A few years ago, when all of a sudden my arms were no longer long enough to hold things so that I could focus, my optometrist did a check of my eyesight and told me I had “presbyopia.” He’s funny guy and knows a lot about religion—I know many of you go to Dr. Dickey as well—so I thought he was just making a joke about Presbyterians. Turns out, unfortunately, that word presbyopia comes from the Greek word "presbys" meaning "old person" and describes the condition where the eye exhibits a progressively diminished ability to focus on near objects with age. Like grey hair and wrinkles, presbyopia is caused by the natural course of aging and leads one to remedies such as reading glasses, bifocals and so forth.
Many of you are dealing with serious eye conditions, some much more difficult to treat. We can all find ways to identify with the blind man in the story we hear this morning from John’s Gospel.
This morning’s gospel reading brings the story of a man blind from birth. I read just a short passage of the much longer story, which I commend to you. The man was apparently sitting or standing along the road when Jesus passed by. Jesus saw him and simply spat on some dirt, rubbed over the man’s eyes and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. And when he did so, the man could see.
It’s a rather shockingly straightforward story, really, but it seems to prove the old adage that “no good deed goes unpunished.” The man can see. You’d think that would be perceived as a good thing. But all kinds of people seem to take offense. They all have points to make and questions to ask. The disciples ask who was responsible for the man’s blindness. The neighbors ask how he received his sight. The Pharisees ask how Jesus dare heal someone on the Sabbath. Others keep asking just who this Jesus is, anyway?
John says that they were so divided in all their questioning that they finally turned back to the once-blind man and ask “It was your eyes he opened. What do you say about him?” I think that’s maybe the most important question for all of us this morning, the question we need to ask ourselves. He’s opened my eyes to a variety of kinds of things…so what do I say about him?
The once-blind man in today’s story doesn’t pretend to understand all that has happened to him. But that doesn’t stop him from moving to a profound testimony of faith: “one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.” You see all the while, those detractors all around were finding ways to use their clever questions to justify their lack of faith. In their frustration at their inability to pin Jesus down, they become more and more hostile, more and more angry and finally drive the healed man away.
But through it all, the once-blind man keeps moving closer and closer to Jesus. Each time he answers their questions, his profession of faith goes a little deeper. “Who is this man who opened your eyes?” “A man called Jesus” he tells his acquaintances at first. Then, when questioned by the Pharisees, he replies: he is “a prophet.” When they next accuse him of being Jesus’ disciple, he says: “never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
They drive him out. Jesus goes to him and asks: “Do you believe in the Son of Man? You have seen him and I am that one.” The man replies: “Lord, I believe.”
I know that among us this morning are those who have experienced healing from physical ailments. Among us are those who have experienced healing from addiction. Among us are those who have experienced healing from depression and mental illness. Among us are those who have experienced healing from homelessness and unemployment. Among us are those who have experienced healing from grief. Among us are those who have experienced healing from fear and hopelessness. Among us are those who have experienced healing from broken relationships, from broken dreams, from broken hearts. Among us are those who have experienced healing in the midst of illness and challenging circumstances.
By our lives, we witness to the healing power of God’s grace within us and all around us. If someone were to ask me, as they sometimes do, what’s really the point of being part of a church, I say that when you come down to it, this is where God’s grace is manifest in this world, in us. This is where God’s love, incarnate in Jesus Christ, sometimes works miracles that bring healing and restore hope.
We’re not perfect. And, sure, sometimes, often, we slip into the ranks of those tiresome interrogators all around Jesus who can’t stop snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But that’s never the best of who we are. We are the church, the people God has called, the people Christ continues to heal and make whole through the saving work of the Holy Spirit. We are those who know that we stand in need of grace and salvation in and through Christ Jesus.
As a congregation, our vision statement says: “we welcome you into our community of faith to be transformed by God’s love through Jesus Christ.” This is a community of faith that expects to be healed, expects to be changed into the likeness of Christ, expects to be transformed by the love of God.
We rejoice to welcome some more new members into our fellowship this morning and we will provide another opportunity to join next month.
We welcome you all into this pilgrim community, ever in need of God’s healing power. We welcome you, however you come, whatever baggage you bring, wherever you are on your journey of faith. We welcome you, whether your eyesight is still 20/20 or you’re wearing bi-focals, or it’s all you can do to find your way up here to the table of mercy and love.
For in this loaf, blessed, broken and shared, and in this cup, Christ’s love poured out for us, is found what an ancient church father called “the medicine of life for the healing of every sickness and for the strengthening of all advancement…”
Let us prepare to come near to Christ, the physician of life, that our eyes may see his love, our hearts see his blessed hope and we may all be restored, through him, to newness of life.
Amen.
Notes:
Serapion of Thmuis, 4th c. Quoted in Liturgy Training Publications, “A Eucharist Sourcebook,” Chicago, 1999.
© Patricia Farris, 2008. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
"Jesus Meets the Blind Man"