EpiscopalCenter at Duke University

The author of John’s Gospel is a master of irony. Throughout the Gospel the wrong people say the right thing, the well-educated can’t grasp the simplest truth even when it’s explained to them, and people who were born with normal vision can’t see while people who were born blind see clearly.

And one of the greatest ironies in today’s passage is that the only two people who are labelled as sinners are the healed blind man and Jesus. The two of them are booted out of a community so certain it has a grip on righteousness that it walls itself in and salvation out.

It’s not because the community doesn’t take salvation seriously, either. On the contrary, the Pharisees, whose job it is to maintain right order, know the rules and they’re trying really hard to figure out which rules apply and how.

“Did he break the sabbath? ‘Cause in that case, he’s a sinner. Is this a sign? It can’t be a sign. There must be some other explanation. Who the heck is this guy anyway? God speaks to Moses, not to strangers. Everyone knows that.”

The beggar answers by stating what he knows. “I don’t know if this man is a sinner. I do know that I was blind and now I see. I don’t know where he’s from, but if he’s not from God, how come I can see?”

And that does it. That’s all it takes. The Pharisees’ certainty that they have the answers blind them to the miracle right in front of them: a blind man, healed on the sabbath, by a man of unknown origins. He’s shown the door and the Pharisees slam it firmly shut behind him.

And the way irony works is that we’re in on the joke. We know just what’s happened and we know on which side of the door true salvation stands. We know the people who slammed the door slammed it because they’re so sure they’re right and the truth is, if we’re completely honest with ourselves, we’re like that sometimes, too.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has a wonderful book called Where God Happens, about the 4th and 5th century desert mothers and fathers. One of the things he appreciates about those desert monastics is their awareness that ‘one of the great temptations of religious living is the urge to intrude between God and other people.’ (p. 15)

That urge to intrude between God and other people doesn’t come from our anxiety about them, but from our anxiety about ourselves. The Pharisees are sure about God because they have the rules down pat—God doesn’t work on the Sabbath, God spoke to Moses and not to anyone else, being born blind means you’re a sinner, as does working on Sunday.

But the problem with that kind of certainty is that it keeps us from seeing what God’s doing when God doesn’t color inside the lines. What happens if God doesn’t play by our rules? What happens if the blind guy sees?

It’s not as if being certain about righteousness has gone out of fashion. Who’s got a lock on the Gospel, the American church or the Nigerian one? Who’s got the answers to what ails our country, John, or Hillary, or Barack? Should parents pick up crying babies or leave them to calm themselves? What’s more important, organic food or locally grown food?

Whatever side of whichever debate we’re on, are we so sure we’re right we can’t see any other possibility? Are we so sure we’re right we’re cutting ourselves off from the very people God commands us to love? Are we so certain of ourselves we can’t see Jesus even when he’s right before our very eyes?

There’s a story about one of the desert fathers, an abbot named Macarius who pays a visit to an old monk. The monk has been counseling others but word’s gotten back to Macarius that the monk’s advice is more judgmental than helpful.

Macarius asks the old man, “How are things going with you?”

“Just great, thanks,” the monk answers.

“So, you’re not struggling with fantasies and temptations?”

“Nope. All is well,” says the monk because everyone knows monks don’t have fantasies and temptations.

Macarius says, “You know, I’ve been living as an ascetic for years now and everyone sings my praises, but between you and me, I am still struggling not to think about girls.”

“Well, now that you mention it,” says the old monk, “me, too.”

“And I’ve been living very simply for a long while, but I still think about how nice it would be to have some new sheets and a few extra blankets.”

“The nights do get cold, don’t they?” agrees the monk.

And Macarius goes on admitting, one by one, all the other fantasies he struggles with, and every time the old monk admits that he struggles, too.

And at last, Macarius asks, “Do you fast?”

“Yeah, I do, but I don’t start until 3:00 in the afternoon,”  the monk admits.

“Well, look,” says Macarius, “go ahead and fast until dinner time, and while you’re at it, read back over the gospel. And if you get distracted by some fantasy in the meantime, don’t look down but up: the Lord will come to your aid.”

And the story doesn’t say so, but my guess is that the old monk became a much more generous listener, not because he was sure of himself and what was right, but because he was freed from having to be so. He didn’t measure up to the standards for perfect monkdom, true, but his salvation depends on God, not on rules. And I just bet knowing that made him a lot less anxious to lower the boom on those who came to him for counsel and advice.

“I came into this world for judgment,” Jesus says, “so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

Our confidence is in Jesus, not in ourselves. We therefore confess our certainties and all the ways they blind us to God and our neighbor. We are free to confess these things because our failure to see God does not prevent God from loving us.

May living in the light of that knowledge lead us to reach out to others in open humility rather than to wall ourselves off in blind righteousness.  Amen.