SEEING AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME

Fourth Sunday of Lent

John 9: 1-41

March 10, 2002

A tornado hits and destroys one home, killing a family member but jumps across the street sparing the house next door. The family whose house was spared walks out praising God for sparing their home, making an assumption that God blessed them. What does that say about the family whose house was destroyed and a member killed? Does God not love them? Did they do something wrong to deserve this? There are frequently some big faith questions and issues about God that we somehow grow up with, and unless they are challenged we live with misinformation and poor theology. For instance, some people get the idea that if they live right, honor God and don’t break any of the 10 Commandments God will watch out for them and protect them. God will give them the good life. That is mistaken belief; nowhere in the Bible can you defend that understanding. Sometimes we claim things of God for which we have no right. We have some pretty screwed up theology at times, beliefs that if examined carefully, would not hold up.

There are a couple of statements in our scripture for today that give insight into some of the beliefs about God in the time of Jesus. For instance in John 9:31 the man who was born blind but received his sight states, "We know that God does not listen to sinners but those who worship him." If a person who is a sinner (whatever that definition is) is going to change his/her life, how will God know it if God does not listen to them? Are there some people who are totally lost to God regardless? This reminds me of the minister from the Del City Baptist Church near Oklahoma City who was serving as president of the Southern Baptist Convention a number of years ago. Publicly he announced, "God does not listen to the prayers of Jews." There was a national uproar on that one. What a mistaken theology!

The story of the man born blind begins with another theological assumption: the man’s blindness from birth was due to the sin of someone, probably his parents. In other words, physical illnesses, disease, disasters are the result of sin; God has to punish someone for their sin. So, if you end up with cancer is that because you sinned? If your house burns down or your child dies is that because someone in your household did something terrible? That was the whole question in the book of Job. Yet out of guilt and mistaken theology people still hold on to such beliefs, and their relationship with God is a mess. No wonder a lot of people have given up on the church and God.

God is a God of love and compassion who desires to live in a wholesome relationship with you. God is not a God of vengeance and wrath who is cold hearted. As the Old Testament clearly proclaims, "God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." John 3:16-17 clearly states the New Testament understanding. God is in a dynamic loving relationship with you and me. How frequently we impose upon God our attitudes rather than let God’s loving grace transform our hardhearted ways. If we want vengeance on someone we can justify it by having a God who is vengeful. If we want things "black and white," clearly defined right and wrong (in our terms), then we have a God who operates that way. The resurrection of Jesus proclaims that God’s love and grace is more powerful than the hammer and nails, sword or guns or bombs. Do we live that belief? Are we going to hold on to our images of God so we don’t have to change or are we willing to let the God of Jesus Christ transform our attitudes and lives?

What is your definition of sin? Do you frequently think of sin in terms of certain behaviors that are harmful or wrong? And a sinner is someone who does bad things? This is frequently the picture. We often hold up the 10 Commandments as the example. Do not kill; do not steal; do not commit adultery; do not covet, etc. Yet, in the Gospel of John, we have a different definition of sin. Sin is not defined in terms of morals or behavior, but relationship, primarily our relationship with God.

The story of the man born blind is the story of the changing definition of sin. The assumption at the beginning that someone had to sin because he was born blind is not even given a hearing by Jesus. Besides that, some of the Pharisees proclaimed Jesus a sinner because he healed on the Sabbath; he broke the 10 Commandments. The purpose of this story is for Jesus to use this healing to open eyes to the saving presence of God in Jesus.

What we have is a story of reversal. The man born blind was given his sight but not just physically, his eyes were opened to Jesus as the Savior, the Son of God. The Pharisees who were able to physically see, the religious authorities, are pictured as the ones who are blind. Blind – because they cannot recognize Jesus as the Messiah! They are so stuck in their ways that they cannot see that God is present and at work in the life of Jesus right in front of them. The community assumed that the blindness of the man was due to sin; Jesus does not give that idea any support. Rather, Jesus changes the definition of sin. Sin is seeing the wonders and work of God through Jesus Christ and not coming to belief; it is being blind to the work of God right in front of them. In John 9: 39, Jesus says, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." He closes the story by calling the Pharisees the sinners.

I remember hearing many years ago a definition of a preacher’s job on Sunday mornings: "to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable." And that is what Jesus did; he brought healing and wholeness and peace to the broken and brokenhearted; to those who had God defined in their image, Jesus upset their lives.

Jesus’ judgment of us is not based on a set of moral laws that he can check off to see if we are bad or good; we all make mistakes; we all make bad judgments. Salvation is not based on whether we obey a certain set of "do’s and don’ts." We are called to faith – to live our lives in a relationship with Jesus Christ. To be in relationship with God in Christ is to be set free from sin; we are made whole! Salvation is based on faith in the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

John Newton, the captain of a slave ship in the 1700s, was confronted in his life with Jesus Christ and his eyes were opened to how he was living. In a faith relationship the risen Christ loved him into new life, and he could no longer do what he was doing. He wrote, "I once was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see." The risen Christ in his life changed how he saw other people; he repented, changed his life. His eyes were opened. At the age of 39 he became a minister in the Anglican Church and wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace." He no longer could haul slaves from Africa to other countries in the world.

Who sinned to cause this? Why do bad things happen to good people? Does God protect some people and not others? Does God punish people? There are many big questions about God; some of them good questions and some of them misdirected questions. For Jesus, the important question was: are you in a faith relationship with God? Are you living that faith the best you can?