Help us to See

John 9:1-41

March 30, 2014

Lent 4

We have a lot of characters here:
We have Jesus, the disciples, the neighbors, the Pharisees,

the man’s parents and of course, the man born blind.
The identified patient in this story.

The people in this story refer to him as “the blind man” and

“the man who sat around and begged.”

He’s the one in this story with the problem obviously,

he is blind.

Now this blind man has probably been

around this town his whole life

It’s the same town his parents live in.

People didn’t move around like they do today.

And his parents say he is of age,

so probably 15 – 20 years or so.

But after he’s able to see, oddly enough,

the neighbors who have passed him every day

for the last couple of decades, hardly seem to recognize him.

Remember, towns were small, neighborhoods were small

It’s not like there were bunches of people to keep track of.

And yet, these neighbors can’t really say for sure

if this is the man they’ve seen every day.

Not for certain.

They don’t even seem to know his name, just

“the man who sat around and begged.”

Probably because they never actually met him before.

they probably walked over him, ignored him, cursed

at him for being in the way and asking to take their

money that they earned, they probably yelled

at him when they were having a bad day

and told him he was a sinner.

But they never actually saw him. They were blind to him.

And there’s the Pharisees,

Jesus has just healed a man – an amazing miracle –

no one should argue that.

But they can’t see the amazing miracle.

Healing of the Blind Man  by Brian Jekel

They can’t see it because they’re offended

that he healed on the Sabbath

and they just don’t want to believe this man,

Jesus, who they’ve labeled a sinner, could

be responsible for doing something so wonderful.

And then when the man who can now see,

challenges their assumptions,

they only see him as a man
born entirely in sin and they send him out of the synagogue again.

They are so preoccupied
with their own beliefs, that they can’t see a miracle of God when it happens in front of them.

Then there are the man’s parents

they don’t seem very parental at all.

They don’t seem like people who’s son has just been

given his sight back - they don’t seem happy.

And they keep distancing themselves from him

it says because they were afraid.

They can’t see their own flesh and blood, and his joy

because all they can see are the problems he is causing them.

And when the disciples see the man born blind,

They don’t say, “Can we do anything to help this man.”

they don’t even ask Jesus, “What caused his blindness?”

Because they think they know the answer to that, it’s obvious.

His blindness was due to someone’s sin.

They just want to know had God cursed him for his sins

or for his parents’ sins. Which one was it?

So convinced of their theological diagnosis,

they can’t see a person with an unfortunate circumstance,

they don’t see the opportunity for God’s glory to shine.

They just see a theological question.

The man is the one who was called blind,

but the other people in this story are the ones who

were really blind.

They are each so convinced, so set in their ways,

that they could not see what was there in front of them.

They were blinded by their apathy, their religious convictions,

their preconceived notions, their fear, their prejudice.

The only person who can really see in this story

is the man who was born blind.

He see’s the Pharisees for the self righteous fools they are.

He can see that Jesus healed him,

And he sees that anyone who could restore his sight

must be sent from God.

Jesus doesn’t just heal the man here,

through this healing Jesus shows us that

The people who think they can see,

might very well be blind,

and the ones called blind might actually see.

And so it is often with us.
Just when we are convinced we have all the answers,

is when Jesus opens our eyes to things we didn’t even know were there.

In my previous church,

we did some mission work in Honduras.
They had spent many years with other churches building houses,

and a school, putting in plumbing and sewage in a neighborhood.

And when I went, we went to teach some bible stories,

teaching skills, how to use the sewer system the right way.

I was there twice and each time, when we first got there,

all we could see was the poverty, how messy it is, dirty,

they burnt their garbage, the kids had no shoes,
the school was closed for weeks at a time with no reason.

And compassionate people like us just want to change everything.

Our discussions were like, “ugh, if we could just  give them our systems,

get them better schooling, better jobs, better clothes”  

We almost want to take all these kids home with us to the US

so they can live a “better” life.

So they can learn our better ways, and be like us.

But after we were there for a few days,

we were all like, “well maybe it’s not all that bad here.”

The children of Colonia Solidaridad,
Juticulpa, Honduras

These kids were always outside.

They always had unlimited friends around them. They were never alone.

They had no video games or computers or TV’s or even toys,

so they were always playing something creative and inventive

The people didn’t just know their neighbors,

they depended on each other for everything,

they shared food, clothing, free time.

Why exactly would we want to change them?

So they could join the rat race and climb that corporate ladder?

So they could be trapped in the American version of poverty?

So they could live lonely, isolated lives in their homes?

So they could be like us?

 

At first, we saw them as the ones with the problem.

They were the ones with the crazy country and

the widespread poverty, they needed to be fixed.

But then we realized,

maybe our own way of life was not that perfect.

Maybe they saw something that we couldn’t see.

They had something that we could never have again.

By the time we left we were praying that our lives

could be more like theirs in some ways.

Jesus doesn’t just fix people’s eyes.

Jesus helps us to see.

We die to our own sight and we rise to Jesus sight.

Just when we think we’ve seen everything

and just when we think we know all the answers,

Jesus opens our eyes to see things we didn’t’ even know were there.

Jesus said,

“I came into this world

so that those who do not see may see,

and those who think they can see,

will realize that they might be blind.”

What is blinding us?

What does God want us to see that we can’t see?
What are we missing?

Help us, God, cure us of our blindness.

Help us to see what you need us to see.