“God Chooses Who?”
John 9:1-41
What happens in this morning’s Gospel story is not unusual. Or, at least, it’s not unusual for the Gospels in which Jesus heals people who are blind, allowing them to see, at least five times. This is the kind of thing that we are used to hearing about Jesus – he healed people from diseases, from illnesses, from demon-possession, from deafness, and from blindness.
The healing stories demonstrate Jesus’ compassion and care for the people he encountered. And they also show that he has power from God, drawing crowds of people towards him where they will hear his preaching and teaching.
In John’s Gospel, there aren’t quite as many healing stories – only three, actually – because the 4th Evangelist just selects a few examples of the things Jesus did, in order to make his theological points and convince his readers to believe.
In the Gospel of John, the three healing stories combined with four other miracles, make up the seven signs that point to Jesus’ identity as God’s Son. At the end of the book, the author writes, “Jesus did many other things that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
But, of course, not everyone who witnessed the miracles and saw the signs first-hand chose to believe. And not everyone who reads the miracle stories today will be convinced either. Each one of us is invited to listen, to look, and to believe if we so choose that God is with us, that God is for us, and that God chooses us for good purposes in this world.
This morning’s healing story includes all the things that the other healing stories do. Jesus encounters a man who is blind, he puts some mud on his eyes, tells the man to go wash it off, and when he does so, the man can see. But instead of the usual rejoicing that typically happens after such a miracle, everyone seems to be worried and upset about it.
The neighbours debate with each other about whether it’s the same man that they knew had been blind from birth, and they question whether such a miraculous healing could be possible.
The religious leaders are consulted, and they get hung up on the fact that the whole thing took place on the Sabbath day. No one is supposed to do any work on the Sabbath, so the person who healed the man must be a sinner. But a sinful person certainly couldn’t do a healing, so none of this makes sense.
When the leaders question the man’s parents, they don’t seem to want to get involved. They can confirm that their son was blind and that now he can see, but they don’t know the man who did the miracle. They tell the religious authorities to ask their son himself. He’s old enough to speak for himself, and he was there.
Again and again, the formerly blind man is questioned and harassed, as if he has somehow done something wrong himself. And at the end of the interrogation, the Pharisees are so upset with him that they drive him out. Out of the square? Out of the town? It doesn’t say, but they are not pleased with his answers, and he is no longer welcome in the community.
Now, you may remember me mentioning other times that the Gospel of John was the last of the Gospel accounts to be written. The 4th Evangelist wrote his story of Jesus towards the end of the first century between 90-100 CE, well after the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed.
It was written within and for a Jewish-Christian community that was wrestling with questions of identity, belief, and conflict with surrounding Jewish groups. Indeed, today’s text makes a reference that points to something that probably happened at the end of the century in the experience of those first reading this Gospel.
The formerly blind man’s parents seem to be scared of the Pharisees, and we are told that it is because “anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.” But this wasn’t something that happened in Jesus’ lifetime.
The conflict and division between mainstream Jews and the Jewish-Christians happened later, with the new believers in Christ being pushed out, driven out, or expelled from their religious communities towards the end of the first century.
Once this connection is made, it starts to become clear that the story is about much more than the healing of a blind man by Jesus. It’s about a whole community of people who have had their figurative eyes opened. They have heard the stories about this Jesus. Maybe they have talked to some folks who actually met him. They have learned about his love and been convinced of his power. They know that he died, but they believe that he was raised again by the power of God.
Their Jewish faith had them looking for a Messiah, and they believe that the Christ has come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth – teaching, healing, welcoming, serving, and giving his life for the life of the world, including them.
But their neighbours, their religious leaders, and perhaps even some of their own parents and other family members don’t agree. And their allegiance to this Jesus, and their desire to follow his Way above all, choosing Love over Law and Grace over Judgement, has caused a rift in their community. They have been mocked, and persecuted, and driven out just like the formerly blind man was cast out when he confessed that the one who healed him – the man called Jesus – must be sent from God.
At the end of the first century, and for a couple more centuries following, Christians experienced sporadic but sometimes severe persecution. Jewish opposition included expulsion from synagogues, social ostracization, and occasional arrests or beatings by local authorities.
But after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. Christians were persecuted even more severely by the Romans. When Christians refused to worship Roman gods and refused to conform to the politics and practices of the Roman society, they could be punished with confiscation of property, destruction of churches, torture, or even execution.
So, I think when the early Christians read this story about the formerly blind man they might have been encouraged. They could relate to the insults, to the interrogations, and to the rejection, and they could recognize that they weren’t the first followers of Jesus to feel that way.
And perhaps they could be inspired by the man’s growing faith and courage. They might have noticed the way that he didn’t hesitate to speak the truth when he was questioned, how he wasn’t intimidated by the religious authorities, and didn’t give up when his neighbours and family members didn’t stick up for him. He held fast to what he had experienced and come to believe, and he spoke the truth even when it made powerful people angry.
But perhaps the most important part of the story was the part where Jesus went looking for the formerly blind man who had been driven away by his community. Yesterday at Messy Church our focus story was on the Parable of the Lost Sheep – the one that the shepherd goes out looking for with energy and determination because that one sheep was precious to him. Jesus said that God is like that Good Shepherd – that God loves us, and searches for us, and rejoices when we are found and brought home safe and sound.
The persecuted Christians would have appreciated that part of the story because it would have reminded them that no matter who in their lives and community might be judging, or criticizing, or rejecting them, that Jesus searches for them to welcome them home.
Indeed, Jesus has even chosen them, like the formerly blind mind in the Gospel, not only to survive the difficulties and struggles of life, but to become people who share the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ with others. God has chosen them for healing, for growing insight and understanding, and for a mission of love.
Of course, a lot has happened within Christianity and the world over the 19 centuries since the Jewish Christians first wrote and shared this encouraging story. Persecution of Christians has come and gone over the years and in different parts of the world. And as Christianity gained official status, political influence, and power, often-times Christians became the ones doing the persecuting – of Jews, of other faith groups, and of each other when disagreements flared.
I imagine that the early Christians would have seen themselves in the character of the formerly blind man – the one who was despised, questioned, mis-trusted, and rejected – but he turned out to be the one who was right. He was the only one who recognized that Jesus was indeed the Messiah – the one sent from God.
But as Christians in another time and circumstance, I think there’s another message for us to pay attention to. Instead of placing ourselves in the story as the formerly blind man, let’s imagine ourselves in the place of the disciples or the religious authorities. Let’s imagine ourselves encountering a person with a new perspective, a different experience, or a fresh revelation to share with us.
Will we, like the story’s religious authorities, get bogged down in questions about whether this person’s experience is genuine? Will we, like the story’s disciples, get so distracted by trying to judge the person’s worthiness that we miss opportunities to participate in God’s works here and now?
The SALT Lectionary Commentary provides a helpful story about a time when the author visited Salem Massachusetts, a site of the infamous witch trials. There is a striking street mural in Salem of a man, dressed in seventeenth-century garb, sternly pointing an accusing finger off to his left, yelling, “Witch!”
But the person who pauses to look again at the man, to look carefully at his face, will notice that the artist has given the accuser himself a green complexion and a wicked expression. In this single image there is a profound idea: it’s often the exclusionary act itself, the one that points away and accuses someone else of evil, that actually embodies what it purports to condemn.
Likewise with the accusatory cry, “Sinner!” in John’s story, the very person widely thought to be “sinful” turns out to be a worthy apostle, and the very people thought to be “righteous” turn out to be captive to the contemptuous, oblivious, exclusionary ways of sin.
So, if we’re listening carefully today, we dare not point an accusatory finger at the Pharisees, or the disciples, or indeed those Christians who differ from us down the street.
Jesus calls us to let go of blame and recrimination, and to turn instead to interpreting the world – in all its beauty and affliction, blessings and hardships – as a steady stream of opportunities to participate in God’s works of love, healing, and reconciliation.
God has chosen us – not to Lord it over our neighbours and judge them harshly, but to speak the truth in love, to share humbly from what we have seen and heard and come to believe, and to trust that whether we are accepted or rejected by others, that Jesus knows us, loves us, searches for us, and heals us.