THE UNSPOKEN WORD, March 22, 2020, Fourth Sunday of Lent - John 9: 1-41
Please read the story in Saint John’s Gospel before reading my homily. As you read, pay close attention to two things. The first is the pattern of the conversation between the formerly blind man and the Pharisees; the second is to the description of the Pharisees in Christ’s last dialogue. Also ask yourself what great hymn was inspired by this Gospel story and how did the hymn misuse the story?
I’m sure you got the hymn correct. It’s obviously the towering Protestant standard, now also a staple of Catholic worship, “Amazing Grace.” “Amazing Grace” has an amazing origin.
Written in 1772 by the English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newton. Growing up without any religious conviction, Newton became involved in the slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel off the coast of County Donegal, so severely that he lashed himself to the mast and called out to God for mercy. This conversion moment marked the beginning of a more gradual his spiritual journey. Although he continued slave trading until 1755, when he ended his seafaring, He began studying Christian theology. Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, he began to write hymns with poet William Cowper. "Amazing Grace" was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day, 1773. It has become one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world, performed an estimated 10 million times annually, even becoming a popular hit by artists such as Judy Collins and Elvis.
In today’s Gospel story, the formerly blind man’s final, frustrated outburst during his ongoing interrogation by the Pharisees is the tag line for the hymn, “I was blind, but now I see!!” Newton - and after him, thousands of evangelical preachers and revivalist ministers - have used that phrase to stir up repentance and conversion. But the issue is not that God saved “a wretch like me.” Saint John’s purpose is more subtle.
Last week, we saw two patterns emerge in the story of Jesus at the well in the Samaritan town of Sichar. One was the shifting religious opinions and convictions of all the major players - the woman, the townsfolk, the disciples, Jews as a group, Samaritans as a group, and Jesus. The second was Jesus’ own statements. They are echoes of various challenges to the preaching of the Gospel and Jesus’ response to the Church struggling with those challenges. Saint John artfully weaves contemporary concerns into a story he received from the most ancient traditions. We can take from the ordered response of Jesus, not only the Church’s ongoing story of mission, but also the story of our own personal journeys of faith.
In today’s Gospel, the opening line and the closing paragraph tell us a lot. Saint John says, “As he was going on His way.” Our minds should be asking, “Wait, what journey? Where’s He going?” He’s going to Jerusalem; he’s going to His death. At the end of the story, Jesus goes out of his way to insult “those Pharisees who were with Him.” That also should have set off alarm bells for us. We’ll take the second one first.
We are used to seeing, pardon the pun, Pharisees as the black hats in the Gospel story. And in fact, throughout this story of Jesus and the cured blind man, they ARE the enemy. They try to intimidate the poor guy and his parents and have nothing good to say about Jesus. So how come, at the end of the story, some of them are “with Jesus”? Like many of the stories in Saint John’s Gospel, this one is meant to mirror the situation of the Church at the turn of the First into the Second Centuries. The Gospel writer uses well-known stories to understand contemporary challenges.
Saint Mark’s Gospel was written during the life-altering calamity of the Roman siege of Jerusalem. It ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and the magnificent temple of Solomon. Even though Christians were often persecuted and even executed by Jewish authorities during the years after the Resurrection, ironically they were not excluded from temple worship. Since the Court of the Gentiles was open even to pagans and idolaters, it would have been hard to keep Christians out. Many of the earliest followers of Risen Lord considered themselves simply Jews who had found the Messiah.
Remember, in the story, how John tells us that those who believed Jesus to be the Messiah were banished from the temple sacrifices? That never happened while Jesus was alive. It happened many years afterward, to people contemporary to the Gospel writer John. After the destruction of the Temple, everyone’s faith was shaken - Jew and Christian alike. Most Christians in the year 70 either were Jewish Christians or had ties to Judaism. Converts from paganism were beginning to outnumber those of Jewish heritage. Bereft of their Temple and the ability to offer sacrifice in the Presence of Yahweh God, the leaders of the Jewish religion finally regrouped at a town called Jamnia and made obedience to Torah the hallmark of their faith and sole litmus test of orthodoxy. The Christians now were officially excommunicated.
So, in John’s story we have two sets of Pharisees - those who despise Jesus, and those who follow him. That was the first century reality: increasing hostility from the Jewish hierarchy; and tension between Jewish Christens and those who were of Gentile origin.
In Mark’s Gospel, the blind man has a name - Bartimaeus, which means “Son of fear.” It might better be rendered, “Fearful Son.” The Christians of the year 70 were terrified for their lives as Jerusalem fell to Rome, shortly after both Peter and Paul had been executed as enemies of the state. Blind with fear, they needed to be encouraged to proclaim Christ boldly, even at the cost of their lives.
The situation of John’s people is similar in some ways, very different in others, so John leaves the blind man nameless. By the year 100, persecution was an on-again / off-again reality, depending on who was Caesar. Ironically, the more efficient the Emperor, the more endangered were Christians. But there also was dissension and division within the Church. The age-old Jewish heritage question still festered; combined with the beginnings of heretical thought. Many Christians were, so to speak, “blinded” - by prejudice, by cowardice, by wrongheaded notions of Who Jesus really was.
Recall that Saint John begins his Gospel with a hymn to Jesus as the Pre-existing “Word” of the Father. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus frequently identifies Himself - as he does in today’s reading - by beginning with the words, “I am ...” “I AM” was how God identified Himself to Moses at the burning bush.
Notice the pattern of the Pharisees’ hostility. At first - whether genuinely or hypocritically - they engage in discussion with the once-blind man: “Who did this? How did he do it? Who do you think he is?” But when they interrogate his parents, they are more hostile. The parents equivocate out of fear of being expelled from Temple worship. Finally, the Pharisees turn on the poor guy, telling him that Jesus is a sinner and so is he! This fits the historical pattern of the reaction of the Jewish hierarchy to the growing cult of the Risen Jesus among their flock.
Now notice the growth that takes place in the blind man’s “seeing.” He first tells the Pharisees that “the MAN called Jesus” cured him. Then, in his estimation, Jesus becomes “a prophet.” In Luke’s Gospel, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, had described Jesus as “a prophet mighty in word and deed before God and all the people”? That was Jesus’ first reputation, while he was on earth, and for a number of years of the earliest Christian preaching. Slowly Jesus’ true identity as both fully human and truly divine came to be understood clearly.
The argument the blind man uses that Jesus must be “from God” because only the righteous can perform miracles typifies the early “proofs” of Jesus’ divine connection. But, in the story, it takes a direct meeting between the blind man and Jesus for this new disciple to understand that He is “the Son of Man.” This title refers to the mysterious personage who stands before the “Ancient of Days” in the Book of the Prophet Daniel. It is colorful language to try to encapsulate a difficult concept, a description early Christens chose to explain who Jesus was. Jesus finally asks the blind man if he “believes in the Son of Man.” When the blind man shows his openness to belief, he responds, “Who is He that I might believe in him?” Then Jesus answers with the divine epithet, “I AM He.”
It’s the same pattern we saw last week with the Samaritan woman. After she says into that a Messiah is expected, Jesus says, “I AM He, the one speaking to you.”
This is a graphic depiction of how the understanding of Christ’s true reality - two complete natures, one human, one divine - grew over the 70 years from the Resurrection.
The story follows the classic pattern of drama. There is a climax. In a fury of frustration and a fervor of joy and devotion, the blind man silences the vengeful Pharisees with the terse declaration, “I was blind, but now I see!” The aftermath is called a denouement. It is Jesus’ snippy retort to the “Pharisees who were with Him”: “If you were blind, there would be no sin in that; but ‘We see!’ you say, and your sin remains.” Why is Jesus seemingly arbitrarily harsh? This is John the Gospel writer’s sentence pronounced on those Christians of Jewish origin who refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Gentile claims to faith and to Christians who quibble over Christ’s divine origins. They “see” who Jesus is. But they are blind to the implications of belief for community, unity and mission. So they are still in sin.
The story also images the journey of belief. Remember that Jesus was “just passing through.” He picked up a blind man. He healed him but sent him to bathe so that he could see. The man’s vision kept improving. First Jesus was “the man,” then “the prophet,” then “from God, and finally “Son of Man.” This was the journey of each Christian, and all Christians, in the earliest days of Christianity. It remains ours today. The gift of salvation won for us by the single sacrificial act of Jesus becomes ours through the “bath” of Baptism; but it is given to us so that we may grow through a lifetime of believing and living as Christ has called us to live.
Right now, every person’s journey is very difficult, fraught with danger and filled with uncertainty. The “Son of Man” invites our trust and hope. “Who is He,” we say in anguish, “that we may believe in Him?!” Listen to the blind man; his answer came not from his head but from his heart: “I was blind; but now I see.”