Seeing Blindness

March 15, 2026

John 9; Ephesians 5:8-14

            Our Ephesians passage this morning works as a quick theological commentary on our John story.  Listen as God continues speaking to you.

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            I was thinking about these metaphorical words a lot this week… light and dark… blind and seeing.  And as I sat down to put together this sermon today a thought popped into my head about blindness.  Not a medical thought… but a metaphorical thought.  I wondered how aware are the metaphorical blind of the metaphorical light and dark?  I mean… if the metaphorical blind are not aware… that’s one thing… but if they are aware… if the blind today are choosing to remain the darkness and pass it off as blindness… then that’s something else entirely.

            I think it’s best to read this chapter in John as if it were a parable that uses blindness to give us the sight to see the light and the dark.

            Everything starts with the disciples who ask a question very much of their time… “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  This question tries to get at the cause of the man’s blindness.  For the disciples in the story, blindness is caused by sin.  That’s the understanding for the day… one that we now readily dismiss because of our medical knowledge… but… but… as we work our way through this passage… we see lots of blindness being caused by sin… right… just not in the physical way of this one man before us. 

Still… cause is the first concern of the disciples.  Who caused this man’s physical blindness?  His parents and their sin?  Or the sin he himself carries?  What is the cause?

            Today, we still want to know the cause of things.  We spend so much of our time explaining the cause of things.  We all have our theories about this or that… some of us so certain of our answers… others still open to possibilities.  Not many others… but some others.  We ping back and forth… this seems reasonable… that’s a bit conspiratorial, but still sounds reasonable… that’s just crazy talk, but sometimes the crazy talk sounds reasonable too.  The disciples’ question is one we might ask if we were walking behind Jesus and he encountered a blind man along the way.  Jesus, what is the cause of this blindness?  What is the reason for this suffering in the world?  Is it caused primarily by others, who in their actions or inactions are the root cause of the suffering of innocents?  Or is it that innocence is highly overrated and our suffering is a result of the consequences of our own actions?  Seems like the reasonable question we ask about so many things.  O Lord tell us the answer so we can either accept it or question it and doubt you too… fill your post with miles of inane comments that we think are clever but do more to reveal our own spiritual ignorance than anything.

            Now… I will admit… even after that last comment… a part of me wants to let the disciples off the hook… a part of me doesn’t want to see their blindness.  There’s a part of me that wants to go back and chalk this one up to the misunderstanding of blindness during the first century.  Those first century people… they didn’t understand things as well as we do today with all our advanced learning and superior knowledge… especially about the causes of physical blindness.  All they had were their superstitious understandings of many things.  That blindness or any other suffering was only a result of sin… that was the way they understood how the world worked.  That was the prevailing knowledge of the day.  Can I blame the disciples for being blind in that way?  No… not really.  But… the more I’ve thought about it, the more I can’t say that being first century people is the cause of their blindness.  For me, the disciples’ blindness… our blindness… is revealed in what their response would be to the expected answer.  If Jesus had given them a standard first century answer… either one would do… either answer would have satisfied them… whether it was the parents’ sin… or his own sin… what comes next?  Once we’ve established whose sin is the cause… once we’ve labeled it a sin… what comes next?  Had Jesus given the disciples an expected answer… this reading would have only been four verses long.  Once the disciples got their answer… they would have nodded their heads in understanding and kept on walking… leaving the blind man behind them.  What is another blind man to them?  Another man lost to sin.  Establishing the cause of the sin… establishing the cause of the sin allows the disciples themselves to stay blind.  Establishing the cause of the sin means they don’t have to see the light or be challenged by what the light reveals.  That hasn’t really changed has it?  Once I know… or believe I know… who or what is the cause… is it then really my problem?  Can I undo what has been done?  Can I change the sinful conditions that caused that man’s blindness?  Judgment has been rendered and I don’t need to see anymore.

            In the gospel stories, Jesus encounters a wide range of people with a multiplicity of sins.  What happens during his encounters with those people?  Through the church, the body of Christ encounters a wide range of people with a multiplicity of sins.  What happens through our encounters with those people?  Too often they remain to us “those people” whose sin we have labeled and attached through the expected answer to our question over whose fault this is.  This is an interesting form of blindness because instead of just not being able to see… this form of blindness also makes the things we don’t want to see… invisible.

In our story, Jesus shines a bright light into the eyes of his disciples to reveal their blindness.  He sidesteps the question of sinful cause and heals the man of his blindness.  Jesus turns the formerly blind man into a ray of light to reveal the blindness that… even though we may not perceive it… is truly all around.

Some of the man’s neighbors can see the light immediately.  They can immediately recognize a man who was blind but now can see.  They can see him clearly.  How can you not?  The truth of it is right there before your eyes.  But other neighbors… so sure that a blind man cannot see… do not gain that sight.  No no no.  There must be some other explanation.  This is not the man… it’s someone like him… but it is not him.  It’s impossible that this is the same man.  Even with the formerly blind man standing there in front of them… telling them it is truly he… no no no… that’s impossible.  I won’t believe it.  I know better than that.  Is there any better phrase at revealing one’s own metaphorical blindness than “I know better than that.”  These neighbors are afflicted with the blindness that comes from not believing anything but that which you already know to be true.  A very popular form of blindness today.  This is the way it always is… it’s the way it always has been… and you can’t convince me otherwise.  Don’t bother trying to confuse me with the facts of my own eyes seeing what is in front of me.  You are clearly not him.  I know him and you are not him because the blind cannot see.  That is an absolute and unchanging truth. 

This is the blindness plaguing us today.   Everyone has their own set of truths… their own facts… their own sources of information that keeps them comfortably blind.  We are blind to anything else that we might encounter if it flies in the face of that self-contained, all-encompassing… if fragile… “truth”… yes, I am using air quotes.  Even if it is staring us in the face saying, “Look at me.  I’m right here.”  No no no.  You don’t support my truth.  My facts cannot be contradicted.  I will only see what I want to see.  Facts is facts.  Let’s ask the real question… whose fault is this?!?  Let’s go back to that safe darkness! 

Let’s not.

Which brings us to the Pharisees.  Poor blind Pharisees.  The blind neighbors bring the man to the blind Pharisees to confirm their blind truth… a formerly blind man cannot see.  The formerly blind man stands before the Pharisees… but they cannot see him, his truth, or the light of Christ that is shining so brightly through him because they are too busy looking off to the left and the right to find their blind distraction.  Sabbath… oh, this happened on the Sabbath you say?  Does that man not have any respect for the Sabbath?  No disrespecting Sabbath sinner can do anything because to disrespect the Sabbath is a sign that this man has no connection to God so therefore, he cannot be a prophet and you most likely were never blind to begin with.  You’re probably a disrespecting Sabbath breaker too… aren’t you? 

For the blind Pharisees, the truth has nothing to do with what is right there before them… what they themselves can witness if they would only look.  Nothing good can come from this man whom we are against.  That blindness sounds very familiar to us today.  As soon as you are against someone… they can do no good… they can do no right… they can only do what is wrong because you are against them and don’t like them… or something they’ve done or something they represent to you.  You don’t trust them… but as soon as someone you trust does the same thing… well, then it’s ok and suddenly your eyes are open to the same truth that was in front of you before.  The truth is the same… the blindness is conditional.

So much blindness keeping us safely in the dark.  How will we ever see the light that shines?

I guess that only leaves the formerly blind man’s parents in this parable.  They are blind out of fear… plain and simple.  They are blind because they fear the consequences of what would happen if they spoke the truth that was before them… if they dared to question the darkness.  Their fear causes them to shrink back from the light because the light’s exposure will cost them.  They know their son was blind and now he can see.  It is something they should be shouting about from the highest mountain tops.  But to say this… if they were to challenge the blindness of others around them… they would be put out of the synagogue.  They would have something taken away from them if they were to acknowledge the truth.  Friends may turn against them if they dared to acknowledge the truth that is clearly standing before them.  Neighbors… long-time neighbors may turn their backs if they were to acknowledge the truth about their son.  Fear.  Fear makes these parents not only deny the truth and the light that is shining… fear makes them deny their son.  Their sinful blindness is not in their eyes.  Their blindness comes out of their heart.  Maybe… maybe these blind parents are to be pitied most of all.

I started this morning by saying our Ephesians passage offers us a quick theological commentary on this chapter of John.  So, it’s probably best we end today with those words again.

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Amen.