Opening and Closing, Light and Darkness

If you’re thinking that’s an odd place to end a scripture lesson, John 9: 1-12, you’re right.  I chose that ending to indicate that there is a continuation in the story and it’s necessary to plug into that continuation, it’s necessary to go on in the story to understand what this first part of the story is really about.  Jesus healed the man born blind; and in doing so, he began an inquest, if you will, a disputation, a process of examination; because he had done something that there was no precedence for in Jewish law.  The Jewish people recognized that sometimes people who have physical conditions that cause blindness can be cured; but it was a common assumption that someone who was born blind cannot be cured.   And the fact that Jesus healed this man and the fact that he did so on the Sabbath, and the fact that the man who was healed needed to be accounted for in some way all led to this process of cross examining that happened throughout the ninth chapter of John.  You’ve only heard the tip of the iceberg, the very start of the story; on and on it goes, through several rounds of examination before we get to the end of the chapter and the end of the process. 

        In those rounds of examination the religious authorities are asking first of all – is this really the young man who was born blind, or maybe had some imposter been sneaked into the process so that Jesus could falsely claim to have done a miracle?   And so they had to establish some identity.   But then, after that they continue to treat the young man with contempt; even though it was probably agreed upon by everyone involved that yes, this was the man that was born blind and now he sees.  Why were they treating him with contempt?  Because the theology behind this whole case was that somebody who was born blind is probably born blind because of the sin of somebody else.  Most physical ailments, most medical conditions were regarded in the everyday practices of the religious faith, as the results of sin.  So when the disciples asked Jesus, when the man was still blind, when the asked him – is he blind because of his own sin or because of his parents?  

        They were asking one of those typical questions that people would debate over in the Judaism of Jesus’ day.  If misfortune in life were the result of sin, if it was some form of God’s justice given to you because of something you did wrong; how could you apply that concept of misfortune to somebody who was born blind?  And, if so, how do you solve that dilemma of misfortune being connected with sin?  So they asked the question; and even though there was not a definite answer to that in the Jewish tradition, there were some people who spoke in one direction and others who spoke in the other direction, even though there wasn’t a definite answer that – yes, a man that was born blind is obviously born of sinful parents – still, in this story, religious leaders are treating him as if he were born of sinful parents; or maybe somehow, in some mysterious way guilty of sin in the womb.  That’s all we can use to explain the animosity that they seem to feel; the distaste that they seem to have for this young man.       The young man, is a remarkable young man, not simply because he was born blind and was given his sight, which makes him a unique case, but he’s remarkable because in the process of being examined, in the process of being disrespected, in the process of having people talk about you as if you were an object, having people talk about you as if you’re a child but you’re a full grown adult, having people talk about you and talk to you in a way that’s designed to silence you and demean you, in the process of going through that kind of questioning, that kind of targeting, this young man gradually found his voice – more clearly, more fully, more completely, more effectively.   This remarkable young man begins as the pure recipient of a miracle; the recipient of God’s grace, the recipient of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom in the world.  When Jesus first saw him he said he was not born blind because of anybody’s sin, he was born blind in order that now he could be given his sight, that the world may see what is happening in me. 

        That was Jesus’ answer, the meaning of his answer, to the disciples; and that was where the young man began as sort of a passive recipient of sight.  But as the process went on, he began to realize other things about himself that we the readers realize also that he didn’t just receive his physical sight, but he also received the ability, through the presence of Jesus, he received the ability to defend himself, to justify who he is as a human being in the presence of God; to let others know that he is not an object, he is not an incompetent, he is not an imbecile, but he is somebody to be treated with respect, somebody who is ready to hold his own in a reasoned discussion with the religious authorities of the community. 

        This young man grows into that in the course of this process of questioning, in the course of the process of ridicule.  The young man rose gradually, step by step until the end of John 9.  The young man is actually catching things that his opponents are saying that are inconsistent and is pointing them out and this only makes the opponents more and more furious.  Because while the young man has been growing in his understanding, as he has been moving more and more into the light of understanding, out of the darkness of being a passive, voiceless victim; as he’s moving from his victim-hood into the full fledged manhood of someone who can speak for himself and reason for himself and make a case for himself; those who are opposed to him are going in the opposite direction.  He is moving out of darkness into the light, not only in the literal sense but in the sense of understanding and reason.  He is speaking the language of light, the language of truth which is reason.  He is reasoning about things of humans and things of God in the course of the very sharp reasoners. 

        But, meanwhile, his opponents who begin with some very subtle and fine distinctions and a very good knowledge and a clear understanding of precedent, they begin this way, his opponents degenerate.  They move back from the high place where they began disputing the fine points of Jewish law, a very fine art, a very interesting enterprise.  They start out in that place, but they move more and more towards finding ways to ridicule the young man, to mock him, to deprecate him, to call him names, to make unfair suggestions.  And in the process you can see how the language gets more and more aggressive, more and more dismissive, they’re trying to put him down.  They finally become so incensed with him in the very end, in that final conversation where he’s actually disputing in a very significant way with them; they are so furious that they throw him out of the synagogue; kick him out of church, if you will.  They dismiss him from the religious community of the day.  And all because while he had been moving into the light out of the darkness; they, who were beginning with some sort of light, are moving from that light into the darkness.

        His eyes were opened; their understanding was closed.  He moved into the light; they moved into the darkness.  Opening and closing, light and darkness – the parallels, the opposite tracks, that these two figures are on, the young man and his religious opponents.   That’s the theme of this story.  A remarkable young man, born without sight, then given his sight; and given his sight in the way that really matters even more than physical sight; given his sight for the ability to reason; the ability to live in the light of truth.

        The uniqueness of his case might make it seem that this story doesn’t apply to us; and yet in a strange sense I believe that it does apply to us, in part because of the uniqueness of his case.  Because the young man was born blind that meant that it had to be a problem – gaining his sight.  Not only in the sense of learning how to reason, but also in the sense of learning how to see.  If you’ve never seen before, never experienced light, if you’ve never experienced shape or color; if you’ve experienced all of these things indirectly, through your other senses, but now have a chance to see them using that particular sense; think of what an adjustment that would be, think of how startling it would be.  Think of how that first stab of light would really be a stab, it would hurt.  Think about the confusion you would feel.  Think about you would probably have problems with vertigo, you’d be dizzy.  Think about the difficulty you would have making sense of it all; about depth perception and space.  You’d be stumbling; you’d be awkward and clumsy.  All those things are characteristic of somebody who is in that situation; somebody who hasn’t had one of the basic skills for getting around in the world and then all of a sudden that skill is given to them.  Think about what a place of poor understanding you’d begin with and how much you’d have to learn to start maneuvering with these new powers. 

        That, I think, is where this story corresponds with us whenever we encounter Jesus Christ.  We have a lot to learn when we encounter Jesus Christ.  In the first place we have trouble even being sure that we’ve had that encounter.  We have to learn to be confident that yes, it was an encounter.   Because it might be a will o’ the wisp kind of thing, something that just flashes across our mind so quickly that we’re not even sure that it’s there.  Just a thought that came to your mind, or a feeling that you had in your diaphragm somewhere, something that just occurred to you as you made a decision – your will kind of stiffened and hardened and you knew what the right course of action was going to be and you took it.   Something like that, that could easily be attributed to something besides Jesus, and yet also, in your mind or your heart, you realize that it was something that had to do with Jesus.  That is the kind of encounter that we usually have, something in our experience that leads us to the remembrance of the presence of Christ by our side.

        But then, we not only need to learn this skill in seeing that the young man had to learn, but we need to learn it in the face of opposition; because we too have opponents, voices that are arguing against the legitimacy of our encounter with Jesus Christ.   Usually the voices are right inside ourselves.   We don’t have religious authorities behaving hatefully to us, hopefully.  We don’t have outside authorities that make us feel small on purpose, the way these people were doing with the young man.  But we’ve internalized all those kinds of voices so effectively that we don’t need outside voices to make us question our own encounters with Christ.  Our voices are telling us continually:  You’re not special enough to have an encounter with Jesus - You’re making it up in order to draw attention to yourself – You have lived a bad life up to this point – You don’t have the moral strength to have an encounter with Jesus, just in the last 24 hours you’ve thought several really bad thoughts – How  can you claim that some religious experience is happening to you whereby you are wanting to give your life to God in a way that orients you toward a new way of being?  How can you claim that kind of thing when you yourself have such weak understanding?  When you yourself are faking it so much of the time when you go through everyday life?  When you yourself are constantly in danger of being found out to be a sham and a fraud and not a good person? 

        That’s what my inner voice tells me.  I imagine that you have inner voices that tell you similar things when you try to reflect upon your own interior lives, your own relationship with God, or the relationship with God you’d like to have.  It’s hard to even get started with that because the voices are there arguing against us.  The voices are there trying to keep us from getting started; putting us down, reminding us, perhaps, of past moments when we had tried to seek a word of faith only to find ourselves sometimes confused and unable to go forward; reminding us of our own weakness and inadequacy.  Yes, those voices are at work in us.  Or sometimes, against those voices, there’s another set of voices that seem to be our friends; but what they have in common with the first voice is if the first is telling us how unworthy we are the second ones agree – Yes, we’re unworthy and so we need to protect ourselves against embarrassment.  We need to protect ourselves from shame by just letting it go.  If you think Jesus has told you something, let it go because you’re probably wrong and if you try to tell other people about it you’ll have trouble finding the right words and they’re going to think that you’re not very smart.  They’re going to think that you’re foolish and so the best thing to do to protect yourself is not go forward with this because you’re probably wrong in the first place, anyway.  You just had a fancy that ran across your mind, you didn’t have an encounter with Jesus.

        It’s hard to get started in the world of seeing.  And yet getting started is the main thing and I will submit to you that getting started involves the process of learning how to reason, learning how to think; because those voices are unreasonable voices.  And the only way to silence them is to reason them away.  Yes, I’m unworthy to have an encounter with Jesus, you might say to your voice; but according to what I’ve always been told, everybody who has an encounter with Jesus is unworthy, and that’s beside the point.  So you can put that argument away by reasoning.  Or: Yes, I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life.  I’ve thought a lot of spiteful, mean, hateful thoughts in the last 24 hours.  And yet I know an encounter with Jesus is supposed to strengthen us against that because all humans have a tendency to be that way.  Again you’re using your reasoning powers, you’re bringing them into play against the opposing voices; and on and on we could go. 

        I can give you a specific reasoning response that you yourself can make as you move through this process of questioning and self-examination.  It’s almost like we have to run a gauntlet when we want to begin our life in faith.  When we want to begin our life in faith, there are tormentors on both sides, the self-doubting, self-deprecating questions that occur to our own minds and hearts.  They are there and getting through those through the process of logical, careful reasoning thought is what it means to emerge from the darkness of where we were before we had that first encounter toward the light, where we’re able to see Jesus face to face.

        Reason, that’s probably not a word you expect to hear too much in church because we talk so much about faith; how you have to believe in things that don’t make sense and have faith in things that you can’t see and that can’t be proved.  Well, yes, faith does involve that kind of activity and faith is necessary in the Christian faith; but also reasoning is involved.  Reason is not the final judge of what’s right and what’s wrong; reason is our way of making careful, wise, judicious decisions about how we’re going to live.  And in that regard, reason is one of our best friends, one of our greatest companions; and it’s a servant of truth and therefore a servant of God and a gift of God.   An encounter with Jesus can give us the opportunity to begin rehabilitating our reason; because all those doubts and questions that torment so much, from the inside or from the outside, all those are basically irrational.  They’re the enemy of reason, these voices that are telling us we aren’t worthy to have a relationship with Christ, that we aren’t smart enough to have a relationship with Christ.  The voices that tell us this are wrong, because they’re not reasoning voices.  Reason then, is our friend, is a servant of God and is ready to lead us on toward the path that ultimately leads us into a world where it’s not so much a question of faith and reason, but a question of seeing in the light, seeing and knowing and trusting and loving. 

        This young man’s journey is our journey.  And our journey begins with the same kind of difficulty this man’s journey began with.  But if we’re beginning for the very first time or re-beginning for the 101^st time, (and I fall in that category), this journey that the young man goes through is the model for what we go through:  learning how to reason so that we can get past the voices.  And always, that reason is taking us to the light, to Jesus Christ himself.  In the story, the young man who was thrown out of the religious community, he comes to Jesus again, and he falls down and worships him.  Jesus and the young man at the beginning, Jesus and the young man at the end; so it is with us.  Amen.    

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