The story in John 9 about Jesus healing a man born blind is so much more than a miracle story. This is another story of a character who begins literally blind to Jesus who progressively sees him as a healer, then as a prophet (truth and wisdom teller), and finally as one anointed by God. The storyline conflict couldn’t have been set up better – a guy born into the epitome of sin and God’s judgment (blindness, as understood in the 1st century) gets healed by a means that required “work” (kneading mud like dough) on the Sabbath (when no work was to be done – one of the Ten Commandments) by an “ordinary sinner” (Jesus) who was not part of the Jewish leadership elite (where it was assumed God’s power for such things resided). This is a story about what happens when God is clearly moving in unexpected – and unwelcome for some – ways that buck the system. It’s a story the first disciples resonated with because they lived it out themselves. Over their time with Jesus, they saw God working more and more in unconventional ways. Their view of him shifted from a magician to a truth and wisdom teller to one the God was clearly working through. Their seeing him differently led them into uncomfortable and painful consequences, starting with being alienated by religious leaders and for most of them martyrdom.
We humans beings really like control. It keeps everything in its place. But how do you control a reality that is beyond our ability to confine, categorize, and predict? You can’t. Yet we try our best. We are experiencing an upheaval in Christianity that has been centuries in the making. Constantine made Christianity the Empire’s religion and the power immediately challenged the mandate to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. About 1,000 years ago Church leadership began taking the faith into a dark period where corruption continued to run amuck with literally buying God’s forgiveness with cash or military service. Roughly 500 years ago the Church doubled down on the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture – something Jesus himself would not agree with – and categorically rejected science because it challenged the veracity of the Bible. A century ago, a new flavor of American Christianity began to build strength with the help of politicians who wanted the Church out of the social conversation. Fear of the Soviet Union and its atheism drove masses to revivals to “get right with God” in case their death came too soon as nuclear war broke out. The lure of power and prestige led the leaders of those revivals to neglect horrific cultural issues, relegating Christianity to become little more than an individual, spiritual pursuit. An entire political party so intertwined itself with this flavor of Christianity that to be one was assumed to be the other. Some of these decisions may have been well-meaning, but that doesn’t mean they were wise or congruent with the transformational faith Jesus taught and modeled. Those decisions are coming home to roost, witnessed in an unprecedented departure from not just church attendance, but Christianity itself. The response from the faith leaders who have been supported by the system people are leaving? Doubling down on the very precepts and methodology that got them there in the first place. History repeating itself all over again.
And what might we expect to happen to those who see things differently and question positions that don’t add up theologically or otherwise? The same thing that happened to the man born blind and the disciples who witnessed the whole thing: kicked out.
The good news? Jesus – the teacher and modeler or the transformative Way of living in the Spirit – sought him out, welcomed him, and invited him to follow. The Sprit of God still does. To all those who choose to see and proclaim, carry on.