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"Hoping to See the Light"
March 2, 2008: Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year A
The Rev. Caroline K. Murphy, interim senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.UnitedChurchontheGreen.org

Scripture:

"May God take these words and make from them a holy word for us today."

John 9:1-41

Narrator: As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

Jesus: Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

Narrator: When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him:

Jesus: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam —

Narrator: — which means "Sent One." Then he went and washed and came back to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying,

Man: I am the man.

Narrator: But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?"

Man: 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.

Narrator: They said to him, "Where is he?"

Man: I do not know.

Narrator: They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight.

Man: He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.

Narrator: Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened."

Man: He is a prophet.

Narrator: The religious leaders did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the religious leaders, who had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner."

Man: I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.

Narrator: They said to him, "What did he do to you?"

Man: I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?

Narrator: Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from."

Man: Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 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.

Narrator: They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said:

Jesus: Do you believe in the Son of Man?

Man: And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.

Jesus: You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.

Man: Lord, I believe.

Narrator: And he worshiped him.

Jesus: I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.

Narrator: Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?"

Jesus: If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.

"Friends, God is still speaking to the world. May our hearts be open to listen and respond. Amen."

Sermon:

I still remember the bumper stickers from my high school years: "Have you seen the light?" they asked. It's hard to ignore (or forget) that direct a question, as anybody in advertising or politics surely knows. Long after more subtle and complex questions have been erased from our memories, the simple ones remain: "Where's the beef?" or "Got milk?" or "Have you seen the light?"

Of course that last question — "Have you seen the light?" — purports to have a far deeper meaning than questions about beef or milk. And perhaps the question sticks in my memory because I not only saw it on bumper stickers on the backs of Volkswagen Rabbits and Ford Pintos in the Highland High School parking lot but heard it from flesh-and-blood human beings whom I knew and liked.

Several members of our high school orchestra were involved in an organization for Christian teenagers called "Young Life." Our double-bass player, a nice guy named Paul, had a little stash of pamphlets that he'd give out to anybody who seemed interested, and if he signed your yearbook, you could be sure that he'd include a Bible verse with it. One of our violists talked up Young Life meetings to my cellist friend, Gayle, and me. I think Gayle even went a few times. And, if memory serves, I think she's the one who told me that our violist friend was really hoping and praying that, even though I came from what was essentially an agnostic household, I too would "see the light."

Maybe these good people — and they were good, kind people — detected in me traces of what another friend, many years later, would call the "religion gene." Perhaps my violist friend somehow sensed that I was a likelier prospect for at least becoming interested in questions about seeing the light than my upbringing might have led people to think. What clearly motivated her as well was a strong conviction that she, along with her "Young Life" companions, had seen the light, that they knew the right answer, and that the salvation of my eternal soul depended on my seeing and believing it, too.

All this was reinforced for me in a rather more difficult way a few years later, when I was sitting in a dormitory room one evening talking with one of the other American students studying at a university in Germany. Like my high school orchestra friends, she was a devout Christian, and she too had hopes for me. I was now in my early twenties, and my latent interest in Christianity had grown, so I was eager to talk about it, to learn more, to ask some questions. The conversation reached an unexpected impasse when my friend told me — ever so gently, but quite firmly — that my father, who had died the previous year, could, alas, not possibly be "saved" because he had not been a "believer." Aside from the fact that my grief over his premature death was still quite fresh at this point, I knew full well that my father, though not perfect, had been a kind, upright, and loving person — a person of generosity and integrity. My Christian friend's pronouncement about his eternal fate not only brought our conversation to an abrupt halt but came close to rendering me permanently allergic to anything having to do with Christianity or with its apparently cruel God.

"Are you saved?" "Have you seen the light?" I have come to appreciate that these questions come not from cruel impulses, but rather from deep conviction, and from a genuine desire to extend salvation to others. They also do have their basis in scripture, especially in the gospel according to John. Part of the inspiration for the Young Life question about seeing the light surely comes from the words we hear Jesus speak to his disciples, in the opening scene of the story of the man born blind: "I am the light of the world" (John 9:5).

So it is interesting to put this statement back into its context, into a story that's all about people seeing (or not seeing), knowing (or not knowing), and passing judgment on others (but not on themselves). It starts out as an almost academic conversation about the causes of a man's blindness. Surely, the disciples assume, this blindness must be the result of sin. Like Job's friends who try to explain away his suffering and like so many others before and since, they figure that someone — the man himself or his parents or somebody — must have done something wrong. Jesus responds with an emphatic "no" — this is not anyone's fault. The man's physical ailment has nothing at all to do with sin, and yet it is precisely through a situation like this that God's works can be revealed.

"I am the light of the world," he goes on to say — and then immediately follows this mystical, otherworldly kind of statement by turning to a thoroughly this-worldly act. Jesus picks up some dirt from the ground, spits into it, and mixes up a make-shift poultice to place on the man's eyes. "I am the light of the world," Jesus says — and then he makes it so with earth and saliva, mud and water.

It works, of course. When the man goes to wash, his eyes are opened and he is suddenly able to see for the first time in his life — but not everyone is happy about it. Neither his neighbors nor his parents react with the kind of joyful support you might expect, and some of the Pharisees are downright offended. They are utterly convinced that they know the rules of salvation, and one of the most important of those rules is that you are not supposed to engage in work — not even in acts of healing — on the Sabbath. Echoing the disciples, who had assumed that the man's blindness must be a result of sin, some of the Pharisees jump to the conclusion that the man who has healed the man's blindness on the wrong day of the week must be a sinner.

At this point, you almost want to ask that old game show question: "Will the real sinner please stand up?" And, of course, by the end of the story Jesus has squarely pointed the finger at some of the Pharisees — not for their lack of understanding per se, but because they are so convinced that they've got it all figured out; not for their lack of sight, but for their unawareness of their own blind spots.

You can probably guess where I am going with this. I am surely not alone in having been put off by the unintentionally hurtful remarks made by Christians who are convinced of the clarity and completeness of their own view. I suspect many of you who have found your way through the doors of this Meeting House have tales of your own you could tell. Many of us could probably tell tales, too, of the times when we have cringed at hearing loud voices proclaim their own understanding of Christianity as the only true understanding, or of times when we have struggled to explain to non-Christian friends or family members that there is such a thing as progressive Christianity.

It is indeed a comfort to hear Jesus pass judgment on those of the Pharisees who prided themselves on getting their religion right and yet became entrapped in rigidity and blindness — and this in the very same story in which we hear him proclaim that he is the light of the world.

But I would be making it a little too easy on myself — on us — if that were the only message I left us with this morning. The gospel stories are never simply about others — those Pharisees, say, who get their come-uppance — or even simply about others and Jesus, or others and God. They are always about us as well. When we look at a story told by or about Jesus, it is always worth getting inside several of the different characters' shoes, walking around in them, and seeing if there's anything about their way of being that seems familiar.

We've got a lot of shoes to choose from here: the shoes of the disciples who have so much to learn about suffering and sin, and about the transformative power of God . . . or of the baffled neighbors . . . or of the fearful parents who can't summon the courage to tell the simple but astonishing truth about what has happened to their son . . . or the shoes of the Pharisees who are so sure they know the right way to do things that they cannot see the light right in front of their eyes. I don't know about you, but if I search my inmost heart, I can find more of the weaknesses displayed by all these various groups of people than I would normally care to admit.

I hope there's also something of the man born blind in me, and in all of us who are on this life-long journey of faith: his openness to the healing that Jesus offers him, mud and all; his tenacity in sticking by the truth of his experience, even as he is challenged by those who are hostile to him; his willingness to let his understanding grow and change and deepen over time.

When Bert sent me the lyrics of the song* that he will sing for us in a few minutes — a song sung in the voice of the man born blind — one line in particular leapt out at me. "I'm only hoping to see the light." It strikes me as a wonderful response to that old question about seeing the light from my high school years. Because my experience tells me that I've seen glimpses of the light, but I know that others have seen that same light from differing angles, and I also know that God's vision is more expansive than mine or than any other human vision. So I'm hoping to see the light, and I'm trusting — in the words of our Congregational forebear John Robinson — that there is yet more truth and light to break forth from God's holy word. May it be so! Amen.

*MAN BORN BLIND (words & music by Bert Marshall)

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