Would You Look At That! John 9:1-41

On pretty days – days that weren’t too windy or wet,
Amy liked to walk to her son Mark’s school, meet him by the front steps
and then, together, walk back home – sometimes stopping for cocoa and coffee
at the corner coffee shop.
It was at the corner they first saw the woman with the alarming tics.
She had a large hand bag under her arm and she carried an umbrella
though it had been sunny all day.
As they started past her toward the coffee shop door,
the woman’s head jerked violently to the right, her left arm flew up like a chicken’s wing
and she uttered a high pitched squeal followed by a sharp cough
followed by a low growl.

Six year old Mark stopped in stunned surprise and just stared at the woman.
Amy tugged him toward the coffee shop door.
“What’s WRONG with that lady, Mommy?” Mark asked.
“Shhhh!” Amy hissed, wishing that, for once, Mark didn’t have to say aloud
every single thought that popped into his little head.

Children sometimes lack the ability to censor what they say in delicate situations,
but we expect better from adults.
Certainly it seems we should be able to expect better from Jesus’ disciples.
Yet, in John’s story of Jesus healing a man born blind
the disciples act like they have no tact at all.

Here they come, walking down the street,
corn dog in one hand, giant Slurpee in the other.
Peter stops in front of a man sitting on the bench at the Jerusalem Post Office.
The man just sits on the bench, eyes directed straight ahead.
Peter waves his hand in front of the man’s eyes – no reaction.
He swallows a bite of his corn dog,
and, assuming, I suppose, that because the man is blind
he must be deaf, too, he says in a loud voice,
“Hey Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”

How rude!
“Who sinned, this man or his parents?”
Can you believe he said that?
John doesn’t say it was Peter, but it sounds like something Peter would say.
The man had no governor on his tongue.
You and I, of course, are much more polite, much more careful about what we say –
not wanting to offend, not wanting to create a scene.
We do have manners, after all. Right?
We would never SAY such a thing…
But we WOULD think it.

Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
In other words, whose fault is it?
It MUST be SOMEBODY’S fault!
Who can we blame for things not being as they should be,
for things not going as they should go?
We’ve got to blame SOMEBODY, because the alternative is just too scary.
If there’s NOBODY to blame then the world becomes too unpredictable.
If we can’t figure out what CAUSES it, how can we PREVENT it?

When a child is born with a disability you can bet there’s a whole lotta blaming goin’ on!
One of the reasons there’s a divorce rate of around 80%
for couples who have a disabled child
is because one way to make sense of such a difficult thing
is to find someone to blame, and the closest person to blame is the spouse.
Of course, the blame of a spouse isn’t nearly as bad
as the blame you heap on yourself – fathers do it, but especially mothers.
If a child doesn’t develop “normally” you can bet that child’s mother
spends every conscious, and probably every unconscious, moment
examining in minute detail every hour, every MINUTE she carried that child
for something she did wrong, somewhere she failed.

Who sinned, this man or his parents…?
Whose FAULT is it?
That’s the human condition in a nutshell.
It goes all the way back to Adam, sniveling under God’s stern reproach.
“Have you eaten of the tree from which I told you not to eat?” God asks.
“It was that woman,” Adam accuses, “That woman YOU gave me!
“SHE made me do it!”

We can’t be too hard on Peter, or whichever disciple it was
who posed to Jesus the question of blame regarding the man’s blindness.
He was just the one who asked out loud what was on everyone’s mind.
The Pharisees, especially, were champion fault finders.
They were professionals in the blame game.
They were the ones others went to.
They were highly skilled at weighing sin
and deciding which sins deserved greater punishment.

The Pharisees had probably tossed a coin or two in the blind beggar’s cup,
made a show of helping him step down off the curb.
Though they wouldn’t ADMIT it, his blindness served a purpose in their minds.
It served as an example of what happens when somebody doesn’t do as they should –
when somebody – parents or child – when SOMEBODY sins.

The disciples asked Jesus – “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.”
Let me repeat that: “Neither THIS man, NOR his parents sinned;
he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

Do you see? It’s no one’s fault. It’s no one’s fault. It’s no one’s fault.
It happens. Bad things. Good things. Sweet things. Sour things.
I’m not saying that actions don’t have consequences,
that we bear NO responsibility for careless choices.
I’m not saying that violence and hatred don’t leave scars,
or that love means NEVER having to say you’re sorry.

I’m simply saying that for too many of us the question of innocence or guilt
becomes the dominant question in our lives.
Too many of us spend WAY too much time on the question of blame
and far too little time celebrating the way God’s works are revealed all around us.

It seems like it would be easy to change that.
It seems like we would jump at the chance to celebrate instead of nit-pick.
But this is where John’s story rings so true.
Jesus spits on some dirt, makes a little mud, smears it on the blind man’s eyes
and tells him to go wash.
The man does as he’s told, and, sure enough, he’s healed. He can see!
But look how people respond to this miracle of God.

His neighbors, used to seeing him begging, used to looking down on him,
used to pitying him and speculating about the awful things he or his parents have done
to leave him in this state –
These NEIGHBORS of his don’t recognize him!
They don’t SEE him.
The man’s neighbors EXPECTED to see him begging on the street,
his eyes locked in a vacant stare.
After the man was healed his neighbors’ eyes registered his presence,
they noticed his physical being, but they had no category in which to place him.

Not only did his neighbors not recognize him, but the Pharisees, his spiritual LEADERS,
tried to pull him back into his old role of “blind man”;
tried to get him to denounce Jesus;
tried to make him doubt his own eyes.
Even his own parents wouldn’t stand up for him.
Even his own parents couldn’t celebrate God’s mighty work.
But to the man’s credit, he stood his ground.
Of all the people in Jerusalem, he was the one person
who managed to consider an alternative reality to that of blaming and fault-finding.
Under all the pressure, and despite all the chances they gave him
to knuckle under and return to his blindness the man refused.
He bore witness to a new reality.
“I was blind, but now I see.”


If you think about it, it’s the fear of being blamed that keeps all of us blind to some degree.
It’s our pitiful attempts to create around ourselves the aura of goodness
that keeps us from really LOOKING at the world as it is;
really SEEING our place in God’s creation
really NOTICING God’s works as they are revealed.
But sometimes the curtain lifts; sometimes the scales fall off if only for a moment;
and we truly SEE.

You probably read that he Philharmonic Orchestra was in North Korea this past week.
For perhaps the first time, North Koreans saw Americans as talented musicians
and Americans saw North Koreans as an appreciative audience.
No one was trying to blame the other;
the scales fell away and they were able to see each other in a new light.

My friend, Bob Gamble, who was pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Daytona Beach
went to Ukraine with a friend and SAW children living in abandoned buildings.
Once he SAW, really SAW he couldn’t go back to NOT seeing.
He had to find a way to help make their lives better.
His eyes were opened, and, in turn, their eyes were opened,
and now that they’ve gotten to know him and trust him
God’s work through Bob is taking off in ways he never would have imagined.

Often we express surprise at some new sight, some unexpected spectacle
by saying to each other, “Would you look at that!”
I believe that’s God’s word to us this morning.
Would you LOOK at that, really LOOK?
Would you look beyond your narrow categories,
past your need to justify yourself or protect your self or blame somebody.
Would you look at the person next to you, the person you live with,
the strangely acting lady on the corner next to the coffee shop
and open your eyes to the possibility that at any moment,
in the most unexpected and remarkable way God’s works might be revealed.