The Blamed, Blind, and Blessed

John 9:1-41

As he 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 he 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 he 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.”
He 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?”
. . . .
Have you noticed how quickly people rush to attach or avoid blame? Oscar Wilde once wrote, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you place the blame.”

Do people feel compelled to quickly fix blame when something goes wrong, sometimes horribly wrong in an effort to make sense of the tragedy? I recall the reports following the murder of 33 students on the Virginia Tech campus. Everyone was stunned and almost immediately came the finger pointing: the campus security were at fault; the university should have seen it coming and expelled the perpetrator before all this happened. Some even joined in backlash about immigrants! But none of the finger pointing could make sense of the tragedy.

The only reason to indulge in blaming is to find the gaps in a system that can be addressed and may help prevent subsequent senseless acts of violence… and still not make this country a police state. Then it’s not blaming; it’s seeking answers that get at the root of the problem. It’s like saying that the answer to crime isn’t just building more prisons. The answer must include addressing foundational causes of crime: poverty, sub-standard education, employment – a host of systemic problems.

Do we quickly accuse as a reflex reaction to make ourselves feel superior? Do people point the finger to avoid complicity, shift responsibility? “Don’t blame me I voted for the guy who lost…” and then sat back without lifting a finger when things floundered.

Politics is often the arena where we see the most articulate and sometimes vicious blaming. “To err is human; to place blame is politics” wrote Hubert Humphrey, Vice-President under Lyndon Johnson. You have to be pretty cagey in that arena to lay blame… without appearing to. John F. Kennedy said it well, regardless of your political affiliation: “Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix blame for the past; let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”

Do we find the tendency to blame in personal relationships, most especially in marriage and family?

That’s a rhetorical question. Of course, that’s another arena where blaming becomes a well established and refined art. “I could be happy if it weren’t for you,” she says. “Oh yeah,” he shouts back, “so could I if I didn’t have to live with your nagging.” “I could have been a success if my parents hadn’t pushed me so hard.” Blaming grows those long, entwining tendrils that keep us prisoners to the past. All blame is a waste of precious time. It rarely changes the other and certainly doesn’t change you. Blaming just shifts the focus, makes the other feel guilty or defensive… but it doesn’t change anything… least of all you. “The best day of your life is when you decide your life is your own. No one to blame… it is an amazing journey,” writes Bob Moawad.

All of the preceding is really to set the stage for this story in John 9. The religious tradition we see portrayed there reflects an understanding of morality that fosters blaming. More specifically, the firmly held outlook was those who obey God’s law prosper and those who do not are punished. Thus when Jesus and his disciples come upon a man born blind the question they ask is essentially, “Who’s to blame?” The man? His parents?

Somebody’s at fault! Where do we place the blame? Before you say that’s simplistic and morally primitive, I’d hasten to say that  you need to be a party to conversations (if they weren’t confidential, that is) I’ve had with people who have suffered a serious personal setback, a debilitating illness, a death of a loved one.
It is not uncommon to hear “What did I do to deserve this?” Or, to hear a seething resentment that wants religious approval to call Morgan and Morgan and go for the throat of those clearly to blame. To be sure now there are times when compensation for negligence or malicious harm is most justifiable, but somewhere the corner is turned from justifiable to the fury of unmitigated blame. Blind fury… which leads to the next consideration, an irony. Who’s blind in this story?

Those who cannot see, or those who will not see -- those who are so well fitted with legalistic blinders they cannot recognize the difference between good and evil.

The position of the Pharisees is:

1. No work or act of compassion may be performed on the Sabbath… and they are blind to the true nature of God. Devotion to the law has supplanted devotion to the Lawgiver.
2. Because of the superior knowledge of the Pharisees, they have disdain for anyone who is not of their exalted stature.

Knowledge of and adherence to the religious law is, they believe, what qualifies a person to be acceptable before the Almighty… and they themselves are blind… blaming… angry.
But what of the former blind man? In his simple way he out duels his “superiors.” When his first answers do not satisfy them and he is asked who is this “sinner” who healed you, his eloquence is irrefutable. “Here is an astonishing thing: you do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” And because they don’t hear what they want to hear; what they are prepared to hear, they accuse (blame) him as a sinner and drive him out. To see is to know. Those who should have seen, don’t. The one who doesn’t see, does. . . and comes to know.
Not surprisingly Jesus reappears when the newly sighted man is driven out. He seeks out the man now cut off and completes the story.

“Do you believe in God become human?”

“And who is he?” There it is: the question the Gospel raises and seeks to answer.

You have met him. It is I. Do you see it?

And the man was blessed with faith to see the God who has compassion on all who want to see.

AMEN

The Blamed, Blind, and Blessed

A Communion Meditation by

Dr. J. Lawrence Cuthill

March 2nd, 2008

Winter Park Presbyterian