"None of Us Are Blind, Are We?"

Trinity Church, Reno, Nevada

Fourth Sunday in Lent (Year A)

John 9:1-41

Few of us will ever be literally blind. How then do we make sense of this Gospel and make it work for our spiritual development and hear the Good News? One way is to see the mud that Jesus rubs in the man’s eyes as our own dirt. How might the mud and dirt of our lives let us see? As we proceed, it will be helpful to recall the line, “remove the plank from your own eye before you attempt to remove the speck from another.”

In today’s Gospel Jesus says, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind”. For years I read this Gospel and saw blindness as the struggle or curse and sight as the gift or blessing. It is a bit murkier than this stark simplistic contrast between good and bad. I now see that blindness can also be a gift and sight, particularly self-righteous sight a curse. The disarming invitation of today’s Gospel is our free choice to be blind for a purpose.

To choose blindness we must be willing to be judged. Might we like Jesus be willing to say that we have come into the world for judgment so that others may see? Judgment in this sense is our willingness to put our faith on the line. It is so much easier to remain silent.

I remember several years ago being with a friend at dinner. He told a racist joke. I said nothing. In my head I was trying to figure out what to say, how to say it, if I had the right to say anything, could I say it charitably or would I just make matters worse. After the joke I probably did not hear a thing my friend said all night as I was trying to figure out what to say. I have often wondered how might I have acted differently. I have judged my silence as complicit in the act of telling the joke as I let it stand unchallenged.

Recently I was with Phil, another friend who is a shopkeeper. Phil was telling me a story of a man we will call Sam who had worked for him. In the first few days of his employment Sam would make very racist remarks about people as they passed the shop. A pregnant woman of color passed and Sam said one bullet is all it would take to get rid of those two.

Each day Sam mouthed off another shocking racist remark about people as they passed by Phil’s store. When Phil had heard enough, he said, “Get out of here, you are fired!” Phil told Sam that he was offended by his beliefs and that his customers deserved better. The two parted ways. I was so impressed with Phil’s actions. I immediately thought wow Phil is a much better man than I am. I was silent when a racist joke was told. Phil spoke up and he was willing to be judged.

A few minutes later, Phil said to me, “Say what do you think of all these crazy Muslims who want to build mosques in our country?” “Don’t you think we should make building mosques in America a criminal act?” The shift in Phil’s tone convinced me that he was pulling my leg. I thought he was mocking himself and other types of hypocrisy. I cautiously laughed. Phil was serious.

Somehow Phil could not see the connection between his stance against Muslims and Sam’s stance against people of color. My example this morning is racism, but who among us has not been inconsistent in some way when it comes to consistent living out of our values? Even more so who among us consistently lives in the way Jesus taught that embraces all humanity as beloved?

Phil’s words, “don’t you think, don’t you agree” brought me up short.
Again, I had a choice to be silent. This time I chose otherwise. I told Phil I disagreed with him. I said you know there is understandably alot of fear in this country after 9/11. I fully agree that we need to hold those who took those terrible actions accountable and bring them to justice. However, it is not all right to make all Muslims into terrorists.

I told Phil that as informed citizens we have the responsibility to learn about Islam. We need enough education on Islam to be able to discern who are the Muslims who follow the faith of Islam and those Muslims who interpret the Quran for their self-righteous political aims. Without specific knowledge of Islam it is far too easy to say there is no such thing as a good Muslim and refuse their right to worship in a mosque.

Phil was silent. He never remarked if he agreed or disagreed with me. He quickly changed the topic of our conversation. I self-righteously wanted to make the connection for Phil between Sam and himself, but that seem to be a bit harsher than was necessary. Phil like all of us is flawed with his blatant inconsistencies. He clearly was blind to his own inability to see in accordance with his own stated values.

Initially I was awestruck by Phil’s inconsistency. Later that evening I felt empathy for Phil. Days later I was more empathetic with myself. OK this time I was not silent, but I still felt like I had not said enough. Was my discretion polite or simply my lack of willingness to be judged by my faith? Should I have been more dramatic as Phil in his correction of Sam?

To speak up and charitably correct another is very messy work. I still do not feel thoroughly equipped to challenge others. As I continue to develop skill in the charitable correction of others, my encounter with Phil opened up an even deeper set of questions. Like the Pharisees in today’s Gospel I know where I see and even where and under what conditions I have the courage to speak. Like the Pharisees my blindness terrifies me. The space between terror over my blindness and the Pharisees self-righteous determination of sight is a very short distance. To work against our self-righteous sight it takes courage and enormous grace to ask, where we are inconsistent and act like hypocrites?

Hypocrite is a derogatory term. We don’t go around calling each other hypocrites. Hypocrite is not in our common parlance. The term may make you uncomfortable. So pick a different term. How about vulnerable or humble or fallible? My point is that we all have been inconsistent at one time or another. We are fallible. None of us live like Jesus yet!

The question is do we really want to know. I think we each face the same temptation that the Pharisees did when they said to Jesus, “surely we are not blind, are we?” If we do wish to know, then the Pharisees story may be an occasion to see our blindness in the various forms it takes. Racism is only one of an infinite number of ways we can be blind. It is our Pharisaic refusal to recognize our blindness that keeps us firmly planted in self-righteous patterns that harm right relation with other people.

Self-righteousness lets our energy be invested in being better than another rather than in our kinship with others. On Wednesday evening this past week Stefani and I heard Fr. Greg Boyle speak. Fr. Boyle is a Jesuit priest and founder of an anti-gang prevention center in Los Angeles. For 90 minutes he told one story after another of redemption.

Fr. Boyle said that by giving to one another we do not just fill needs, but we have an opportunity to see ourselves in another. It is seeing ourselves in the temptations and weaknesses of others that we develop empathy and kinship with each other. Fr. Boyle said that time and time again he has witnessed hardened gang enemies work together and become friends.

We like these gang members do this through our willingness to claim our blindness as the first step towards true sight. Do we have the courage to be led through our blindness through all the muck and mud of our lives so as to be led into a place of Christ-like sight? The Good News is if we say yes, then we may have the privilege to experience the freedom of true sight. True sight frees us up from all our self-righteous petty distractions. True sight turns our attention away from our outrage and condemnation of others and produces a space so we see our own blindness. True sight in this sense leads to non-violent communities where we cherish each other and share communion with God.