Blindness – A Lent 4 – Apr 3 2011

If your brain was to make a decision, what would it need in order to make a decision?  For example, you are walking across a street  and a car is heading straight towards you, what do you do?  And how do you make that decision?  So to make any decision, what does your brain need to make that decision or to carry it out?  Information.

Where does our brain get information from?

Our senses- taste, touch, sight, hearing, smell.  Always forget smell…  Would you say one is more important that the other?  Which one would you rely most on?

Vision is generally thought of as the most important.

But our eyes can be manipulated.  Take a look at a couple of these fun illusions.

 Optical illusions.

And so what if what you see, isn’t the truth? If you can’t see, or if what you can see isn’t true, for example, those words on the last slide, would you be considered blind?

SLIDE Can there be blindness other than just not being able to see with our eyes?

SLIDE So what are some examples of non-physical blindness – how about not admitting that we were wrong?  Has any one encountered someone who could not admit they were wrong?  What about someone who “can’t see for looking?”  That is to say that the evidence is right in front them, but they don’t see it.  This is quite common isn’t it?  I immediately think of people who receive criticism for moving family into long-term care facilities – those doing the criticizing can’t seem to see the symptoms or signs or the evidence.  Those in abusive relationships are another example, when questioned or encouraged to take action, they seem to disregard the evidence.  What are some other examples?  Does anyone else have an example?  So blindness isn’t just physical.

In my humble opinion, there are three ways that we are blind, and they are probably mostly from me and my own blindness.  There are probably many, many more, but at this point in my journey I wish my students and my children knew about these three.  These are just my thoughts on our condition, on humanity’s place, so I guess in a sense this will be a good example of the SLIDE blind leading the blind.  Ha ha.

SLIDE Anyways, three ways we are blind and especially spiritually blind:

1. We are alone.  “Forget” may not be the right word, but we always seem to forget that there are others out there in this crazy world of ours.  How much of our unhappiness is because we think our challenges or our plights are battles that we fight on our own.  How many times have we battled or endured challenges, only to realize afterwards that others, even people as close as friends and family, have endured the same battles or endured the same challenges?  Even in today’s Gospel, rather than wanting to be a part of the group, to be apart of the disciples of Jesus, the Pharisees segregate themselves and align themselves with Moses.  This is an action of separation, of putting themselves apart from the group.  We often think or do the same, we separate ourselves, or segregate ourselves thinking that our situation or challenge is our own yoke to bear.  We think that we are a SLIDE lone wolf in a forest of challenges or battles.  But we forget that wolves actually work in groups, SLIDE they travel and hunt in packs, working together.  Even for the blindman today, it wasn’t him who sought segregation; he was never alone.  Even when we went by himself to the pool of Siloam, you get the sense that Jesus was with him, and even when the blindman is interrogated by the Pharisees, you get the sense that Jesus was there too.

SLIDE 2. We are empty handed.  If God was to cure blindness through us, what would we need?  And yet what did Jesus have?  Dirt?  Spit?  Mud?  I wish my students and my children and my family and friends realized that they have what they need to do what they need to do. To be honest, maybe the blindness comes from the fact that we don’t really see what we need to do when we need to do it, but we are also blind to the fact that we have the gifts, we have the means, we have the talents, we have what we need to do when we need to do it.  Watching colleagues at work or camp or life, and especially for myself, a challenge often waited or loomed large because we are waiting for a magic wand or some gift that will help us make it go away.  I think the Pharisees got a little caught up in the fact that they didn’t have the right stuff to cure the blindness.  But we don’t necessarily need stuff.  We all have gifts, some are fixers, some are doers, some are talkers, and some are huggers.  Think of the challenges that loom above you this week, what do you really need to get that challenge accomplished?  Don’t make it more complex than it needs to be – what is the bare minimum you need to get that challenge done?  Do you have what you need?  We might realize that all we need is our hands, our heart and our mind.

SLIDE

3. We can’t contribute.  A bit of a rhetorical question – if we take a look at today’s Gospel, is there any character, or any person that is mentioned that doesn’t have a role or doesn’t contribute?  Even the disciples who appear to be along for the ride in many cases do contribute.  Anne Frank said, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”  Our society has become blind to the fact that we all can contribute to the challenges that surround us and there are a lot of challenges.  Even the most insignificant participant can make a big contribution – if it weren’t for the disciples asking Jesus about the blind man, we might have a different Gospel for today.  If it weren’t for the blind man, God’s glory may not have been revealed.

For me today, all of this hinges on verse 3, “Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”  So then, this man, who is blind, who was considered to be a sinner and to be weaker than the rest of his society, becomes the revealer of God’s works?

SLIDE What we see is not always the truth, as you look at this picture, I am afraid to said that it is not just a collection of flags from Scandinavia and Europe.  Behind all the flags, if you’ve done these before, you know there is a picture hiding in there.  It probably won’t work for us in this setting, but there is a world in there somewhere, a picture of the globe.   As we go about our daily tasks this week, may we remember that we are the revealers; God’s works come out through us.  We are not alone, we do have what we need and we can contribute.  My prayer for us is that this is a brick – that God’s works will be revealed in us, through us and to us this week.

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