Was Blind But Now I See

Psalm 27

John 9:1-41

2/27/22

           How many of you would consider yourselves skeptical people?   I freely admit, I am a skeptical person, or rather, I’m a person who looks at things seriously before just blindly accepting them.  That doesn’t mean I’m not open to learning about some new or even old belief system that those around me think is important.  Growing up here in the Bay Area, I have known and still do know people who are into many different spiritual practices and as I’ve gotten to know these folk, I’ve taken the opportunity to learn about their beliefs and to try to understand why they believe what they do.  So, I’ve learned about Christian Scientist beliefs, I’ve learned about many of the new age beliefs such as Tarot cards, crystals, past lives, astrology and all sorts of stuff that those around me and perhaps some of you hold as dear, true and important.  I’ve listened to my friends’ experiences, but then I’ve also done reading, and studying, trying to understand.  I had a minor in religious studies in my undergraduate schooling because I wanted to know how these beliefs came to be, how they held up, how they measured up.  But more than that, I think some of the major questions that carried me through my learning about other faiths were: In the face of adversity what do these beliefs offer? In the face of suffering how deep do the beliefs go?  And most importantly, do these beliefs promote God’s love and life or do they, in the end, no matter how interesting or “true” a belief may seem on the surface, actually contribute to human suffering, to death, or to a pulling away from the God of life and love? 

          For example, I have an acquaintance who was very into Tarot cards and used them as a guide for daily life.  Generally, this didn’t seem to do too much harm.  But one day her dog became very ill.  Consulting the Tarot cards, the death card emerged.  Because she absolutely depended on the tarot cards to tell her “truth” she did nothing for the dog, assuming that it was set by fate that the dog would die.  Fortunately, her husband did not feel the same, took the dog to the vet and after a few weeks on antibiotics, the dog was fine - and continued to be fine for many years.  Her absolute unfailing belief in the tarot cards blinded her to her options, to choosing life, not only for herself, but also for her dog and for those around her who loved her dog. 

            Another example: I have a friend who believes absolutely in Karma and by “Karma” he means that people who are suffering are suffering because of something they have done: if not in this life, then in a past life.  Because he believes this, absolutely, he will not help those who are suffering, those who are poor, because he believes they must reap the consequences of their karma and if he helps them now, they will have to live through more pain in their next life.

            Personality charts - whether they are determined by the stars or even by tests, can have the same unfortunate effects.   It is possible that they may help us gain understanding about ourselves or others.  Personally, I’m a big fan of the Enneagram which is a spiritually developed understanding of our personalities that can allow us to know ourselves more fully.  But I find that often the people who refer to these personality charts end up using them as a weapon, to box people in, to judge people, to decide who they are and what is best for them as well as themselves.  Another example, I met an acquaintance some years back who would not consider being my friend until she had my astrology chart done.  According to my astrology chart, I am a “popular” person who is shallow, into clothing and jewelry, and because of these shallow values, I can’t stay in a relationship of any kind long term.  My chart said some other interesting things as well, but these were the points which struck my new acquaintance.  It didn’t matter that I pointed out to her that I’d had the same best friend since child-hood as well as other long term close relationships or that all of my clothing was either hand-me-downs or gifts because I don’t have an eye for or even care very much about what things look like as long as they fit.  She had read my “chart” and decided that the stars had determined who I was – a person not fit to be her friend. 

         Another friend of mine chose when to get pregnant based on astrological charts, wanting certain specific personality traits for her children.  One of her children is a Taurus and though she is the least stubborn person in their family, my friend insists that she is the most stubborn because of when she was born.  She can’t see her daughter for who she really is, but instead allows these charts to tell her who her daughter is.  When we do this, we can fail to really see who is in front of us, and even the possibilities for ourselves about who we can be, and who we are called to be. 

         The truth is, there is danger in any belief system if it is adopted without constant question, without growth, without study, without vigilance against “magic” thinking and superstition.  Fundamentalist or legalistic thinking from any religion is dangerous.

          None of the major religions are exempt from the possibility of this kind of superstition either.  Christianity too, risks the danger of falling into that kind of magic thinking.  Prosperity theologians tells us, for example, that if we only do x,y,or z then God will bless us and our families.  This is a magic formula which will supposedly produce magic results.  In the Old Testament, especially perhaps, we are presented with many of these magic ways of thinking.  One of the early magic beliefs is reflected in today’s passage from John which shows an old but faithfully held belief at the time that any kind of disability in a person was proof that either that person or their parents were sinners.  This kind of magic thinking offered much - it offered stability, even offered comfort because it explained things and gave an impression of control in one’s life that otherwise would have been hard to claim.  All you had to do to ensure that you would not get sick, struggle with a terrible disability, produce children born blind or with another disability was to follow the laws to a tee, to be without sin yourself.  And since none of us is capable of perfection in our lives, when something did go wrong, it was easy to find the cause in our own behavior. This gave the illusion of absolute control in an uncontrollable world. Everything was “fair” in this world because anything bad that happened was a result of your own sin.

            But we now understand that sin is usually not the cause of disease, natural disasters, or disabilities.  Of course, there are exceptions: if a mother does not take care of herself nutritionally or in other ways when pregnant and this leads to a disability in the child, we could say our sin caused the disability.  But Jesus here quickly points out that disability is not always caused by sin, and it is not our place to make those judgment calls as regards other people.  Again, this kind of magic thinking, and this holding of unscrutinized beliefs, even in Christianity, can lead away from life, and instead to condemnation, to judgment, and to hurtful, life-harming actions.

          Generally speaking, then, I think that skepticism can be healthy - it can lead to truth, or steer a person away from magic thinking, from unfair judgments on others, from superstitions.

          However, as science also teaches us, things that are observed, are scrutinized, are watched, are also changed in the very act of being observed.  There is danger at times in being too skeptical, too questioning.  For the study itself changes the thing being studied.  When we question another’s experience, we can cheapen their experience.  We can reduce God-infused, meaningful life events down to facts, to cold hard “truth” that is empty of beauty, empty of purpose, empty of life.

          In today’s scripture lesson, this is what has happened.  A miracle had taken place - a blind man had found sight.  But instead of finding themselves touched by the joy, the beauty, the amazing gift of this new life, the truth present in the miracle that comes to each of us every morning we wake, every day we allow something new to change us at all, instead of this, the Pharisees needed facts.  Interestingly, it wasn’t the miracle happening that caused their skepticism.  It was the fact that Jesus performed the miracle that caused their discomfort and discontent.  Jesus was not legalistic, he did not adhere to the Old Testament rules surrounding what could and could not be done on the Sabbath, he did not fit into their image of what constituted a holy man, and because of their rules, and their ways of ordering and understanding the world, some of the Pharisees could not accept that Jesus was a man of God who could help another person to see.  So, they questioned, they grilled, they took some of the joy and life from the man who was given the gift of sight by insisting on questioning him again and again, finally criticizing him, discounting him, and rejecting him.  Ironically, in their search for “truth,” they lost the meaning of the event completely, they lost the joy of the new life, they lost the gift of wonder and awe, and instead found themselves mired not only in fighting with each other, but in blindness to the wondrous and beautiful presence of God around them.

          In the movie "Chocolat" those people who represent truth in the form of rules, those who stay in a way of life that is tranquil or correct, those who embrace cold hard fact, none the less are the very people who act without love.  They gossip, they pass on “truths” with a judgment that leads to the shunning of others.  They tell the “truth” through eyes that see anything that doesn’t fit into their rules as wrong and in need of correction.  They don’t welcome the stranger.  One of the men who represents this way of life beats his wife.  But then he dares still to call the wanderers who come into his town “animals” and he refuses to allow them into his place of business.  He eventually sets fire to their boats, destroying property and threatening lives.  In contrast, those in the movie who didn’t follow in the path that is expected, who didn’t follow the rules, welcomed in the woman who had been beaten, visited the strangers and gave them work.  They invited laughter, friendship, care.  They invited life.  That’s not to say that they were perfect or without sin.  But in the bigger scheme of things, it was the outcasts who invited life and love into the town, and it was the people who were following the rules who failed to act with love.  In the end, the outcast and rejected even welcome those who have persecuted them; they even offer to the one who would throw them out care and comfort.

          I have shared with you before the story of how the hymn “Amazing Grace” came to be written, but it is worthy of repeating, especially in light of today’s scripture.  John Newton was the captain of a slave ship when slavery was profitable and “popular” among the elite.  But after several years he went through a conversion experience.   After his experience he went to seminary to become a pastor and developed a more Christian understanding of slavery.  He came to see it for the evil it is and to condemn it and fight against it. 

   He became a pastor to other sailors, teaching them about God’s love for all and God’s hatred of slavery or anything that oppresses and hurts God’s people.  His song “Amazing Grace” is autobiographical as he talks about the blindness that kept his focus on money and fame rather than on the love that God would have us share.  “I was blind, but now I see” is probably the most famous line in the song, in part because most of us have experiences of enlightenment at one point or another, in which the values we held, the lifestyles we’ve adopted, or the beliefs we have held onto so tightly break in the face of hard but deep truths.  These truths are sometimes beautiful, sometimes they are ugly.  But at some level, the very reaching of those truths can set us free to live differently, can set us free to see, really see God’s presence and life all around us.  In the case of John Newton, it forced a complete change in his life and he became an advocate for God’s justice for all people. 

So what is this truth we are called to face?  This truth we are called to see?  The truth is love; the truth is that we are called to be part of that love, the truth is that it changes us, all of us for the better.  The truth is God’s love was and is incarnate around us if we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind open to receiving it. 

For one Faith and Film night we showed the movie "Spit Fire Grill."  For those of you who haven’t seen it, it is a wonderful and thought-provoking movie about redemption, and forgiveness, among other things.  In it the main character, Percy, comes to a small town looking for work after having just been released from prison.  While we don’t know the details of her experience until pretty close to the end of the movie, we do know that the conviction which landed her in prison was for manslaughter.  But while she is, by every standard, someone to be feared, someone to avoid, someone about whom we should have the greatest suspicion, she has an uncanny way of bringing new life, hope, and strength into the lives of those around her.  Her nemesis in the movie, though, Nahum, cannot see beyond his preconceived ideas of what this foreigner, this ex-con, this stranger must be like.  He cannot get past his skepticism, his cynicism, his fear for what she will bring to his family and his town.  As a result of his actions trying to prove her the villain he believes her to be, his life is lessened and eventually other life is lost as well.  He believed himself to be standing in truth while all around him were blind.  But his skepticism blinded him to beauty, it blinded him to love, it blinded him to opportunity, and in the end, it just plain blinded him to real truth.  His facts were correct - she was an ex-con, convicted of manslaughter and a foreigner to their town.  But the truth went deeper than those facts.  In the end he faced that truth, but not before a huge cost had been paid.

I think the pastor in "Chocolat" in his Easter homily sums it up very well.  He says this:

“I’m not sure what my homily should be.  Do I want to speak of the miracle of our Lord’s divine transformation?  Not really, no.  I don’t want to talk about his divinity.  I’d rather talk about his humanity.  I mean, how he lived his life here on earth: his kindness, his tolerance.  Listen, here’s what I think: I think we can’t go around measuring our goodness by what we don’t do, by what we deny ourselves, by what we resist and who we exclude.  I think we’ve got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create and who we include.”

            It’s not an easy journey to put aside our preconceived ideas of what people, what God, what you and I are like.  But when we can, when we can put aside magic formulas, boxes and judgments, when we can put aside our fear of the things that don’t fit neatly into our categories, we are free to be God’s people, a people of light, a people of sight, a people of hope, and a people of love.  Amen.