March 2, 2008 – Fourth Sunday in Lent
John 9:1-41
Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus. Amen.
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” It always seems to come down to that irresistible question, doesn’t it: Whose fault is it?
Several years ago when my son Andy was first learning how to play lacrosse I bought him a goal so that he could practice shots-on-goal in the backyard. We set it up one sunny Saturday afternoon, and started our practice. I’d toss the lacrosse ball to Andy, he’d catch it in the net at the end of the stick, then whip it into the goal. Simple.
And then after a while he said, “OK, Dad, you try it.” I thought I’d show him how it’s done; took the stick, caught the ball as Andy tossed it to me, whirled around and launched it like a rocket toward the goal. It was a hard, bee-line shot, headed straight for the heart of the net. The only thing standing between me and that goal was Susan’s bird feeder. Which she had hung from the branch of a tree and filled that morning.
As I recall that shot, I can almost replay it slow motion. The ball left the net at the end of the stick and headed straight and true, right for the bird feeder. Then it hit that feeder absolutely dead-center, and the feeder exploded! It was like a giant exploding chrysanthemum of bird seed, showering seed all over the backyard. Ah, it was a thing of beauty!
Susan, however, had a profoundly different opinion.
As we looked up at the kitchen window to see her looking down at us with a shocked expression on her face, I could forecast the conversation that was about to take place.
Andy to me: “Nice shot, Dad.”
Me to Andy: “Well, I never would have taken the shot if you had taken up chess.”
And the ultimate, me to Susan: “Susan why in the world did you have to hang the bird feeder right there?”
All of it as a way to get to the answer to the question, “Who’s at fault here?”
In this case, it was pretty clear (I was). But that question in general seems to act almost as a marker throughout our lives, and sometimes serves to even shape our lives.
Young couple sits in the doctor’s office, waiting for the report. They’ve been trying for two years to get pregnant, and just can’t. So they wonder: Is the stress of his job just overwhelming him? Is it her; is she simply unable to conceive? What happened? Who’s at fault here?
You’re at a neighborhood party, and it’s fun catching up with folks you haven’t seen for a while. But you notice that you don’t see John and Mary, and you start asking around. Someone says, “Haven’t you heard? John and Mary are getting a divorce.” And you’re stunned. You think, “John and Mary? They’re the ideal couple. What in the world happened? Did she have an affair? Did he drink too much? What went wrong? Who’s at fault here?”
Maybe it’s human nature; maybe we’re just hard-wired to place responsibility, to find out where, as Harry Truman would have said, “the buck stops.” It certainly is one way to figure what went wrong, one framework through which to understand life.
That’s all the disciples were trying to do when they asked Jesus about the man born blind. They weren’t necessarily looking for someone to be the villain, it’s just that placing blame was a natural part of the process. The question they asked Jesus – “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” – would have been completely normal and expected in their cultural and historical context. In their view, suffering was always and unavoidably a consequence of human sin. That view was shaped by their reading of their Bible, what we refer today as the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament.
In the book of Exodus, God says “I am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generations of those who reject me.” (Ex 20:5) According to that view, this man’s blindness was caused by the sinful behavior of his parents, or grandparents or even great-grandparents. They committed the sin; he’s paying for it.
But Scripture is not consistent on this point. Later on in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, God says that “a child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own.” (Ezek 18:20) According to that view, the responsibility has been lifted from the parents and grandparents, but it raises the likelihood that the man’s blindness was caused by sins that he himself had committed while he was still in the womb.
Those were the only two options that framed the disciples’ approach as they tried to understand the circumstance of the man born blind. And so the question, Which was it? Who’s to blame here?
Jesus’ answer tips over everyone’s working understanding of reality. In essence, he says, “Wrong question. There’s no fault here, no blame. This is a circumstance that God will use to reveal his creative and life-giving will for humanity.” Jesus challenges our notion that when we assign responsibility or blame that we’ve somehow completed a process, satisfied a requirement. “I’m to blame, she’s innocent; now let’s figure out the punishment so that we can get on with life.” There, done; we know who to hold accountable.
But when we content ourselves with answering the “Who’s to blame?” questions, we blind ourselves to the larger question, the question that Jesus asks: “What is God up to in this particular situation?”
Whose fault was it that this marriage ended? Wrong question. Instead, what is God up to in this ending? How might God be planting the seeds of new life in this ending? How might God be using this ending as a passageway to a new beginning for both of these people?
Who’s responsible for this couple’s inability to conceive? Wrong question. Instead, what might be God’s good and gracious plan for this couple, a plan that might be taking shape even now, in the midst of their disappointment and unhappiness?
It’s interesting to note that when Jesus changes the question, he does it by changing the subject of the question. “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” And Jesus says, “It isn’t about this man, or his parents. It’s about God, and God’s creative and life-giving work.” Just as God’s perspective is very different from our own – we saw this in the First Lesson about the anointing of David as king, that mortals look on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart – Jesus is inviting to operate with God’s perspective in all of life, and to do it by changing the subject of our questions, by focusing on God and not on ourselves. This is absolutely vital if we are to connect to God’s mission to bless the world.
Last week we received further confirmation of a long-term trend we’ve been seeing in the religious life of Americans. The Pew Forum on Religion and the Public Life released the results of a massive study that reported that nearly half of all American adults have left the faith tradition in which they were raised and either switched denominations or abandoned a religious affiliation altogether. That doesn’t mean that there’s been a lessening of faith in America – non-denominational churches are continuing to grow – it means that Americans are finding other ways of expressing and living out the faith that is in them.
Mainline denominations like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, of which Advent is a member, faces some challenging and compelling questions. But primary among those questions is not, “How do we stop the bleeding? How do we get more people in the pews? What services to we have to offer to be more attractive than the church down the road?” Those are all questions that have to do with institutional survival, and at the heart of all questions of institutional survival are desperation and fear.
But we do not have a God of desperation and fear. We have a God of hope and new life and endless possibility. “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.” (Isaiah 42:9) God spoke those words through the prophet Isaiah to the nation of Israel at a particularly bleak time in Israel’s history. It was a time when all they had to hold onto was the past, because they couldn’t even imagine a future and wanted nothing to do with the present because they were in captivity. And God chose then – just then – to announce to them a new vision: God’s vision for them.
I have to say that I’m proud of the elected leadership of this congregation. As they guide the ministry of this congregation, they themselves are guided essentially by two questions: What is God up to in the world? And how can we help? It’s no simple task to keep those questions primary, but it is essential. And that’s why you’ll find Advent members building affordable housing in Agua Prieta, Mexico; rebuilding lives down along the Gulf Coast; rebuilding the community of Osawatomie, Kansas; serving the poor by working at Metro Lutheran Ministry and Harvesters in Kansas City, and a number of other service projects. It’s all a way we have of responding to St. Paul’s invitation to “live as children of light.”
In our Second Lesson, Paul calls on us to live as people whose lives have been claimed and redeemed by the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Knowing Jesus as the guardian of our eternal souls frees us up to live lives of service here, holding each other accountable and serving the needs of the world as God shows us those needs and makes us able to address them. So that all the while we can hold those two questions before us: What is God up to in the world? And how can we help?
How would your life be different – today – if you changed the subject of your questions? Instead of “What do I want?” or “What do I need?” or “What is my plan?”; how about “What does God want?”; “What does God need to have done here, and how has God uniquely placed me so that I can help?” When we allow ourselves to become swept up into God’s mission to bless the world, we discover that we too are blessed.
Several years ago at a churchwide assembly, our presiding bishop, Mark Hanson, reminded us who we are in the world. I’d like to pass on that reminder to you this morning. I’d like you to repeat four very brief phrases after me, and if it would help you to close your eyes to help you concentrate, please do so. And, if you would, please a hand over your heart, as you say:
I am baptized.
I am a child of God.
I am forgiven.
I belong to Jesus.
Thank you. And may God richly bless you today as you keep the questions clear, and as you live your identity in God’s world.
Amen.
