You told me your blindness is not seeing
even the shades of black called darkness.
You felt useless as a mirror until you made a poem
useful as a dog with bells around its neck.
Sometimes you wake to the wind moving through different trees.
A child, you loved to touch your mother’s face,
you wished the world were ocean,
you could hear, smell, and taste, knew that it was blue.
Trees had a smell you called green, apples red.
How could the flag be red-white-and-blue?
You laugh when I tell you “Drink to me only with thine eyes”
is a love song, that some who see
only make love in the dark. You wish you could see as a bat.
Mozart you say is the great equalizer, the truest democrat,
you always preferred a dog to a cane.
When in Braille you first read “The disciples asked,
Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answering, “Neither this man sinned nor his parents,
but that the works of God would be revealed in him …
and he spat on the ground and healed the man
with his spit and mud—” you waited awhile, then read on.
Blind in dreams, you touch, taste, smell, and hear—
see nothing, nightmares like crowds are the more terrible
because you never see what terrifies you.
Since childhood it was an act of faith
to believe the sun and moon were in the sky,
it pleased you the sun is a fire the sighted cannot look into …
It is late. As always you, my imaginary friend,
take me by the hand and lead me to bed.

Precisely such a depression decended on Gregory’s patient: S.B.’s period in the hospital was full of excitement and perceptual progress. But the promise was not fulfilled. Six months after the operation, Gregory reports,

we formed a strong impression that his sight was to him almost entirely disappointing. It enabled him to do a little more … but it became clear that the opportunities it afforded him were less than he had imagined. … He still to a great extent lived the life of a blind man, sometimes not bothering to put on the light at night. … He did not get on well with his neighbours [now], who regarded him as “odd,” and his workmates [previously so admiring] played tricks on him and teased him for being unable to read.

Two stories, one about the disciples and the other about the man who used to be blind. So we have two sermons which tie together at the end.

The disciples ask, “Why was this man born blind?”

I have known for a while that “Why” questions can have two types of answers, either cause or purpose. The disciples are obviously asking for a cause. Jesus doesn’t give it to them. So I had always figured that his answer must be a purpose. (Most of our translations even translate Jesus’ answer to make it sound more clearly like a purpose.)

But for the past few months I’ve been working with the possibility that “Why” questions can have a third type of answer, neither cause nor purpose, but way. Q: Why did you do that? A: Because that is who I am? The way answer is not found in a previous happening nor in a desired outcome but in the identity or character of the person?

Most of our “Why?” questions ask for either a cause or a purpose. We want an explanation?  But many of our most important “Why” questions don’t have explanations and what we are really seeking is a revelation of who God is. The “way” answer to a “why” question is not a simplifying explanation but an enlarging revelation.

So I looked at this passage to see if Jesus was really answering with a purpose, “God made this man blind so that God could show how powerful he is by healing him.” (I never really liked that answer.) Or if maybe there might be a “way” answer here.

The answer as we have it in our translations is a bit forced. It makes more sense grammatically to put the period in a different place than our translations do. So Jesus answer is in two parts. The first part, “Niether this man sinned nor his parents.” is the negative part, pure and simple, “There is no spiritual cause for this man’s blindness.”

The second part is positive but it is not a purpose. Here’s how it reads if you move the period up. “But in order that the works of God might be made manifest in him, we must work the works of the one who sent me while it is day.” The answer is not an explanation but a revelation. Jesus doesn’t answer the question in words but promises to answer it in the manifestation of God in the healing itself, the extended healing both of the mans physical blindness and of his and the disciples spiritual blindness. Put into words it is something like this: God causes blind people to see through people who already live in the light.

Now for the man who was blind. Try and put yourself in his position. You have just begun to see, you are trying to make sense out of the light and colors and shapes, and all of a sudden you find yourself in the midst of controversy. Your neighbors start questioning you. You are brought before the religious leaders who question you. Even your parents refuse to stick up for you. You have no time to enjoy or benefit from your new found sight. This is not the way it should be when such a wonderful, miraculous thing happens.

But apparently it is common.

Sacks’ article:  Precisely such a depression decended on Gregory’s patient: S.B.’s period in the hospital was full of excitement and perceptual progress. But the promise was not fulfilled. Six months after the operation, Gregory reports,

we formed a strong impression that his sight was to him almost entirely disappointing. It enabled him to do a little more … but it became clear that the opportunities it afforded him were less than he had imagined. … He still to a great extent lived the life of a blind man, sometimes not bothering to put on the light at night. … He did not get on well with his neighbours [now], who regarded him as “odd,” and his workmates [previously so admiring] played tricks on him and teased him for being unable to read.

Normal to feel isolated. And this man not only received new sight physically. He also can see clearly on a spiritual plane as well. You may have noticed that you feel isolated when you see something clearly that you hadn’t seen before. Maybe even when you became a Christian. The whole world wants to continue seeing things the way they’ve always seen them. Many of the people who have received their sight want to go back to being blind. This recent case was relieved when another physical ailment took away his sight.

In our story it is hard to know what would have happened to this man but Jesus comes back and saves him. Jesus talks to him and is recognized.

It is not easy living with Jesus in the light. “The darkness around us is deep.” The would around us is committed to living in the darkness of work and reward while we try to live in the light of grace.

For us who are trying to live in the light, I encourage perseverence and listening for Jesus’ voice.

He is the one who has given us sight. He is the one who will support us in the light.

And when we live in the light then God can work through us and around us to heal the blindness of others.

Narrator: As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him,

Reader A: Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Narrator: Jesus answered, Jesus: Neither this man sinned nor his parents. But in order that the works of God might be made manifest in him, we must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day.  Night comes, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Narrator: As he said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the man’s eyes with the clay, Jesus: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.

Narrator: (Siloam means Sent). So the blind man went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, said, Reader B: Is not this the man who used to sit and beg?

Reader A: It is he Reader B: No, but he is like him.

Blind Man: I am the man.

Reader A: Then how were your eyes opened?

Blind Man: The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, “Go to Siloam and wash”; so I went and washed and received my sight.

Reader B: Where is he?

Blind Man: I do not know.

Narrator: They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. The Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight.

Blind Man: He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.

Narrator: Some of the Pharisees said, Reader A: This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath.

Narrator: But others said, Reader B: How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?

Narrator: There was a division among them. So they again said to the blind man,

Reader A: What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?

Blind Man: He is a prophet.

Narrator: The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight, and asked them,

Reader B: Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?

Narrator: His parents answered, Reader A: We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes.

Reader B: Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.

Narrator: His parents said this because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if any one should confess him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.  Therefore his parents said,

Readers A & B: He is of age, ask him.

Narrator: So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him,

Reader A: Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner.

Blind Man: Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.

Reader B: What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?

Blind Man: I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?  Do you too want to become his disciples?

Reader A: You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.

Blind Man: Why, this is a marvel! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if any one is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.

Reader B: You were born in utter sin.

Reader A: Who are you to teach us?

Narrator: And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, Jesus: Do you believe in the Son of man?

Blind Man: And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?

Jesus: You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you.

Blind Man: Lord, I believe Narrator: And he worshiped him.

Jesus: For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.

Narrator: Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him,

Readers A& B: Are we also blind?

Jesus: If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, “We see,” your guilt remains.