Mar 22, 2020               Faith and Blindness                                                     

Our story from John this morning, continues his theme of using different ways to describe the difference between life in the Spirit and life lived according to the flesh. In Chapter three of John, we heard the story of Nicodemus being told that he had to be born of anew, not in the flesh but in the Spirit. In Chapter 5 we heard the story of Jesus speaking about the difference between the living water that satisfies thirst, versus the water of the well that people with thirst for again. This morning we hear the story of the man who was born blind from birth regaining his sight, and the Pharisees who have sight being blind.

Actually, it’s a pretty interesting story, because the Pharisees are bound and determined to deny that Jesus could be from God. First of all Jesus is a sinner because he heals on the Sabbath, second of all they deny the man was born blind in the first place, then they threaten to put the man’s parents out of the local synagogue if they say that Jesus healed him, and finally they threaten and expel the man from the synagogue for testifying to Jesus as the Messiah.

At the same time, we see the man who was born blind come to the realization that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus has healed him of his blindness and questions how a sinner could make this happen. He questions the Pharisees about why they don’t believe in Jesus. He asks them if they want to become disciples of Jesus. And finally, he comes to Jesus and receives Jesus words that he is the Messiah and becomes his disciple. This is the moment of the man’s salvation, the moment he is born from above, when he drinks from the living water that is Jesus Christ, and spiritually regains his sight.

At our local text study, one of my colleagues told me about Richard Rohr’s Three Boxes. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest who works at the Center for Action and Contemplation. Now this is just one of the ways I have heard this described since Seminary, but Richard Rohr states it quite simply. The first box is the box of order, where our view of reality fits what we experience. The second box is the box of disorder, where our view of reality does not fit our experience. The third box is the box of reordering, where we change our view of reality to coincide with the experiences that do not fit.

Actually the last two weeks has been kind of an example of how this three box theory works. For most Americans, including myself, we didn’t believe that the corona virus was much more than just another flu and didn’t understand what kind of danger it posed. This was box 1 – maintaining our order. The second box was the growing numbers in the US, the effects of the virus going unchecked in Italy, and the number of deaths world wide. This was box number two – the disorder of experience that contradicted our order. Finally, we investigated, learned more, listened to those on the front lines, and reordered our thinking in a way that has led us to change our behavior in order to deal with this threat to us. This is box number 3 – reordering our view of reality to fit the experience we were having.

Now in the case of the man born blind, we see this order, disorder and reorder take place quite plainly, but in the case of the Pharisees, we see them clinging to their order and refusing to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. This refusal results in false statements, threats against others, division, anger, confusion, and ultimately Jesus death. As John said previously in his gospel, only those born from above, can enter the kingdom of heaven, and the Pharisees are still living according to the flesh, or in this case, they are blind.

A few weeks ago, when we started our Lenten study of the ten commandments, I noted that the first commandment was that we shall have no other gods before God. I also noted that the God who spoke these words was a very specific God. A God who freed the Israelites from the household (excesses) of Egypt, and freed the Israelites from slavery. We then had a discussion of what some of those other gods were. Some the gods on that list included, money, power, politics, nationalism, and a list of pleasures that can be gods to us. Many people today worship these gods, and this worship of other gods leads to disorder and chaos in human life. In the case of the Pharisees, they worship the gods of their own personal morality, and the gods of their own religious traditions. They claim to worship the God of Israel, but what they really worship is themselves, their power, their interpretations of God’s law. They know that acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God, would end this, and thus their guilt and blindness remain.

When we do this today, we create human division, suffering, sin and death in the lives of others. When we worship money, there is poverty. When we worship power there is abuse. When we worship politics there is division. When we worship our nation there are persecutions of foreigners. When we worship a variety of pleasures, there is apathy towards the suffering of others.
But the good news is, that through faith in Jesus as the Messiah, our Lord and Savior, the Son of God, we can reorder the chaos of our lives, and realize the kingdom of God in our lives, our nation, and our world. All we need to do is be born from above, drink the living water, see with the eyes of faith. Believe that as disciples of Jesus Christ we can reorder our reality, and our lives, so that we know God’s presence and salvation among us. And that is the Good News of Jesus Christ! Amen.