesus’ own story?
From birth, Jesus is burdened with unassailable grace, with Creation-embracing compassion, and an unquenchable thirst for justice. And yet, as Love Incarnate, he faces, through no fault of his own, relentless opposition and antagonism.
While there’s no satisfactory answer to the question of why “good” people suffer, much suffering is, in fact, connected to selfishness and bad decisions. And out of the dark chaos we create, God is, nonetheless, creating something as new to the world as life was to the formless void itself.
God continues to create, and God’s new thing is always unfolding. As with sight to the man born blind, it’s often something that just happens to us. It comes as a gift. It also comes to us when we, like Jesus, embody compassion, justice, and joy, especially when and where it doesn’t seem to be deserved. And that’s what makes it grace. That’s what makes it gospel.
We cannot forge salvation through fearful and violent “everything-happens-for-a-reason” manipulation. Nor do we need to wait until death to experience God’s eternal realm. Lent invites us to confess our blindnesses, to surrender them to God, and to welcome the new-sightedness of grace—today.
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