SEEING WITH NEW EYES

‘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.’

This week at the hospital a woman in her mid-50s, who had been told a month ago that she didn’t have much time left, had said her goodbyes and made her wishes known, walked out of the hospital and went home. Her doctors, some of the best bone marrow transplant doctors in the world, were so amazed they thanked God with this patient. 

Also, this last week a 36-year-old woman with a 5-year-old daughter and an 18-month-old son died of leukemia. I’ve known her for more than a year. She was intelligent, a devoted mother, kind. She was surrounded by a loving husband, family and many friends when she died. Her mother told me that she’s always been religious – the family is Catholic – but she has, right now, ‘temporarily lost God.’ 

I hear this often, at times when it seems that God isn’t answering our prayers. When something really good happens, we’re so quick to thank God; yet, when something really bad happens, do we look to God in that same thankful attitude? Indeed, why would God -- depending on your theology -- cause this young mother to die, or even allow it to happen?

And -- no God I could worship would deliberately take this woman from those children. Anyone who would say something like ‘God needed her more in heaven’ deserves, however well-meaning, to be silenced.

Why is there suffering? Lent is a good time for this kind of reflection. I remember when I first began hospital chaplaincy as a part of my seminary studies, my greatest fear was that I’d walk into the room of a patient with a very bad illness and he or she would ask me: ‘Why did God give me this cancer? Am I being punished for something? What did I do wrong?’ 

And, I do hear this question – quite often. It’s the same one troubling the disciples as we began today’s Gospel lesson, the whole ninth chapter of John’s Gospel. Why was this man born blind? Who did what wrong to cause this?

Nothing much has changed in the last 2,000 years, really. Then as now, we want to assign cause to effect. We want to understand why things happen, so we can change what we do and prevent the bad stuff. We want to control our lives. Jewish wisdom of the time, espoused by those Pharisees, said that when bad stuff happened through no fault of one’s own, such as this man who was born blind, then it must be the fault of the sins of his parents. 

Jesus said that we cannot be punished because of the sins of our parents – but the tendency to try to understand ‘why’ remains. And, sometimes we can be stuck with the result of things our parents did or didn’t do – for example, babies born with HIV. In our attempt to explain things, we may be too quick, however, to try to assign blame. Some things just happen.

It would be much easier for us if all suffering had a direct cause that we could easily see and assign the blame. It is true that in some cases we can point to a choice that makes all the difference, just as in the fact that 1 billion people will die this century because of a choice to use tobacco. Other suffering we know is caused by things far beyond our direct control, such as climate change and storms, or war and terror, but we can still see a cause. We must not stop trying to understand how the bad stuff can be a result of our actions.

But given all this, there will be suffering for which we can see no direct cause and thus cannot assign blame, as with the young mother with leukemia, and as with the blindness of the man in our lesson.

The challenge is not to find who to blame, but how do we reach out to those who suffer and bring hope and comfort to their lives. For when we start to blame and judge others, without intending to do so, we add to their burdens. Think for a moment how the parents must have felt when they were told by the religious authorities that they were the cause of their son's blindness. Blind to the pain others suffer, too often we draw lines where God did not intend.

For example, remember that homeless man that I spoke of last week? I know people who would say that he isn’t making good choices. He’s choosing not to work and provide for himself. I grew up hearing that thinking; my parents were from poor rural backgrounds and worked very hard for what they now have. I thought this same way, more or less, for a great deal of my adult life.

I used to live in California, where I drove everywhere in my car. There came a time, though, that I needed to take the bus every day – the details aren’t important – but this was the first time in my life I’d been in close contact [often, it seemed to be way too close!] with homeless folks. It soon became apparent to me that there was no way most of these folks were able to make choices at all. If one of them came to me asking for a job, I didn’t think I’d be able to hire him or her. Many of them just didn’t – and couldn’t – think in the same way that I did.

These are people who, through no fault of their own, don’t perceive and reason like others. A young mother died of a very untreatable form of leukemia, through no fault of her own. A plane full of people remains lost – people who certainly could not have foreseen what would happen. Those remaining mourn. So much senseless suffering, in God’s creation. So much darkness. 

This week’s Gospel reading echoes with the same senselessness. And, Jesus gives a blind man sight. Questions are unnecessary. ‘How’ isn’t quite the point. There is light now. ‘One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ 

Still, those around him want to know how and why, so they keep asking questions. But what more can he say? He was blind. Jesus gave him his sight and now, for the first time, he can see. He can give no other answer, and yet they keep asking. He is content to believe – without understanding.

There is so much contained in the arguing here. If this passage from John was the only story of Jesus’ social context, it would be enough. If we had no other description of Jesus’ healings or the theological debates about his authority, no other crowded discussions about law and God and Jesus’ role, I think we would have enough here with this little section of John – because here, we have everything.

The healed and the witnesses. The doubters and the worriers. Tradition and threat, Sabbath rest and holy healing. Identity and history. All our worries, our concerns and our reasoning as we try to make sense of wonder and grace, all our fear. And at the center, Jesus as the light of the world.

‘Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for thou art with me.’ Jesus the shepherd knows there will be dark valleys, and is with us to light the way, as we journey through them. That is the perspective of the psalmist, and that is the good news from John’s perspective. Jesus is the light. Light brings forth life. John 1:3-5: What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

Again  and again, John shows us Jesus as the light in the darkness, the light calling forth life. All life springs from light. Spring will come. Light warms the soil and calls seeds to push forth. Buds swell in the light, and color with promise. Light lengthens and the sap runs.

Light is a comfort and a calling for all who know darkness. And darkness is real, isn’t it? We know the darkness of grief and loneliness. Darkened understanding and questions, darkened horizons. We can be afraid of the dark. There is something of the blind man in all of us. We, too, sit by the road unable to see and in need of new life to get us on our feet.

‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow thee all the days of thy life.’ Experience may tell us that darkness and pain as well as goodness and mercy seem to follow us. You know, the Hebrew word translated ‘follow’ may also be translated ‘pursue.’ So, then, the goodness and mercy of Christ pursues us – chases after us – all the days of our lives.

'I was blind, but now I see.’ Let’s claim the image of light for Lent. The Risen Christ is the dawn, the dayspring, giving sight to the blind, calling us to wake up into new life. Christ is the dawn that calls us away from the darkness of trouble and pain. The dawn that brings us into new beginnings. In these Lenten days, let’s remember that God is always with us, Christ’s arms are always around us, no matter what our life journey brings. Let’s see with the eyes of Christ.