4th Sunday in Lent, 3 April 2011
Text: John 9
I can remember the first time the letters on a page became words. In first grade, Mrs. Landon’s class. The words were “jump, Jane.” Jump Jane, jump! Woo-hoo! I was reading! And after than moment, I understood that letters were not just letters, that they all made words and meant something. From the back seat of the car I read signs. “Gas. Food. Eat at Maid Rite.” And I remember thinking how odd it was that I couldn’t really remember what it was like not to read. I mean, just a few weeks earlier I had passed the same stores and gas stations and had no idea what I was missing!
For some people, that is the Jesus experience. It is like opening your eyes for the first time, and seeing things you had never seen before: the earth, the sky, your mother’s face. A whole new world appears before you. It is wonderful! And then, things get complicated.
In yesterday’s daily devotional, Tony Robinson commented on how, to hear some people tell it, the Jesus experience changes life only for the better. To hear some people tell it, the Jesus experience comes with tangible benefits: “Jesus came into my life and now our business is great, my husband and I are super in love, and my son is getting straight A’s.”
If that’s your story, good for you. But meeting Jesus doesn’t always mean that life gets materially better. Sometimes, Jesus comes into our lives uninvited, and brings chaos. As in today’s gospel story.
The blind man had his place in the community. He used to sit and beg. His neighbors pitied him, his parents looked after him, did best they could. But then the disciples of Jesus came by, and drew Jesus’ attention to the man. Though the blind beggar never asked anything of Jesus, Jesus muddied the man’s face and then told him to go and wash; and he did, and then he could see. It must have been amazing! What joy! What a wonder! But, not for long.
Forced to tell his story over and over again, hauled from pillar to post as people argued over him, he was accused of being a fraud. Denied by neighbors, barely acknowledged by his parents, and then cast out of his congregation-- he was hardly a success story.
And Jesus is mostly absent from this story. Jesus is the cameo appearance, at the beginning and the end. In the middle, the man formerly known as the blind beggar is on his own.
Isn’t that the case for most of us? Moments of enlightenment come and go, and in between, we struggle to live this new life. We want others to understand, but as hard as we try, some people just don’t get it. They don’t see what we see.
Those in authority are particularly threatened by a sighted population. As long as we blindly accept our given place in the world, as the beggar, as the baby, as the drone or the worker, then all is peaceful. Not good maybe, but calm. But when we are given the sight to see that the powerful of this world stand on our backs, and count on us to remain blind to our own enslavement, then the very foundations of the world begin to shake. If we dare to rise up to claim our freedom, we become the outcast.
And that is where Jesus finds us. Jesus seeks us out and searches for us. We know Jesus’ story: we know that Jesus is no stranger to abandonment, betrayal, and denial. What we see at the end is the promise of God, given through the prophet Isaiah:
Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. (49:15)
The Jesus experience. Once our eyes are opened, we will never not see again. That may not make us popular, but, we are promised, we will never be alone. We are part of a family now that reaches back into history and forward to the reign of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
