Sermon Lent 4 A - "That's All I Know!"

Here is the text of the Sermon for March 30, the story of the Man Born Blind - John 9:1 ff.

Peace and joy...

Steve

+I+N+I+

This story is mainly about what it means to be blind. 

There are at least two kinds of blindness.

• Physical blindness, which can be overcome by personal courage, adaptation and energy.
• And spiritual blindness, which can only be overcome from the outside.

Here is a blind man, blind from birth, utterly without sight. Quickly, tragedy turns to theology.

Here the question is “who sinned? This man or his parents?” You have seen that happen in your own life, something bad happens, and the question is “why, God?”

• “Did I do something so that my baby was born so sick?”
• “If you have enough faith, pray real hard, she will get better.”
• I need to keep a positive attitude or the cancer will win!

Once in a church we worshiped a teenage boy – Tommy - in the congregation was pickup by the cops on Friday night. I had been involved with Tommy and his family in counseling.

Walking down the hallways on Sunday this is what I heard.

“Well, John and Mary are wonderful people, but you can be too wonderful, too easy on kids. That is why the boy did wrong.”

And not 20 feet down the hall: “John and Mary are good people, but they probably set their standards two high, put too much pressure on the boy, which led to this…”

A little further. “Poor John & Mary, how can such good people have a son like that.”

We are desperate to theologize, to make sense, to get God or ourselves off the hook. “Jesus, who sinned first, this blind man or his parents.” Who is at fault, for someone must certainly be!

Jesus will have none of it!

None of this church basement gossip, cool, abstract theologizing for Jesus. No sitting around talking about another person’s pain. Rather, Jesus declares this is a chance to see a glimpse of God’s Glory!

With a bit of spit and dirt, a loving touch, he heals the man.

The mud is wiped off, the man squints and blinks in the light and – praise God – he sees! Now they’ll all rejoice, throw a party, right?

Oh, how little you know the church if you think that!

A fresh theological debate begins. “Who did this, and how? And most importantly, with whose authority? And why on the Sabbath? He should have waited until sundown!”

The healing is done in a couple of verses, and that should be the end of the man’s problems. But it is just the beginning. More verses are expended in the argument that ensues because of the healing then in the healing itself!

“Who did this?” the Authorities ask him.

“Well, I don’t know for sure. I didn’t actually see it when it hit me. I just know I was blind; now I can see! That’s all I know!

The authorities grab his parents. “Is this your son, lady? This your kid running around healed, trying to make something big out of this Jesus?”

“Er, he kind of looks like him, though I can’t be sure.”

“Well, we are going to kick him out of the congregation for participating in an unapproved, illegal healing.”

“Now that you mention it,” says Dad, “No that isn’t our son. Our son is blind.”

{Your father was expected to stand up for you – no matter what! They disown him.}

They go after the man again.

“Look, I never once saw a flower until today and I’d like to go see another. You want to know who healed me? It was Jesus! Now will you leave me alone?”

And they kick the once blind, now visionary man out of church, out on the curb.

Our Story

I ask you, who is this story about? You think this is about someone else? How little you know of church!

Light of the world? Fine, as long as it shines through acceptable channels. “The light shines in the darkness” it says in John 1. But light is hard to contain. Ask my bedroom curtains tomorrow morning! Light is powerful, uncontrollable. And there is something about us, says John, that loves darkness rather then light.

Don’t get hung up on the hows and the whys of this story about a man born blind, because after a few verses it’s not about him anymore. It is our story. We are like Nicodemus a couple of weeks ago. We, too, are in the dark. “How can this be? How can this be?”

There are ways to go about these things, approved channels to follow. This unlicensed stuff can be irresponsible. Our world may be relentlessly, unrelievedly tragic, but it is our world – predictable and patterned and reliable.

“True enough” he said. “All I know is that I was blind. Now I see.”

Remember Tommy?

I kind of lost track of him for a while. Then one day I was in the store when I heard someone say, “Hello Steve.” It was Tommy, though it took me a few minutes to recognize him. He looked great; his eyes clear his hair neat. His nametag said that he worked in the store. “What happened?” I asked.

“I’ve been saved,” he said. “Saved? From what”

“From sin; from the hell I was living.” And then he mentioned the church, one of those edge-of-town nondenominational steel shed holy-roller places.

“I’m glad! I’m just sorry that we Lutherans did not help.”

”Don’t feel bad, Pastor. You Lutherans offered me aspirin. I needed massive chemotherapy.”

TRANSLATION: All I know is that I was blind, but now I see!

Let me be clear.

I think clear thinking about God is important, and our theological heritage, and our main-line way of doing things.

But I also know this. There are two kinds of blindness.

Physical blindness. That kind can be overcome with struggle and effort.

Spiritual blindness. And that can only be overcome when the gracious presence of Jesus breaks in and blinds us with the light of Glory of the Father.

With the light of Christ breaking in among us we can see God at work in all sorts of un-expected places – all around us.

That’s all I know!

+AMEN+