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Sunday, July 20, 2008
How Many Times Do I have To Tell You?
7th in a series on The Uniqueness of the Gospel of John
By Rev. Jerry Herships
John 9: 1-25
1 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 the man." 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."
But 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."
Sometimes having too many options can be a problem. This story in John is a good example. For one thing, it is a long story. The full story is the ENTIRE ninth chapter of John. That just seemed like a really cruel thing to do to our readers today. The length of the story is just a part of it. There are a number of themes that run thru this story. As a matter of fact, you could do a whole sermon series just on this one story. Today I am going to narrow the focus. Today I want to talk about power. Perceived and real. I want to talk about the different roles we play in society. I want to talk about the difference between knowledge… and transformation. I want to talk about the rules…and when to break them. Some of you might be thinking, “how long is this going to take?” You might as well sit back, we are going to be here a while…kidding! Really it will just boil down to two things; why it is ok to sometimes break the rules and why we need to open our eyes up a little bit wider.
Now for you kids playing along at home…this is not the excuse you are to have when you lied about brushing your teeth or hitting your sister. You are not allowed to say, “The preacher said it was o.k. to break the rules.” While I admire your creativity, I will not be getting you out of being grounded (do kids even get grounded any more?) The point today is that there are times when given the choice between doing what is kind, and doing what falls within the boundaries of “the rules” (if the rules aren’t kind), I would suggest that Jesus is telling us to pick door number one. Kindness is just another way of saying love. When given a choice, always choose the most loving answer.
We have that conflict today. Buddhism has a saying, “Don’t mistake the Finger pointing at the moon for the Moon.” We have a group of men (back then it was ALWAYS men) focusing on the finger. They are so fixated on the “how” Jesus did this sign, and the “when” Jesus did the sign, they are missing the “who” and the “why”.
We have a story here of Jesus meeting a guy who has been blind from birth. This is NOT a story of Jesus restoring sight, it is a story of Jesus giving sight. This man had been in the dark his entire life. This is important. Jesus is not just the one who can help us return to the light. Jesus is the originator of light. You could say Jesus IS the light. Actually you don’t have to, Jesus does say that. Jesus tells the man (and his disciples) “I am the light of the world.” Here we have one of the seven “I am” statements that Jesus makes here in John. So Jesus brings light into this man’s world. Jesus gives this man his sight. It is awesome. He also does it in an unusual way, he spits in the dirt and makes mud and spreads the mud on his eyes. The first time I heard this I think I was still in Catholic School and I remember thinking… “yuck”. It wasn’t that unusual back then. The use of saliva was a common method found in Greek and Roman healing stories. Keep in mind, in this story, the man hasn’t asked to be healed…in fact at this point in the story, the man has not even spoken. He was just there begging and suddenly someone walks up and smears mud on his eyes and told him to go wash up. What is even stranger than the fact that Jesus tells him to do this is the fact that the beggar goes off and does it! There must have been something about being in the presence of Jesus that just makes you want to believe you can be better.
What happens next is interesting because when he comes back and sees, people start to say, “hey isn’t that the beggar guy?” And some folks were saying, “yep that’s the guy alright” but others were saying, “No it is someone like him.” Meanwhile he is saying, “Hello! It’s me…I’m the guy…the beggar guy. I was just here like 20 minutes ago.” Now let’s stop right there for a second. Why I find this interesting is because that this is a guy has probably been begging around the city, probably in the same spot, for years and years. He has been blind since birth, so there weren’t a lot of jobs that he could have done back in the time of Jesus. Why could people not agree if this was the guy? They must have seen him weekly, even daily for years. How could they not see him? What? Were they blind???
I have a good friend that I have had since junior high school named Tim. In junior high and high school, we use to get a bunch of guys and go to his families' cottage for the weekend and during the summer. Their cottage sat right next to train tracks. When we first started going to the cabin I asked if the train was loud when it went by, Tim said, he didn’t know, the track had not been used in years. That night in the middle of the night, a cargo train went by, It felt like it shook the whole house. I said to Tim the next day, “Isn’t that weird that a train went by the same night he told me the track isn’t used any more.” He said to me, “what are you talkin’ about? What train?” He thought we were pullin’ his chain. It wasn’t until the next night when it went by AGAIN and we went into his room to point it out to him that we noticed he was sound asleep. He became so use to the sound year after year after year that he began to not even notice a freight train in the middle of the night! Now a train is one thing…people are another. Did the people in this story become so use to the sight of the beggar that they didn’t even notice him any more? Now here’s what’s cool. The story begins with Jesus seeing him. It says in v9:1: “As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.” FIRST VERSE! This to me points out that while we all too often overlook the least the last and the lost…they are the FIRST THING JESUS SEES!
After the people were convinced that this was the beggar guy, they say, “we have to take you to the Pharisees. They aren’t going to believe this.” Well, they didn’t. The lousy part is they didn’t care that this guy got his sight back. All they do is say, “well he can’t be from God because he performed his amazing miracle on the WRONG DAY!” Tomorrow…could have been a miracle….today….sinner. But here is the thing, they are in a bind. If he is a sinner…how did he make the man see? And if he IS from God, why would he break the Sabbath? They asked the guy over and over…it was like an episode of “Law and Order” in the interrogation room, “ok former beggar guy…lets take it from the top…” Everyone is focusing on the “how”. First, the people in the crowd. Then the Pharisees, then the Pharisees ask his folks. Then, later in the story they ask him again. It is driving them crazy that such a “good thing” was done in such a “wrong way.” They were blinded by the rules. They couldn’t see past the rule book. Rather than focus on the wonder of such a miracle, they would not let go of the fact that Jesus …didn’t …follow… the… rules!
o you know people like the Pharisees? They can sometimes be so focused on what is the right way to do something they forget why they are doing it in the first place. Please understand, I am a big fan of the rules…ok actually…no, the point is, we need rules to help us have a system and order. What we can’t allow is for when the rules take over and people are hurt by the very rules that should have helped them. Jesus saw a person in need. He could have said, “Well, he’s been here for years. I’ll just come back tomorrow.” He could have done that and avoided all the debate…unless Jesus wanted to make a point about the law. He makes this point very clear in Mark 2:27 when he makes the statement, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath was a servant not a master.
There are also some power issues at play in this story. We have the fact that the man’s parents were afraid of being tossed out of the synagogue if they agreed that Jesus was the Messiah. That is the kind of power the Pharisees held. And being tossed out of the synagogue was not like being kicked out of church. As Marcus Borg points out in his book, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time; “whereas we can simply find and join another church, those who were expelled from the synagogue were no longer considered Jews (or at least acceptable Jews).” It made relationships with “proper” Jews almost impossible. It screwed everything up. Family relationships, neighbors, everything. It was a social death sentence.
We get to see into John’s world as a result of this piece of the story. We learn a little bit about the bitter conflict that existed between Jews and Christian Jews. People that followed Jesus were not threatened with being kicked out of the synagogue during Jesus’ lifetime. This didn’t happen until 10 to 20 years after the temple was destroyed in 70. It also explains a bit about the use of the term, “the Jews” over and over again. I bring this up because whenever we are discussing the Gospels, but especially John, which has been twisted and used as an Anti Semitic text, it is important to point out the conflict WITHIN the community at the time and not assign the phrase “the Jews” to mean all Jews (after all, the people using the phrase were Jewish as well) but rather it was a term that was being used to describe religious authorities. It was synonymous with the terms “scribes and Pharisees” in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
One of the things I like about this story happens later in the story. It is after, the Pharisees ask the man AGAIN to describe what happened. He is SO over this! He is thinking, “How many times do I have to tell you?” And it shows. He says in v27, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples?” He goes on to kinda trash talk them. He is fed up and they don’t like that a common beggar is giving them religious advice. They kick him out! Now we don’t know if when the text says, “they drove him out.” If it means at that moment, like getting 86’ed from a restaurant, or expelled him for good from the synagogue. What we do know is that this man has gained more than his sight. He got a backbone too! He is no longer a passive recipient of his healing and he isn’t scared of these men like his parents. He isn’t concerned with being outside the system. HE HAS BEEN OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM HIS WHOLE LIFE! He has been given a new life!
He isn’t concerned with all the details and the theology of his extraordinary story. He just lays it out there, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
Michael Yaconelli in his book Messy Spirituality tells of a modern version of this. He tells of a recent convert who was talking with a less than convinced friend. The friend said to him, “You must know a lot about Christ now, tell me, what country was he born in?” the man said, “I don’t know”. His friend asked him, “What was his age when he died?” Again, “I don’t know.” The man asked his friend, “how many sermons did he preach?” Once more he said, “I don’t know.” The nonbeliever said, “You certainly know very little for a man who claims to be converted to Christ.” The man replied, “You are right. I am ashamed at how little I know about him. But this much I know: Three years ago I was a drunk. I was in debt. My family was falling to pieces; they dreaded the sight of me. But now I have given up drinking. We are out of debt. Ours is a happy home. My children eagerly await my return home each evening. All this Christ has done for me. This much I know about Christ.” There must have been something about being in the presence of Jesus that just makes you want to believe you can be better.
I see myself all over this Bible story. Obviously, the first place I see myself is, well, Jesus. KIDDING! Don’t you just wish just once though a preacher would admit to having a Jesus complex? I actually see myself everywhere but Jesus. I have been one of the Pharisees. Technically, I am considered a religious authority…Technically (be scared…be very scared). My job, many times, is to uphold the rules. You will notice, there is very little running in the hall with the scissors. Personal rule I like to enforce. That is one I have to enforce constantly. If I didn’t Cindy Bates would just run amuck! (what does that phrase mean, “run amuck?”) I’m sorry, I don’t like it but some rules are NOT made to be broken.
To be honest, I do act like a Pharisee many times. Upholding rules…sometimes even dumb ones…o.k. not dumb. Just not great. I hate when I catch myself being a Pharisee. To me not only were the Pharisees the ones that were “blind” to Jesus’ message so often, they were also the ones that believed that as long as you follow the rules…you were fine. It didn’t matter how your heart was, or how compassionate you acted. It was all about the rules. It is an easy thing to do. It is easy to put things first, and people second.
I also can see myself as the blind man. I have found myself turning into someone so different than the way I was. I have been humbled in this job. Sometimes it has been by people that ENJOY humbling others, but most of the time, it has been just from the sheer awesomeness of this job. There is the good humbled and the not so good humbled.
I have been the man’s parents, the person too scared of the authorities to stand up for myself. Knowing what I want to say, but too scared of the powers that be to do anything about it. Hollywood was a good one for that. I never HEARD someone say, “you’ll never work in this town again”…but I know they thought it.
I guess part of it is just realizing where we are blind and asking God to help heal that blind spot. We all got’em. I think the first thing is acknowledging that we do in fact have them. That is the first step towards letting it go. I think so often it comes from the ego telling us we need to set the rules, we need to keep others in their place, we have to maintain some order…even if it keeps certain people in a one down position. Who do you see every day that you don’t know their name? People like the beggar, who do you see everyday that you are blind to? The dry cleaning folks? The guy that works at the place where you pump your gas? Do you know the names of the folks at your favorite Starbucks? Do you know anything about you favorite servers at a nearby pub or restaurant? I am embarrassed to say that, more times than not, I don’t. I am going to encourage all of us this week to carry a piece of paper or small notebook, and keep the names of the people we deal with everyday in it. People that you just might breeze by. Because I do believe that when we get closer to those not at the top of the food chain in society, we get closer to God. We get closer to Jesus. And that must be a good place to be because, as we can see…There must be something about being in the presence of Jesus that just makes you want to believe you can be better.
Amen.