Year A
John 9:1-41
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Trust Walk of Faith
If you have had the opportunity to play the game called Trust Walk where another person ties a bandana or something around your eyes so you can’t see and then they lead you around the room, you know it can be hard to put your whole trust in that other person. I remember my daughter playing this in Sunday school many years ago. We all got a good laugh as the kids lead each other around the room. Kids were running into walls and each other. I played this several times as an adult preparing to work a Cursillo weekend. It was not easy to trust someone to lead you around so you are not running into walls, furniture or other people. While all five of our senses help us connect with our environment, we tend to relay more on our sight than on smell, taste, hearing, or touch. You have heard the phrase “Seeing is Believing!”
For the most part, we are a people who trust with our eyes before we accept input from our other senses and this is why having faith is so hard. All our readings today speak to seeing and believing. We hear of different kinds of blindness and different forms of sight. Last Sunday, all the texts spoke to our thirst and how water is a blessing when we seek to quench the thirst of our soul with the rock of living water that flows from Jesus who saves us. Blessings emerge today when we recognize that we all suffer from various kinds of blindness and once we are able to identify our blindness, we can take corrective action. As in the story of the prophet Samuel today who is so focused on outward appearances that he cannot see the heart of Israel’s future king.
Samuel had previously anointed Saul as Israel’s first king. Saul was a man of great physical strength and stature but he turned out to be a disappointment to Samuel. Instead of obeying God’s commands, he disobeyed and lied to Samuel. Samuel told Saul that the Lord had rejected him as king and while still grieving over Saul, the Lord tells Samuel what he is to do next. God had identified another whom God saw from the inside rather than from the outside appearance as possibly had been done with Saul. Samuel presents a parade of potentials all of whom God rejects because God was looking for a leader with heart.
Heart at that time was considered the center of one’s being: the center of emotion, intelligence, discernment, wisdom, commitment and character were all elements of heart. What we might call our soul today. God sees the heart and qualities of David’s life, and authorizes David’s right to rule Israel. The human and the divine qualities for an ideal king come together but even David will prove to be anything but an ideal king, he was human, and will receive disapproval from both God and humans. David’s life story echoes the misunderstandings and sufferings that we all share in life. But God is at work despite our misunderstandings and blindness to find new ways to further God’s mission. We see this in that King David’s blood line will eventually include Jesus.
The main point we learn from this story today in Samuel is that outward appearances are much less important than inner qualities of character. Yet, it is often hard for us to see beyond the physical appearance of a person and comprehend their inner self. One way we can overcome our “heart blindness,” is to get to know the other person by genuinely listening with our heart to another’s heart. When we do this, we are no longer blinded by how someone appears but can see who they are. It is very comforting to know that this is how God sees us with eyes of love, mercy, and care; especially during Lent, when we are focusing on those things that can separate us from God. God does not see our sinful nature but looks at the heart as God did that day with David and years later for the man born blind in John’s gospel.
In this story of the blind man who received his sight, we encounter several different kinds of blindness and different forms of sight. The story begins with the disciples demonstrating their blindness when they asked “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” Blindness was associated with sinfulness in their day and still is today to a certain extent. Jesus uses their misunderstanding to teach them about the nature of blindness or darkness in contrast to sight or light. Neither inherited blame or individual blame is the issue, but that the work of God might be seen in new vision, new life. Jesus then proclaimed, “I am the light of the world.”
After he said this, he makes a mud pie out of his spit and the clay of the earth and spreads it on the blind man’s eyes. Sends him off to a sacred pool to wash and the man returns, seeing, somewhat. It’s not complete yet. He is still somewhat blind to the identity of Jesus but in the final passage, in his and Jesus’ brief heart conversation, the formerly blind man understands and sees Jesus’ true identity and therefore had the form of sight called faith. The Pharisees demonstrate their blindness, in their expressed doubt about Jesus and the healing. They refused to see the truth about who Jesus is and what he came to do. They had already judged Jesus to be a sinner because he challenged Sabbath laws.
There is also the blindness of the family and neighbors of the man born blind who will not be involved in the new vision out of discomfort or out of fear. It is in the midst of this night time of blindness that the man born blind and everyone else’s blindness in this story is all of us. We are fortunate if we are honest and open enough to become aware of the ways that we are blind. This is what the work of Lent is about because only those who know they are blind have the possibility of opening their eyes and seeing. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, reminds the church that they were once darkness but now are light. Because they are no longer darkness, they are admonished to “live as children of light.”
Living as children of the light means doing what is “good and right and true” and what is pleasing to God. We are to resist the works of darkness and to expose the works of darkness. We can only do this by acknowledging our own sinfulness and opening ourselves to receive the healing light of God’s forgiveness. Living in the light of God’s forgiveness helps us to enjoy the abundant life God offers us of love, joy, and peace, “For the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.”
Hope and healing exists for the blindness of darkness when we follow the true light, “the light of the world” Jesus, then we can see clearly who we are and the spiritual path we are called to travel. Blessings emerge as we recognize that we suffer from various kinds of blindness and are able to identify our blindness and take corrective action. The light of the world is in our midst and those who put their whole trust in him to lead them around do not stumble in darkness any longer.