Sermon - April 3, 2011

Fourth Sunday in Lent - Year A
John 9:1-41

Incurable Blindness

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

I realized that with the length of the gospel lesson, I ought to remind you how it began. This whole story unfolds as a result of Jesus’ encounter with the man born blind. It all happens as a result of the disciples questioning Jesus as to whose sin caused this thing to occur. The opening encounter reminds us that this is not a miracle story - it is a lesson on the nature of sin.

I remember preaching on this text in the past, in this congregation. And I remember getting a reaction to what my notes on this text claim. This encounter is about sin. And in order to make sure that understand this is what it is about, John has Jesus engage in questionable activities; activities which many of his initial readers would have considered “sinful.” Earlier, I simply said that Jesus commits a few sins himself. The complaint I got was that his actions were not really “sins,” merely actions that some distorted religious teacher labeled as “sin.”

Whatever spin you want to put on it, what Jesus does do is transgress the laws of Moses in three ways.

First, there is the clay. Jesus didn’t reach down and scoop up some mud from the river bank - he made it himself. The laws of Moses forbid any work on Sunday. The Rabbinic code lists thirty-nine categories of work explicitly forbidden. Kneading is one of them. Jesus is guilty of transgressing the law. He commits what the religious leaders of his day would have considered a “sin.” Exodus 35:2 says anyone who works on the Sabbath is to be put to death.


His second transgression arises from the products from which he made the clay. The liquid with which he combined the dirt was his own spit. Leviticus, chapter: 15, verse: 8 (CEV) reads “If you are spit on by the man, you must wash your clothes and take a bath, but you still remain unclean until evening.” These two transgressions were committed, in order to bring about a healing. The healing itself is Jesus’ third infraction.

Rabbinical Law does allow one to heal on the Sabbath - but only if a life was in danger. This man was inconvenienced - but his life was not being threatened by his blindness. Jesus commits his third transgression of the laws of Moses by healing one who’s live was not in danger.

Three misdeeds; three transgressions against the book of commandments. This is not a miracle story - it is a lesson on the nature of sin.

In this story, the disciples speak our part. They set the whole thing in motion by trying to figure out what evil action lead to the suffering which they now see. Like too many of us, they believe that bad things happen as a result of some evil deed. “What have I done to deserve this?” is a common cry offered by those who suffer. Other expressions of the same sentiment are found in “What goes around comes around.” or “You shall reap what you sow”. There is the ever popular “She got what she had coming.”

When bad things happen, we try to find some preceding cause, some action which leads to the reaction. We believe that bad things don’t just happen, they happen as a result of some other action.


Now, the case of a man who is born blind presents a particularly troublesome case. What can be said to have lead to this suffering? Is it possible that he committed some sin while still in his mother’s womb? Or did some sin on the part of his parents lead to their having to watch their child grow up without sight? The case of a man who is born blind presents a particularly troublesome case. Who do you blame? Who is responsible? What sin had been committed?

There is a story I like to tell to illustrate this point. Again, it is a story some of you are likely to have heard before. Allow me to repeat it, sharing it for the first time with some of you and reminding others of its horrific ending. It happened as I was serving as the “Chaplain for the day” at Rowan Memorial Hospital, in Salisbury, NC. A thirteen month-old child had been admitted to the pediatrics floor. I was summoned and informed that death would come within a matter of hours. The child had been sick from her birth. She had a liver disorder that was poisoning her whole system. As horrible as it was to see this child suffer, the horror was associated with a story that I slowly coxed out of the mother. She was herself only a child - an unwed teenage mother. Some of her high school classmates had cornered her one day and told her that the child was ill as a result of her promiscuity. They insisted that God’s punishment for her sin would be having to watch as her baby died.

“Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” I can understand why Jesus broke a few laws. When confronted with someone who is utterly convinced that everything bad thing which happens happens as a result of some prior misdeed on our part, the first commandments I am inclined to break are those associated with un-godly utterances.

In this encounter, confronted with those who were hell-bent on finding some justification for the injury to this young man, Jesus finds a way to position himself among those who are being looked upon as being on the wrong side of the morality code. He allows his actions to speak. He is verbal response shows tremendous restraint. He says to them, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.”

He tries to tell his disciples that they should stop thinking in terms of ‘tit for tat’. God doesn’t interact way. And just to prove it, Jesus goes on and commits a few sins of his own. He whips up a batch of clay; making use of his unclean spit; and heals this man of a non life threatening disorder. “If sin results in suffering,” Jesus seems to be saying, “then where is my punishment?”


There were those around who wanted to see him punished. The Pharisees and the keepers of the book of laws interrogate everyone they can find, trying to assign guilt. First, they try to say that a switch has occurred. That the one who sees is not the same as the one who had been born blind. When that doesn’t work, they try to get the man to find fault with Jesus. They condemn Jesus saying, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” Next, they move to the parents, asking them whether this child of theirs had indeed been born blind. Finally, they bring the man back in and insist that he join them in their condemnation of Jesus.

“He is a sinner!” They say. “How can he be of God?” It was too much for them to accept. They could not understand how someone could be of God, and yet act in clear violation of the Law of Moses. It is troublesome question, isn’t it?

Running throughout the story, there is a delightful play on sight and what sight means. Sight - with the eyes - is juxtaposed with spiritual seeing. The man who is born blind cannot see, but in the middle verses, he is the one who does sees Jesus as who he really is. In this man’s second encounter with the Pharisees, he becomes the teacher. He says to them, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he (Jesus) comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

The man without sight is the one who sees. The blind man sees what they cannot.

This is not a miracle story - it is a lesson on the nature of sin.


As the story is coming to a close, the Pharisees come to Jesus and ask him, “Surely we are not blind, are we? Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

The first character in the story is born blind. But, his inability to see did not prevent him from recognizing Christ. The other characters in the story have full vision, but their blindness of heart prevents them from accepting God’s Messiah. The man who was born blind is healed; those who refuse to see remain in their sin.

It sometimes seems as if there is an endless barrage of questions regarding this action or that. Folks want to know whether this is a sin or whether that is a transgression. It is easier to follow a religious tradition which asks little of us beyond living up to a moral code. Even when that moral code is extremely rigid and demanding - at least we know exactly what is expected of us. Jesus understood that no code of ethics was ever going to set us free. We can only be the children God hopes we will become when as we set aside the moral codes and enter into a faith-filled relationship with God.

For many, sin consists of breaking the rules or transgressing the law. For Jesus, sin is linked with an unwillingness to accept him and an inability to emulate God’s compassion.

“Who sinned?” ... Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” In him, and through his story, we are encouraged to see that God’s commandment is for us to be made whole; God’s law demands that eyes be opened and that hearts be softened.


Amen.