[Note about the text: There are many players in this story of Jesus healing the young man with blindness, and it should be noted that all of them are Jews. This is important because at one point in the story we are told that the young man’s parents are “afraid of the Jews.”
When John writes this he is speaking to the church that existed decades later, at the time he was writing. Many years after Jesus was crucified, his disciples were expelled from their Jewish community, which was very painful for them. From that perspective, this is a story about the pain of feeling excluded, perhaps the pain of being unseen.]
I don’t know if it is accurate to call this the story of Jesus healing a blind man. Maybe it should be called a story about all the ways people take issue with Jesus healing a blind man. The healing itself is described in two short verses. The other 39 verses describe all the controversy around this healing. Yes, once more, Jesus pushes people’s buttons.
Even though there was nothing dramatic about what Jesus did. A little spit, a little mud, and there you go: the man can see. That’s what happened. Clearly. But then we have all the interpretations of what happened, and that’s where it gets interesting.
The neighbors say: This man who was blind but now sees? He is not the man you might think he is. He is not the young man we all knew as blind. Because that is not possible. This must be a different man.
The young man, however, continues to insist he really is himself. And he is not backing off his story about the guy who came along, put mud on his eyes and healed him. This young man persists in speaking the true as he experienced it. Which seems to be a problem for everyone else.
Then the Pharisees are asked to weigh in, so they interrogate the young man about how this happened. They are looking for the flaw in the young man’s statement, and they find it.
Aha! The man who healed you performed this act on the sabbath. So he is clearly a sinner. Therefore, this cannot be an act of God. Case closed.
What that means about his ability to see is not clear, but it’s a distraction.
Meanwhile, the neighbors want to question the young man’s parents because they seem to think now that the young man and his family have been playing them for fools all these years, pretending that he is blind. Because if he can see now, then it is not possible that he was ever actually blind.
How frustrating it is to see all the blindness in this story! What are they seeing when they look at this young man? Jesus’ disciples see someone who is being punished for sin. The neighbors see someone who is lying to them. The Pharisees see a doctrinal problem of whether or not this healing was proper. They are all blind to what is right before their eyes. Except the young man, who says, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”
This is a story about a whole lot of seeing people refusing to see what is right before their eyes. The only one in this story who can see turns out to be the one who was born blind.
It is a story that asks us to face our expectations, our presumptions about the world, and just see. For all of us, regardless of what kind of vision we have, it involves getting past what we think we already know.
We usually think we know a lot more than what we really do.
I have been thinking lately about how our experiences in life form our beliefs – and our ability and willingness to believe things that are outside of our personal experience.
We speak sometimes about living in a bubble. If you spend any time on social media, you should know about the bubble-effect. You get online, you start selecting what you want to see and read, who you want to hang out with. Pretty soon the algorithms create an experience for you that reinforces your existing beliefs and preferences. You find that everyone in your bubble gets excited by the same things and angry by the same things. It begins to look like the way you view things is the only sensible and honest way to view things. Everyone else is an idiot.
Maybe the Pharisees lived in their own bubble of the law, their interpretation of it, and their strict adherence to it.
Sometimes Christians live in a bubble that only includes other Christians. Sometimes only other Christians who practice the exact same kind of Christianity, who believe in exactly the same way.
We become insulated by our bubbles. There is nothing wrong with enjoying being in community with like-minded people who share your experiences and values. You just have to make it a point to look outside your bubble as often as you can.
Wealth is a kind of bubble, because wealth insulates a person from many challenges that other people experience on a daily basis. Power works that way too. Extreme wealth and power especially. Of course, it is true that even middle-class people are able to insulate ourselves from a lot of things – but it is so much more in the case of extreme wealth.
I worry these days about the decisions that might be made by those who lead our nation, if they don’t see the effects of their decisions. Rising prices of gas and groceries don’t mean much if you don’t go to the gas pumps or the grocery store. Even casualties of war may not mean much if you don’t have any family members or friends whose lives are at risk. When nobody in your bubble is enlisting. When nobody in your bubble worries about the price of gas.
The bubble is most certainly a hazard of the job for anyone who is in a place of power. And so it becomes imperative for them to find a way to see what they are not seeing. We need our leaders to make a point of really seeing the impact of their decisions. We have a right to demand that they see and listen. Just as we must demand of ourselves as well.
The reality for us as Christians is that this is an essential part of discipleship, to really see other people outside our bubbles. People whose lives present difficulties that may be hard for us to understand. People in our communities, yes, but also people in other parts of our nation, and other parts of the world – including Tehran and Beirut. Remember that Jesus didn’t put boundary lines around the definition of neighbor.
In the end of the story, Jesus says to the young man, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” Which is confusing, yes. But it seems to fit. The ones in this story with sight are unable to see what is happening when the evidence is right before their eyes. The ones who see, turn out to be the ones who are blind.
Jesus gives us a way of seeing that leads to compassion and enlightenment. Jesus asks us to believe our eyes, even if they contradict what is too often called wisdom in this world. Jesus invites us to practice a way of seeing that acknowledges what is in the world but outside of our personal experience, our bubbles. To see and to believe what we see.
All of us are capable of doing this. And we might even be surprised by how liberating it is.
A few years ago I read a newspaper story about a woman named Marion who started losing her eyesight at the age of 40. Marion had experienced more than her share of hardship in her life already. And this hit her hard – at first.
She wallowed in self-pity. She shut herself in her apartment. But eventually it occurred to Marion that as long as she was alive, she should live. So she danced.
Marion began teaching dance classes for the visually impaired. They learned the dimensions of the room by touch. They learned line dances by everyone holding on to one another. Sometimes they’d make a circle and take turns getting into the center and showing off their moves. It is an unexpected and joyful thing to see, because their joy is so clear to see.
Jesus offers us a different way of seeing. And Marion, the teacher of the blind, has a lesson for us too. Joy. Seeing the world as Jesus sees the world does not take away our joy. Joy is part and parcel of the faith, a precious gift we receive from Christ. Joy is a gift that nothing in the world can take away.
Can you see?
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