the one about eyesight

Sight is something few of us take for granted.  Many of us wear corrective lenses.  I've worn glasses since I was 7.  I was called four-eyes.  When I take these off, I see undefined shapes and colors.  I'm near-sighted, which means I can't see things far away.  Unfortunately "far away" is limited to about 4 feet.  Several of you have had eye surgeries to repair injured eyes.  Loss of sight can be devastating.  But just as one’s ability to see does not define us, nor should one’s inability to see.  More often than not people are defined by their disability.  We marvel at people who overcome disabilities to become more able than expected.  Amputees who run, for example.  But we often pity or even fear people with disabilities we do not understand, especially those who are born disabled.  We discriminate. Just as there is physical blindness, we suffer from spiritual blindness. We determine what is right and what is wrong. Their outer appearance reveals their inner selves.  Right?  We need to determine cause and effect.  A defect, a flawed character, a bad seed. What caused this?  We say that people get what they deserve.  We want someone to be responsible. We need to blame. We want to fault someone.  And in so doing, we isolate the bad seeds from the good.  We separate them. Everything from skin color to physical and mental acuity, and even the distinction between wealthy and poor.  We have determined which is preferable and we prejudice against its opposite. And genetics doesn't help, does it?  Now our flaws are mutations that we may hope to control or eliminate through genetic redesign.  

When we see someone or something we don't like we avoid it or reject it.  

Whose in your spiritual blind spot?  Who do you find it hard to see as anything beyond their disease, disorder, or flaw?  What do we believe about addicts? Criminals? The poor? The disabled?  The mentally ill? Are they blessed or cursed?    

As usual, the gospel reverses conventional wisdom and understanding about the human condition.  Who is able?  Who is disabled?  Who is a sinner? Who is right?  Who is blind? Who can see?  Seeing is an important theme in the gospel of John, where it is a metaphor for faith in the God made visible in the crucified man Jesus.  Also, John astutely suggests that sight and insight are not the same thing. Some people seem to be able to intuit or trust that certain things are a certain way. They may even trust in invisible things.   We call this faith.  Others require physical proof and call those who believe in invisible things fools or worse. They are rationalists who depend on their senses to confirm truth. Most of us are not one or the either but a combination with a preference for how we observe and make sense of the world.      

I notice two things about this story from the fourth chapter of John's gospel.  The first is obvious.  Jesus is absent from the story from verses 8 to 34, the longest he is absent in the gospel of John. This is interesting because John’s gospel is all about the presence of God in Jesus.  The one who became flesh and dwells among us. And though many did not believe this, some did.  The whole story seems to hinge on the difference between those two groups; believers and nonbelievers. According to John, Jesus presence is the sign of God’s saving work for all of humankind.  And yet he disappears for half of this story. In a story about blindness and recovery of sight, the main character disappears. What might this mean?     

Second, a blind man receives sight and no one celebrates this.  From the moment he receives his sight, the man is interrogated.  It’s as if he’s on trial, isn’t it?  Who are you?  Have you been blind since birth or are you just a panhandler using “blindness”  as a way to people’s wallets? Who did this to you? Do you see this man in the court room?  You don’t see him? Then where did he go?  They even interrogate his parents, putting them on the witness  stand.  Is this your son?  Was he born blind?  Then how does he now see?  They intend to accuse Jesus, calling him a sinner.  They know that the law has been violated somehow.  Jesus did in fact heal the man on the Sabbath day, an act of work that was apparently condemned by the strictest adherents to the law.  

The prosecution rests with their final judgment.  This man was born in sin.  His testimony is therefore unreliable at best, and an outright lie at the worst. They know the law.  But they do not know Jesus.  And they do not believe this man’s testimony. 

Jesus never appears in his own defense or in defense of the man who was born blind and now sees. He is absent from the trial.

In the late first century, the early church had to deal with Jesus' absence. They lacked visible proof of his resurrection.  Their testimony that they had seen him was refutable evidence, plausibly deniable. John's gospel is strengthening believers and encouraging non-believers to take the risk of faith and trust testimony of the first adherents.  Jesus' absence continues to be problematic in a scientific world that requires empirical evidence to corroborate truth.  
Do you ever feel like God is absent from you and your circumstances? When things go badly, does it ever feel like you’re alone?  When you are surprised by an unexpected grace, do you ever feel like celebrating but no one is there to celebrate with you? 

There is an important clue to the absence of Jesus that Jesus himself gives.  Jesus says “I am the light of the world.” The thing about light is that it is always with us on earth.  Is there a place that humans dwell that is completely devoid of light?  Ever?  We cannot live without light. The sun, the moon and stars, fire.  Light.  We are drawn to it. Without it no one sees.  Is it possible that the text reveals something about Jesus?  He is visible in visibility. Jesus is our vision.  Jesus gives us sight, insight, the capacity to know and understand, to experience the other not as threat but as a fellow human.  In the creation story, light separates from darkness.  But it does not avoid it.  It fills it up.  Light fills darkness.  And so in this way, Jesus fills the darkness of every human heart.  Just as he gives sight to a blind man, Jesus makes it possible for me and you to see and know the truth about humankind. We are NOT prejudged by God through the lens of SIN.  We are all seen through the lens of God’s glory.  We see and judge people through the lens of good and evil; a lens God insisted would lead to death.  But God sees all of humanity through one lens: The light of pure love.  A blind man is given sight, because God has become visible for all to see in Jesus, in the light of the world.  Look around. There is no place where God does not dwell.  God is everywhere. In every person, place, and thing. Or maybe everything is in God.  Either way, God is not invisible to those who believe.  I believe and so I see God in you and in every living, breathing thing.  So what does it mean to reject, demonize, or hate someone?  What does it mean to imprison someone, put them to death, reduce someone to an action or a behavior or a disability?  What does it mean to see the poor as bad people, lazy people, worthless people? Natural selection is a process that, in a sense, negates the presence of God in some parts of creation. In our spiritual blindness, we fail to see God. 

Jesus is present in every living person and especially in those who are made to suffer unjustly.  The way we treat and understand others is the way we treat and understand Jesus. Do we crucify him or celebrate him? I think we do too much crucifying and not enough celebrating. Jesus is present in water, bread, wine, Words of grace and peace, in healing, in the light that surrounds us, comforts us, lets us see and know that God is as near as the air we breathe. What would life be like if everyone believed that what they saw, the ordinary stuff of everyday existence, life itself was the sign of God's existence, the sign of God's love?  Amen.