Fourth Sunday in Lent

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?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When Jesus had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then the man went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” The man kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he 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.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, ‘Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to 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 Gospel of the Lord.

If you have or ever have had one of the American Dolls at your house, you know that the most fun thing to do is to go to the library and check out the books that are all about Kirsten, if you have Kirsten; all about Molly, if you have Molly; or Felicity, if you have Felicity. But I like to suggest that people who love the American Dolls, regardless of whichever one they have, check out all of the books, or as many of them as you can, and not forget to read the ones especially about Addy.

Addy is a little slave girl, growing up on a tobacco plantation in the deep American south. At the beginning of Chapter 3, after her father, her papa, and brother Sam have been sold down the river, Addy is sad and distracted, thinking about them as she is walking the rows of tobacco plants. And so she misses some of the worms under the leaves of the plants that she is supposed to remove. The angry overseer finds her at the end of the row. And then, in a brutal scene, he drops his whip and, instead of beating her as he had planned, he takes a handful of the worms that she has missed and forces them into her mouth, making her swallow all of them before she goes back to work.

When her mother that evening finds Addy, she is curled up on her pallet, her face streaked with tears. She tells her mother all that happened. And then she wonders out loud how her mother could keep from hating. “Honey,” her mother replies, “if in this life you fill your heart with hate, there will be no room left for love.” And she is speaking of their love for one another.

To hear this story of the man born blind in John 9 is to enter into a story of a person who has known only suffering and exclusion, misrepresentation and misunderstanding. When Jesus takes note of this man along the road, the disciples want to discuss the man’s misfortune theologically, and they articulate a common assumption of that day that someone sinned to cause this man to be born blind—he or his parents. Jesus will have none of this and quickly moves instead to make mud from the earth and restores the man’s sight.

Back in his old neighborhood, the healed man now has to explain what happened to him. He is bombarded with questions. The Pharisees demand an explanation, which he cannot give them. His parents betray him to save their own skin. Friends and neighbors are disturbed that he is no longer blind. He is blamed that all of this happened on the Sabbath and for his association with the one he now calls a prophet. Finally, after describing what happened to him one last time, he is tossed out of the synagogue for good. And it is there that Jesus goes and finds him alone, one standing outside of the boundaries of all human society, on the edge of existence, no more accepted now that he can see than before he could see. It is there on the margins that Jesus finds him, acknowledging that there is more light and insight coming from those who were blind like him on the outside than from those who thought that they could see standing on the inside. Jesus seeks and finds him, with unexpected and unsolicited attention. He is vindicated; he is exonerated. He is loved with a divine love. He was lost but now is found, with a love from above.

A few weeks ago at one of our Wednesday evening Lenten services, Jim Klobuchar challenged us to consider how we react to a beggar on the street corner. Well, we ask questions, don’t we? I do—for however long it takes the light to turn from red to green. “Doesn’t this person have a job?” “What if he is on drugs?” “If I help, will I just be supporting an alcohol problem?” “Where is the family?” Can’t they help?” “What happened to the safety net guaranteed for people in situations just like this?”

We know that there are no easy solutions to this daily reminder that something has gone wrong with the moral fabric of our society. But what about our hearts? That in American today such a scene is not rare, but commonplace; that we have been advised in a hundred million different directions about what to do. But the burden of proof is always on the person. And then, of course, the light turns green and the person is left to wait for the next person to come, to consider the same series of questions and political and socio-economic theories.

I love to go to the Guthrie; I love theater. But, like all good readers, I also want the directors to be faithful to the story that they seek to bring alive on stage for us. That was the case when I went to see the Guthrie’s production of Jane Eyre some months ago, a story that I have loved and treasured for many years. And it was a magnificent production, so magnificent that they are bringing it back again for the remainder of March. But they forgot the “red room” scene at the beginning of the story, and then the moment of vindication for the child Jane Eyre when she is pronounced exonerated.

Jane Eyre is the orphan charge of a mean and cruel Mrs. Reed of Gateshead, who has promised Jane’s deceased uncle that she would house and feed the young child for his sake after his death. Jane is either ignored or the subject of continuous misrepresentation and cruel treatment by her aunt and cousins, Georgiana and John Reed. After being locked for yet another evening in the most dreaded red room of the house, the family doctor arrives and intervenes, suggesting that Jane be sent to the Lowood boarding school for girls.

Upon arrival at the school, there is a scene where the headmaster and clergyman, Mr. Brocklehurst—whom the author describes as a column of black marble—places the child Jane on a high stool in the middle of the school and proceeds to discredit her character and her credibility along the lines of the claims her aunt had used to describe her. Jane has been publicly misrepresented without an opportunity to introduce herself to her new school of friends on her own terms. “If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you and absolved you, you would not be without friends,” her one little friend Helen Burns reassures her.

Just then the two little girls, huddled together, are found by the benevolent and wise Miss Temple, who invites them to her apartment for tea and cakes and conversation. “Well, now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when persons are accused they are always allowed to speak in their own defense. You have been charged with falsehood. Defend yourself to me now as well as you can. Say whatever your memories suggest as truth.” And so the child Jane does. She tells Miss Temple the whole story of her life at Gateshead with the terrible Mrs. Reed and of the red room, and of the intervention of the kind Dr. Lloyd. Miss Temple knows of him and writes to him. And with a letter giving clearance as to the quality of Jane’s character, there is this wonderful scene at the end of Chapter 9 where Miss Temple, having assembled the whole school, announces that inquiry had been made into the charges leveled at Jane Eyre and therefore publicly pronounces her exonerated.

The Gospel of John, as we have it each week in Lent, is filled with drama of remarkable characters, whether the Samaritan woman at the well, or the man alongside the Pool of Bethesda, or the blind man along the road in our Gospel for today. And in each case, the character over a lifetime would have, for very good reason, been understandably harboring a life filled with hatred and bitterness and despair. Yet, I believe we revisit these characters precisely in the season of Lent to remind us of the benevolent presence that hovers over each and every one these stories, a benevolence that, despite the circumstances of life in each case, moves in so that there might be room in the heart reserved for love.

It is a benevolence that does not interrogate or demand, but waits with a divine waiting; a benevolence that does not ask questions as much as it responds with grace. It is a divine love, and it comes from above.

Amen.