Who Says You Can Teach Us?
John 9-1-41
by Jim Westmoreland
A few years ago, Ann Landers told a story about an unusual incident. Mrs. X was just about to step into the shower when the doorbell rang. She hollered, "Who is it?" He shouted back, "It's the blind man." She figured it was safe, so she opened the door. He looked at her in shock and asked, "Where do you want me to hang these blinds, lady?"(1)
Our text this morning is not about blinds, but it is about people who are blind. Not being able to see is not always about physical sight. Sometimes we pre-judge other people or we refuse to see the good in something that may inconvenience us.
Susan Wills runs the Austin Children's Shelter in Austin, TX. It is in a residential area on Enfield St. They provide a safe place for children in transition from abusive homes to foster homes. Larry Bethune, pastor of a church in Austin writes of a lunch he had at the shelter. "What a beautiful place, and the most beautiful part is the compassion and love which her staff exudes. These are not easy children to care for. They act out and speak up and some of them have known only violence as a means of relating to other people. But in the shelter they are surrounded by workers who speak gently and express care, adults they can trust, and for many children it is the first exposure to a better way of being in the world. The shelter owns two adjacent homes, and they would like to expand to a third, but funds are short."
"Susan, the director, said when they bought the original home, the elderly woman living next door opposed their operation. We always have this problem with shelters for children or the mentally ill or the homeless: everybody wants them, but nobody wants them next door. Property values might go down. The place might be noisy. There might be vandalism or theft. Susan tried to reach out to the woman, allay her fears, but she was cold and unyielding. The woman was infirm, and she would spend hours scowling down from her second story window at the children and workers playing in the back yard next door. One day after about a year, there was a knock on the door at the shelter: a plate of cookies from their neighbor! The cookies kept coming, and the plates were returned with thank you drawings from the children. But the woman's health was failing, and before long she passed away. In her will she offered the Austin Children's Shelter first right of refusal in purchasing her home at half the appraised value! So now, the shelter has two homes and has doubled its capacity."(2)
What led to such a dramatic conversion of a closed mind? The woman saw with her own eyes what was happening for these kids. She watched the caring attention and patient compassion of the workers. She observed the changes which came over the children even in their short stay at the shelter. Suddenly property values seemed a small concern compared to the value of these children. The sounds of children playing were more like music than noise. And there was no vandalism or theft. She changed her mind, she opened her heart, because she saw with her own eyes the goodness of God.(3)
"I once was blind, but now I see." The man in our gospel story today had been born blind. Imagine, never seeing a sunrise, the face of a child, the colors of the rainbow. One meeting with Jesus was all it took to open his eyes after a lifetime of blindness. You would think his family and friends, his community of faith would blow up balloons, bake a cake, open the champagne, throw a party to celebrate such good news. But no! Rather than solving all his problems, being healed creates new problems. His parents distance themselves. His friends don't know how to relate to him as a person who no longer has to depend on them. And the leaders of his own congregation interrogate, castigate, and eventually reject him because he will not renounce Jesus. Where is their compassion?
Ironic, isn't it? Turns out this is less a story about a blind man having his eyes opened than a lesson about how people with open eyes can be so blind, so resistant to letting God lead them or teach them through the experience of this man. It was a mystery to the believers of the first century, and it is still a mystery to this day. How could the very people who expected God's Messiah not recognize him when he was right there among them? How is it that deeply religious people who believe in God's forgiveness and love for themselves find it uncomfortable and "not a priority" to share that same life-changing good news with other people?
Most of us remember hearing about Helen Keller, who was blind. She writes in her autobiography, "We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten-a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away."
"I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken in anger that morning. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow."
"I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them-words that were to make the world blossom for me, 'like Aaron's rod, with flowers.' It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of the eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come."(4)
When Jesus healed the blind mind, God was writing in his hand and in his heart a message of love and hope. At the same time He was trying to write that same message into the hearts and hands of the religious leaders who were so intent on criticizing what was happening. For some, though they knew a great deal about God and about religion, they had simply never experienced who God is. For others, perhaps, their experience of God was not fresh and current. It was a memory so far in the past that it had no longer had any influence over their lives.
Fred Craddock tells a story about an undergraduate who was complaining about the state of her college's Department of Religion. She said there were four professors in the department who taught a variety of courses in everything from Hindu beliefs to Christian history.
"They know a great deal about a great many things in religion," she said. "But none of them in the department are practitioners of any particular faith. I find that strange. They know everything about God except God!"(5)
When the man born blind told the Pharisees, the religious establishment who kept badgering the man because his testimony went against their beliefs and preconceptions, they responded by saying, "You're nothing but a sinner, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.
"Who says you can teach us?" is a put-down. Being a church member for many years, or having been a serious student of the Bible, does not mean we can't learn from those who may be newer Christians. In fact we need and benefit from the enthusiasm of new Christians and church members whose current experience with God is fresh. Their experience of God is leading to changes in the way they live and the things they value. Could it be that God gives them to us, like He gave the man born blind to the Pharisees, to teach us?
This is always an important story for the church. Because every time we hear it, we have to decide on which side of the story we are going to live. Every experience of growth and change in our lives is like being healed of blindness. It is the lifting of scales that keep our spiritual eyes from seeing God's truth. As we hear this story we can go away unchanged and unwilling to be open to the new things that God has to teach us. Or, we can hear this story and be willing to join with the man born blind in sharing with others our own story of growth and change, as one born spiritually blind but being changed by the healing love of Christ.
Century Christian Church, March 6, 2005 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
1. Ann Landers, The Washington Post, October 13, 1998.
2. Dr. Larry Bethune, "The Eye of the Beholder," a sermon preached at University Baptist Church, Austin, TX, March 14, 1999.
3. Ibid.
4. Helen Keller, The Story Of My Life, found at http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/keller/life/part-I.html.
5. Fred B. Craddock, The Cherry Log Sermons, Louisville: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2001, p. 55.