Seeking: Honest Questions for Deeper Faith
Fair to say that some of us can be overly concerned about what people notice about us and what they think of us. For instance, we may spend a lot of time choosing what we’ll wear, convinced that most people will notice. We’re worried that we didn’t talk enough or talked too much at a social gathering or business meeting. And then there is the desire to be noticed on social media.
Tom Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell University, conducted a study with students now over 20 years ago (2000) but still relevant. He asked students to enter a classroom, filled with their peers, while wearing a Barry Manilow T-shirt. The students were embarrassed to be seen wearing the T-shirt. At the time, this was not a cool thing to do; still probably not a cool thing although I understand Barry Manilow was in Nashville and gave a great concert at Bridgestone Arena. After the Cornell students wore Barry Manilow shirts in class, the students estimated that 50% of their peers noticed the Manilow shirt and probably talked about it to others. But when questioned, less than 20% of their peers had even noticed.
To some degree, this is to be expected. We focus on ourselves and think other people do, too. Because we are so focused on our own behavior, it’s hard for us to assess how much or how little our behavior is noticed by others. Gilovich’s study has to do with the “spotlight effect.” The bottom line is: We’re not as interesting as we think and other people don’t notice us nearly as much as we think they do. This fact will either disappoint you or give you comfort.
The “spotlight effect” was both true and not true in today’s story from John 9:1-41 of the man born blind. True as nobody took much notice of him. The blind man was used to being overlooked. “Isn’t this the guy who begged?” “I think so.” “I’m not sure” other neighbors said. Though he was the one born blind, it often felt as though the rest of the world was inflicted with a vision impairment. I imagine that as he sat, begging, trying to scrape together enough to live each day, most people walked past him, eyes averted. He couldn’t see them, of course, but he could feel and hear their footsteps as they came closer and then retreated. “Maybe I am not just blind,” I can imagine he must have thought sometimes. “Maybe I am also invisible.”
That is, until Jesus came by one day. The scene calls to mind the words of the Song “Take Me to the Alley” a song recorded by jazz great Gregory Porter:
Well they build their houses in preparation for the king
And they line the sidewalks
With every sort of shiny thing
They will be surprised
When they hear him say
Take me to the alley
Take me to the afflicted ones
Take me to the lonely ones
That somehow lost their way
Let them hear me say
I am your friend
Come to my table
Rest here in my garden
You will have a pardon
The blind man hadn’t sought out a miracle. He had become used to this life of daily begging and living on scraps. He had become used to being overlooked. So it must have been uncomfortable when he heard a large group stopping in front of him. “Teacher, who sinned…this man or his parents…that he would be born blind like this?” The blind man had heard this before. He knew all the usual answers. That his parents had messed up and somehow he was the one to carry the brunt of the punishment. Or that even before he was born he had actually sinned somehow, meaning that when he was born he was already cursed. I imagine the man shrugging his shoulders at all of the conversation about him. But then he heard the teacher answer, “No one sinned. Neither he nor his parents.”
You recall what takes place next in the story (describe the healing: spitting; touching eyes; the command of Jesus to go was in the pool of Siloam - meaning sent).
In seven verses the gospel writer tells us that a man born blind is given sight. But after that, thirty three verses are devoted to the details of disagreement that swells after the healing. From every side, the man was bombarded with questions.
Let me take a moment and say something about that time and place. This story can be told and heard as anti-Jewish, but that would be inaccurate scholars would contend. This story is the product of intra-Jewish conflict about the meaning of Sabbath law and the significance of Jesus. However, while this story is not anti-Jewish polemic, it is calling attention to the blinders of the Pharisees - who function as the authority figures - and who cannot see and celebrate the miracle that is happening right before their eyes because they are so preoccupied with the observance of the Sabbath. Thomas Boomershine, calling upon Lou Martin's classic book, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, writes that In Jesus' day, the Pharisees did not have the kind of power that is portrayed in this story. They were a lay movement of people who were intent on being religious and observing the Law. They did not have political power in Jesus' day. But after the Jewish War when the governmental structure organized around the Temple and the chief priests disappeared, the Pharisees became a primary authority and source of power in the Jewish community. This story then reflects the post-70 situation in the time of John, probably in the late 80's or early 90's. It is told in a way that connects with the situation of the post-war Jewish community and the struggle between Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah and those who did not. (https://gotell.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Jn09_01-41_commentary.pdf)
Lisle Gwynn Garrity is the artist of this piece “Insight”, a painting based on this story of the healing of the blind man. You may have noticed her artist statement in the Lenten devotional booklet. She writes:
“In seven verses, the gospel writer tells us that a man born blind is given sight. But after that, the narrator devotes thirty-three verses to the details of disagreement that swell after the healing takes place. ..
…In this image, hands expressing denial and exclusion press in on the man. In the background, I wrote a barrage of questions I imagine emerging from the crowd: Why did God heal you? What did you do to cause this? Who sinned? Alongside those questions, I wove in contemporary statements I’ve heard spoken in situations when we think a tidy rationale will comfort us: Everything happens for a reason. (Who sinned?)...
…I used to find this second part of the story tedious and exhausting. In a world with constant conflict, I’m tired of listening to endless bickering.
(Can she get an Amen?)
However, this second half of the story makes me realize that this encounter is hardly about physical healing or literal blindness. It’s about how harmful theology can prevent us from seeing people—truly seeing them. It’s about how our narrow imagination can harden into accusation and blame. It’s about how we can be threatened by new ideas or shifts in someone’s identity. It’s about how our doctrine can lead to exile. Ultimately, it’s a story about our resistance to change. Can this be a cautionary tale for us? (Lisle Gwynn Garrity about her painting “Insight” used with permission by @sanctifedart LLL.)
In this story of healing, our understanding of a disability is expanded. It’s not a disability as a result of moral failure. Jesus makes that clear. And the man born blind was not the only one with a disability. And his disability was not just a loss of being “normal” such as through physical blindness as was the man’s condition. Those in the crowd and the Pharisees had a disability: the blindness of certainty. We want to believe, but only on our terms.
Bruce Reyes-Chow, in this week’s devotional guide from @sanctifiedart that we are using during this Lent writes:
“We turn genuine struggles of human life into solvable formulas of cause and effect, which then gets warped into the idea that if something bad is happening to us it is because God has determined that we deserve it. And the need for our security does not stop there. Rather than give God credit for the healing and new life - because it would lessen the perception of power and authority of the religious leaders - the rational cause-and-effect argument from the beginning is ignored and replaced with a position of, “We know what we know and nothing you do or say will change our minds.” Again, it is not a difficult leap for today’s application:
“We know people are poor because…”
“We know people are incarcerated because…”
We know people are sick because …
(We know a child who reads this book might be made uncomfortable by stories from our history.
“We know…We know…We know…” (from @sanctifiedart’s Lenten Devotional Booklet)
This kind of blind certainty is very apparent all around us and especially in Tennessee.
Remember how I started out with the experiment of the “spotlight effect” and the reality is that people notice you less than you think and that truth brings either great discomfort or great peace. I cannot say with certainty but I suspect most people who are librarians find great comfort in not being noticed. People are finding libraries and librarians as a popular place to shine the spotlight (See these articles: Baptist News Global; Tennessean). . But it seems a real effort is underway to bring them into the spotlight through the Pharisaic action of some who profess to be Christians. It is a cautionary tale what has been going on in the library in Hendersonville and is a textbook case of how some religious leaders created an incident, used media to hype they faux outrage and grievance that they created, then used real threats to the jobs and lives - bomb threats- as a means of bringing even more attention to their project to shame and denigrate people while lifting up how great God and how great America is. God is good and I am proud to be an American but what makes us great is when we seek understanding and common ground without denigrating and objectifying certain people.
I want to let all of those 33 verses drift into the background and focus on those seven verses focused upon Jesus’ encounter with the man born blind, but my concern amid all of that intentional dust up being created is what there are people who are in need of what Jesus - and the church in our faithful response- has to offer, but in light of what they see say: “If that is what Christianity is, thanks, but no thanks! I don’t need that judgmentalism and shaming.” This morning having named our disability of blind certainty, I want to set aside all of those 33 verses. I don’t want to lose sight of what takes place in those seven verses for fear of losing the blind man. Losing the truth that Jesus is in the alleyways.
Surrounded by remnants of narrow vision, the man has new insight. He looks beyond the words, beyond the crowd, beyond the accusations driving him out of town. No one asked the man how he was feeling. No one asked the man what he would do now.
The man said the only true thing he knew anymore. “Look. All I know is this. I was blind. And now I can see.”
Through this miraculous act, Jesus invited the man to take on the identity of one who had experienced divine restoration. The healing of the man’s physical blindness was an outward sign of a holistic transformation which the man experienced that day. No longer was this man required to live into the identity imposed upon him by a community who had no desire but to judge and condemn.
That is good news!
And, finally, I don’t want us to lose the truth that Jesus turns the table on those who have controlled this man’s narrative about who is sinful and who is not, who is worthy of life and who is not. Jesus stands up for the life of the weak, the sick, and the vulnerable. Not only with words and expressions of sympathy, but with action. He healed the sick, he gave love and companionship to the despised and rejected sinners. In our own lives, and as a congregation , we can help counter the discrimination by standing up alongside those who have disabilities and those who are being marginalized. Listening to them. Honoring them and their stories. Celebrating their gifts as beloved ones of God. There must always be space for grace and reconciliation, as Jesus so often shows us during his earthly ministry.