Sermon

Lent 4 Year A
Mark Lloyd Taylor

We have heard three rich stories from John’s gospel these middle Sundays in Lent: Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus two weeks ago (John 3:1-17); Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well last Sunday (John 4:5-42); and today, Jesus’ giving sight to the man born blind (John 9:1-41).

How would you describe the trajectory of these three gospel lessons? If we asked Richard, our deacon, he might say: long, longer, and longest. That’s not the trajectory I had in mind. I was thinking instead of the increasing depth of relationship with Jesus into which the three characters enter.

Recall Nicodemus. A Pharisee, a leader among the people, he comes to Jesus as a privileged insider. Something about Jesus attracts him. But Nicodemus will only meet Jesus at night, under the cover of darkness – afraid that the association will embarrass him, or cause his social standing to slip. Although a teacher of Israel, an expert, Nicodemus puts up considerable resistance to Jesus’ words, proving deaf to their meaning. Jesus says: No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above, without being born of water and the Spirit. Nicodemus asks: How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born? How can these things be?

Recall the woman at the well – a triple outsider: Samaritan, woman, living unmarried with a man after having had five husbands. Against all expectations, and unlike Nicodemus, Jesus finds in her a willing and engaged conversation partner. To be sure, she has questions and sometimes fails to grasp fully what Jesus is telling her. But she also makes forthright declarations. She does not resist deeper reflection. By the end of their conversation, she has moved to quite a different view of Jesus from the one with which she started.

Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well?
Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty.
Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

And her final statement: I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us. To which Jesus replies: I am he, the one who is speaking to you. The woman then abandons the well and conveys to her fellow villagers a wide-eyed and open-hearted invitation: Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he? We might name her an apostle, of sorts, for on the strength of her testimony many Samaritans seek Jesus out and come to say of him: We know truly that this is the Savior of the world.

And the man born blind in today’s gospel lesson. When first asked about Jesus, he reports simply, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight” (9:11). Pressed further by the Pharisees to declare what he thinks of Jesus, the man born blind echoes the woman at the well, “He is a prophet” (17). Later, he insists that Jesus must be from God or he could not have given sight (33). Finally, when they meet a second time, Jesus asks, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man born blind proves eager to learn more: “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus answers, “You have seen him, and the one who is speaking to you is he,” which brings the man to deeper insight still: “’Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped [Jesus]” (35-38). The life of the man born blind changes dramatically as a result of this meeting with Jesus. He can now see, of course. But he also suffers expulsion from the synagogue – he is cut off from the people of Israel and left supported only by his faith in Jesus.

The trajectory of the gospel lessons we have heard these three weeks traces a movement from cautious admirer through active seeker to transformed follower of Jesus. But – and here is a first insight I hope we might all take with us today – Jesus accepted and respected Nicodemus and the woman at the well and the man born blind exactly as he found them. Jesus engages each of the three in face-to-face, heart-to-heart conversation. While Jesus desires that Nicodemus and the woman at the well and the man born blind become more fully themselves, he knows such transformation must begin where each particular person finds her- or himself, and no where else. Individually, you and I are challenged to believe that wherever we find ourselves in life, whether under cover of darkness with Nicodemus, or with the woman running from the well to tell her neighbors, or at the healing pool with the newly sighted man, we discover Jesus and his gracious words. As a parish, we must make room in everything we do and say for cautious admirers, interested seekers, and transformed followers, even as we lay out the trajectory that leads to transformation and deeper faith.

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The story of the man born blind suggests to me three other insights. First, remember how the story began. As Jesus walks along in the Temple, he happens to sees the man born blind. Jesus’ disciples notice him too – but immediately look past the man’s predicament and want to know: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (2) Blind themselves to the man’s need, the disciples see him only through their traditional theological filters. If a human being suffers misfortune, someone, someone’s moral failing, someone’s sin, must be to blame. Bad things just don’t happen to good people. Of this the disciples are firmly convinced. Their only question has to do with whether the man himself or his parents deserve the blame for his blindness.

Jesus halts this line of questioning immediately – the man’s blindness has nothing to do with either his sin or that of his parents. Jesus’ response to human misfortune and need is not to delve into the past to try to figure out why. Instead, he points toward a new future. Every life situation, even the most desperate, provides a possible occasion for God’s works to be made known. And what are the works of God? According to John’s Gospel: abundance, new birth, feeding the hungry, sheltering the weary and endangered, rescuing the lost, giving sight to the blind, bringing the dead – or the as good as dead – to new life. Jesus challenges me, challenges you, to move beyond the old theology that seeks control over life by fixing blame, to adopt a theology of new creation, and to further God’s works whenever we encounter human misfortune, in ourselves, in those we love, or in strangers.

Second, we discover by the end of this morning’s gospel lesson that the story of the man born blind is no more about physical sight than the Nicodemus story was about biological birth or the story of the woman at the well about water in a bucket. The story concerns insight or vision. When the Pharisees begin to suspect Jesus is speaking about them, they become defensive and resist: “Surely we are not blind are we?” Listen again to Jesus’ response: “If you were blind” – that is physically blind – “you would have no sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains” (40-41). Lack of vision, when humbly acknowledged, can be healed. The difficulty lies with the person so convinced that they already possess vision, possess the truth, that they see in Jesus a threat, not a gift. Arrogant certainty rather than ignorance or disability is culpable.

This morning’s first lesson illustrates Jesus’ point beautifully (1 Samuel 16:1-13). Samuel, prophet of God, visits Jesse to discover among his many sons God’s choice for the next king of Israel. After all have been ritually purified, Samuel stands ready to see God’s revelation. Unfortunately, he already knows – or thinks he knows – what the future king should look like. When the very first son of Jesse comes out, presumably the eldest, Samuel has seen enough. “Surely,” he exclaims, “the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” Not so fast, God cautions Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, the Lord looks on the heart” (6-7). Eliab is not the chosen one. So a second son is paraded in front of Samuel, then another and another – seven sons in all – and still God has not seen, or Samuel has not seen, the chosen one. Are all your sons here, Samuel asks in desperation? Yes, Jesse says; well, no, actually – my youngest son is out tending the sheep – but we know he can’t be God’s chosen, he is too young, too insignificant. We don’t even need to consider him. It just can’t be. God would never choose him. Which really means, if we were God we would not choose him. Samuel demands that this last and least of Jesse’s sons be seen. Of course, the minute they fetch little David, God reveals to Samuel that this is indeed the one – and Samuel anoints David king. From this insignificant beginning, this unlikely person, God accomplishes God’s works. David becomes the greatest king Israel ever had. His poetic inspiration gave us today’s psalm “The Lord is my shepherd.” And, according to the flesh, ancestor David helps prepare the way for the Word made flesh, Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one.

Let us heed these warnings about being blinded by our own narrow expectations concerning how God works and through whom.

A third insight. Last week, Mother Melissa called our attention to the fact that Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well represents the longest conversation he has with any person in any of the four gospels. Today’s story of the man born blind possesses a unique feature of its own. Did you notice that although Jesus is present at the beginning of the story to give the man sight and reappears at the end to embrace him after he has been expelled from the synagogue, Jesus disappears from view for most of this very long story? In fact, this is Jesus’ longest absence from the spotlight in all of John’s gospel – the gospel which most dramatically focuses on the person of Jesus. Guess who stands in for Jesus, adopting his role, his demeanor, even his way of speaking? That’s right, the man born blind who now sees.

After Jesus disappears, the man born blind is first questioned by his neighbors as to whether he is the same one they used to see as a blind beggar. Then the Pharisees interrogate him, not once but twice, about his sight and about Jesus. Such winsome testimony the man gives! He speaks openly from his own experience even as he refuses to claim knowledge he lacks. The Pharisees, by contrast, pretend to know it all, behave defensively, and manage only to revile others. They demand: “Give glory to God. We know that this man” – Jesus – “is a sinner.” The man born blind: “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (24-25). The Pharisees persist: “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” And the man born blind begins to sound like the Johannine Jesus: “I have already told you, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to be his disciples?” (26-27) Now the Pharisees have had enough “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us? And they drove him out” (34).

Early Christians painted this man born blind on the walls of their hidden underground sanctuaries – as a model of baptismal transformation and new birth. And for 1600 years, at least, Christians have heard his story read and preached upon in the middle of Lent as part of the scrutiny of candidates for baptism. Let the man’s story remind us all that in our baptism we are empowered by God’s grace to become more than admirers of Jesus and more than seekers after him, as if he were distant from us. No, in baptism we put Jesus on; we clothe ourselves in Christ. Through baptism, we stand in for Christ; we are transformed into Jesus’ lightsome flesh offered for a world of death and darkness.

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Everything said so far this morning would have been just as true five or sixteen hundred and five years ago. I must close, we must close, acknowledging that here at St. Paul’s during this Lenten season we hear the story of the man born blind and consider the trajectory of our gospel lessons these three Sundays in a charged environment. Father Charles, our interim rector, preached his farewell Sunday homily on the Nicodemus story. Mother Melissa, our new rector, preached her inaugural Sunday homily on the woman at the well. Although Chuck very appropriately is not with us this morning, we would not be here with Melissa without his interim ministry. So I challenge you, as I challenge myself, not to forget Charles Ridge and not to fail to let him know of our ongoing love and gratitude. At the same time, you may have noticed that Melissa Skelton is incredibly comfortable taking the initiative to get acquainted with us. I challenge myself, as I challenge you, not to ignore or delay our ongoing work of welcoming Melissa to St. Paul’s.

I don’t know about you, but this Lent feels very different to me from any other I have experienced at St. Paul’s. I could not find adequate words to describe the difference – something like less heavy? less dark? more hope? more expectation? – until Melissa’s closing words of prayer at the liturgy marking Chuck’s last Sunday.

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light:…
let the whole world see and know
that things which were cast down are being raised up,
and things which had grown old are being made new,
and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

That says it. That names what is different about this Lent for me. Maybe for you, too?

If not, then you might be interested to know that we will hear a fourth lesson from the gospel of John next Sunday, the story of Jesus raising his dear friend Lazarus from the dead. I can hardly imagine what our re-birth as individuals and as a community in the baptismal waters of Easter will feel like after a Lent already so full of the promise of new life. We’ll see together.

Amen.