Shame on Us

Lent 4; Yr. A, March 30, 2014

1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            Good morning and welcome to our show this morning.  Thanks for tuning in!  We’re so very pleased to have a special guest with us today.  He was a man born blind, but one day that all changed.  He was healed of his blindness by a man named Jesus.  Soon after that, he was thrown out of his synagogue.  He’s here with us today to tell his story and to talk with us about his amazing journey. 

Blind man, it’s so good to have you with us today.  You’ve become something of a celebrity in the last few weeks.  Everyone’s talking about your transformation!  Why don’t you begin by telling us what happened that day.

            Well I was sitting by the road like I always did.  I was blind and we all know what blind men do in this town.  I couldn’t work, so I sat by the city gate and begged.  Most of the time people walked by without even noticing I was there.  It’s like I was invisible, but every once in a while, someone would drop a coin into my hand, and I’d be thankful.  Without those few generous souls, I would have starved a long time ago.  But then one day, this group of friends was walking by me.  They were talking about what I must have done to make me born blind.  They wanted to know if it was something my parents had done, or something I had done.  One of them said that I was blind so that God’s works could be revealed, and then he spit on the ground.  Everyone’s always spitting in my direction, so I didn’t think anything of it.  Next thing I know, he’s rubbing some kind of mud on my eyes.  I certainly didn’t see that coming! Anyway, I was startled to say the least.  I was starting to rub it all off, when he told me to go down to the pool of Siloam and wash.  Well, that stuff needed to come off, and water sure would help.  So I made my way there and cleaned myself up.  When I dried my face, I discovered that I could see light, and shapes.  Something I’ve never been able to do before.  I could see enough, that I was able to make my way back to the gate much more quickly.  By the time I found the man, I could see even more clearly.  It was all quite strange actually.

I’m guessing this caused quite a stir in town.  You don’t see someone born blind suddenly able to see very often.

            You sure don’t.  A lot of people were really confused.  Some knew me because they had passed me by day after day, but they knew me as the blind man by the gate.  Now I was a man up and walking around.  They didn’t know what to make of me.  Some people accused me of lying all these years, saying that I wasn’t blind from birth.  I was blind, but they didn’t want to believe it.  I wonder if it was a bit threatening to them. 

Why would your being able to see be a threat to people?

            Well, as long as I remained blind, everything was normal for them, more or less.  They could go on ignoring me.  Putting a coin in my hand if they felt like it, or not.  They could pretend they didn’t see me, and they knew I couldn’t see them.  They probably thought that I didn’t know any of them, but I did.  I could recognize a lot of people by their step, or their smell, or the animals they brought with them.  I saw more than they knew.  It wasn’t really socially correct for them to talk to me.  My shame would have shamed them, so most people kept their distance.  Anyway, once I could see, they had to see me too.  I was brought up out of the pit, even if I didn’t have a trade.  My sin had been lifted, and my shame with it.  I think before it might have been easier for them to just pretend I didn’t exist.  Shame on them.  Now if they ignore me, they’re ignoring one of their own.

I heard that the Jewish authorities weren’t too quick to welcome you back into the fold.  Is that right?

            That’s right.  Some of the Pharisees had the hardest time believing that I was cured.  They asked me all about it and then they called in my parents.  They thought maybe it was all a farce from the beginning.  My parents told them I had been born blind, but they didn’t want to tell them that Jesus was the guy that had cured me.  They knew what that would mean.

Getting thrown out of the synagogue?

            Right.  Jesus isn’t on very good terms with the Jewish leaders in this town.  Anyone who claims to follow him is playing some hard ball with the higher ups.  Some of them have been waiting for a messiah for years, but they don’t want to believe it when they see it.

So it sounds like you believe this Jesus really is the Messiah.  Is that right?

            Sure I do!  Don’t you?

I have to say that I am skeptical.

            I just don’t get that.  How can anyone be skeptical when you see someone make a blind man see?  Who else could have that kind of power?  It has to be from God.  It just strikes me as funny to hear people with such fervor for their faith, fail to see the work of God when it’s right in front of their face.  I think it has something to do with the fact that they’ve already defined Jesus as a sinner.

Interesting.  What do you think that’s about?

            Well, if Jesus is a sinner, then he can’t be from God.  He’s as shameful as I was.  I mean, in their eyes he was just as bad as me!  We were both kind of condemned to a life that was meant to be ignored.  No good Jew should want to be near us.  But from what I’ve heard on the road, that’s precisely the kind of folk that this Jesus always entertains.  Last week, he sat down with a Samaritan woman at the well.  What could raise more eyebrows then that!  It seems as if this Jesus is working under a whole different set of rules.  No wonder the Pharisees are having a fit.  If there’s one thing those guys know about, it’s the law.  What if my blindness wasn’t caused by a sin after all?  What if there was nothing wrong with talking to me all along? Maybe everyone should be treating all blind men and women as human beings worth caring about, and not just the blind … but the lepers and the demon possessed as well.  That’s radical, but I think that’s what Jesus is telling us. 

So, wait a minute.  You don’t think that the poor and the sick have done anything to deserve what’s happened to them?  You think they’re innocent victims?

            I don’t think sin has anything to do with it.  I was born blind.  What could I have done in my mother’s womb?  My parents are good people.  They’ve done their best to raise me with love in a bad situation.  They’ve blamed themselves for years, and what has it gotten them?  Nothing but shame, and an anxiety disorder that makes them afraid of anything that threatens to make them visible to the rest of the world.  Is that what God wants?  I don’t think so … at least … I don’t think so anymore.  I think God wants us to care for each other, and sometimes we meet other people in situations that aren’t the best.  Maybe it’s their fault, but maybe it’s not.  Jesus doesn’t seem to care.  Jesus just wants us to go from there and do better.  Remember the woman that the men brought to him when she had committed adultery?  Which of you has not sinned?  You throw the first stone.  They all walked away.  No blaming.  Go forward and do better.  That makes sense to me.  This shame stuff has to stop.

People aren’t going to be happy to hear that message, will they?

            The poor, the sick, the wounded, the outcast, the hungry, the lonely, the fearful … they’ll want to hear this message.  The others, maybe not so much.  But maybe when they realize how much of that is in all of us … they’ll start to understand that we’re not that much different from one another.  I was blind and now I’m not.  Don’t know that I’m that different otherwise.  I still put my clothes on the same way.  Still eat the same food.  If they let me, I’ll live in the same town too.  But meeting Jesus has certainly changed how I see the world.  Can’t deny that!  I may be out of the synagogue because of it, but I’m in the world now.  I have a chance to be free. That’s good news, and I’d like to share that with more of the people who need to hear it.  Too many people around here are invisible.  I can shed a little light on that!

That sounds like quite a job! Thanks for joining us, and I wish you the best with that.  You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.

I sure do, but it's good work.  I hope I get to see you again!

Amen.