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Sermon for Lent 4A

March 10, 2002

Our Gospel lesson today is the third in a series of stories in which a man or a woman has an encounter with Jesus—and in that encounter is given the possibility of enlightenment, when she or he sees through the ordinary layer of meaning to the extraordinary grace that Jesus offers. Like the stories we’ve heard the past couple of weeks, our story today also hinges on that turn from ordinary to extraordinary—but today’s story is made a little more complicated by the fact that the “ordinary” thing is itself a miracle. In today’s Gospel Jesus opens the eyes of a man born blind—but that opening is just the beginning of the story. The real enlightenment, the real transformation, comes as the man moves from sight to insight, as he grows from the vision of the eyes to the vision of the spirit, as he comes not only to see but to see Jesus.

Look at the way the story is laid out: At each turning point in the story, each moment of plot development, the man’s vision becomes clearer—especially the vision he has of Jesus.

At the beginning of the story the man is simply sitting there in the marketplace, the way he usually does, begging for a few coins from the crowds that pass. Then Jesus and his disciples walk by—and the disciples want to get into a theological discussion about his sin, but Jesus wants to make a theological point about the man’s salvation. So Jesus spits on the ground and makes mud—which seems gross to us in the 21st century; but in the thought-world of the 1st century the body’s essences were considered to have powerful healing virtues—so what Jesus is doing is making healing mud, and he puts it on the man’s eyes, and tells him to wash, and gives him his sight.

So the man goes, and washes and then comes back into the marketplace, and everyone is amazed that he can see. By this time, however, Jesus himself has moved on, Jesus is no longer in the marketplace, and the man has not yet actually seen the face of the one who healed him. The people ask him how his eyes were opened, and he says, “The man called Jesus did it.” He knows that Jesus healed him, but all he knows about Jesus himself is that he is “a man.” He doesn’t really know Jesus yet—he hasn’t really seen Jesus for himself.

Well, a miracle of this magnitude can’t go unreported—so the people take the formerly blind man to the Pharisees. Pharisees, the crowd thinks, are experts in intepreting God’s will through the Scriptures—they’ll be able to figure all this out! The Pharisees interrogate the man rather closely; but it becomes clear as they speak that they don’t really want to hear what the man has to say. They’ve already made up their minds about Jesus, and they are not at all interested in seeing things from the ex-blind man’s perspective. “We know that God has spoken to Moses,” they solemnly declare, “but as for this man, this Jesus, we don’t know where he comes from.” The Pharisees know what they know, and they see what they see, and they aren’t at all prepared to open their eyes to anything else.

But while the Pharisees are blinding themselves, the formerly blind man’s vision is growing sharper. Although he still hasn’t seen Jesus with his eyes, his insight into Jesus is becoming more and more clear. When he was first questioned by the Pharisees, the man said that Jesus was a prophet—not just “a man,” but “a prophet”—and now, at the end of his interrogation, he is ready to say even more: “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind,” he says. “If this Jesus were not from God, he could do nothing.” So the man’s vision of Jesus has grown again: from “a man” to “a prophet” to “one who comes from God.” He is seeing ever more clearly who Jesus is and what Jesus means.

The Pharisees, however, are not impressed: they revile the man and they cast him out—which in this context means both that they put him out of the building, out onto the street, and that they ban him from attending services at the synagogue. It’s not exactly the kind of treatment one would expect for being the recipient of a miracle of healing.

It is there on the street, when things are actually looking pretty bleak for the man who had been blind, that Jesus comes to him again. Remember, the man still has not actually seen Jesus face-to-face, even though his spiritual vision has been getting clearer—so he really isn’t quite sure what’s going on when someone stands in front of him on the crowded street and says, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He isn’t quite sure what’s going on—but he’s willing to take a risk and trust in what God has done for him so far, so he asks “Tell me who he is, so that I may believe in him.” And Jesus answers, “You have seen him, and you are seeing him now.” And the man who had been blind now sees Jesus, with his eyes and with his spirit, and seeing who Jesus is at last, he worships him.

So through this story the man has gone from thinking of Jesus as “a man” to thinking of Jesus as “a prophet” to thinking of Jesus as “one who comes from God” to seeing Jesus as God’s own Son who calls forth his worship. This man’s enlightenment comes as he moves from sight to insight, as he grows from the vision of the eyes to the vision of the spirit, as he comes not only to see but to see Jesus.

And the invitation the story makes to us is to be like that man: the invitation of the Gospel is to learn to see not only with our eyes, but also with our spirits; to learn not simply to see, but to see Jesus.

And that Gospel means seeing Jesus in the poor and the outcast. It means seeing the Passion of Jesus, the pain and suffering of Jesus on the cross, in the hungry and the homeless, in those who can’t find affordable housing, in those whose lives have been disrupted by addiction, or by abuse, or even by corporate downsizing—it means seeing in people’s really messed-up lives the signs of the presence and Passion of Jesus himself. All during this month of March we are giving to Minnesota Food Share—giving pounds of food and dollars of money—giving to help feed the distressingly large numbers of our hungry neighbors, our hungry friends. The Gospel asks us: Are we willing to see and to see Jesus in the people who come to the food bank?—are we willing to see and to see Jesus in the people who give to the food bank?

Today’s Gospel also means seeing Jesus in our friends and our enemies. It means seeing the fundamental worth of the Son of Man, seeing basic human dignity and value in al Qaida and Taliban fighters whom we have holed up in caves in Afghanistan, in Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers who keep trading attacks and deaths, in terrorists upon whom we have declared war. It means looking for Jesus in people whose deep-seated conflicts and hatreds seem to us beyond reason and beyond peace—and it means determining, in our hearts and in our government, for Jesus’ sake, to behave toward such people with justice and compassion, and not merely with destruction and revenge. The Gospel today asks us: Are we willing to see and to see Jesus in the impossible possibility of peace between enemies?

Today’s Gospel even means seeing Jesus in nature—seeing the Passion and suffering of Jesus in acid rain and global warming, and at the same time seeing the resurrection and forgiveness of Jesus in the renewing cycles of life and in human efforts to heal the environment. We here in Minnesota tend to joke that global warming would be just fine with us, it if gives us easier winters and earlier springs. But I’ve also heard a lot of people lately talking about what a weird winter it’s been, with warm spells and cold snaps, weeks of unseasonably mild temperatures punctuated with violent storms—and that is also part of global warming: it’s not just milder temperatures, but also more violent weather. Warmer winters and drier springs could mean real suffering for all kinds of plants and animals that are part of our larger life community, part of our “greater Minnesota.” The Gospel today asks us: Are we willing to see and to see Jesus in the suffering, and the call to healing, of our earth?

In today’s Gospel, a man whose name we never even know makes the journey from sight to insight, from the vision of the eyes to the vision of the spirit, from seeing to seeing Jesus—and the Gospel invites us to make that same journey in all the connections of our lives. May that journey be a part of our Lenten walk—and may it also be part of our Easter joy.

In the Name of God: Yahweh, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. Amen.