Sermon on John 9:1-41

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Our Gospel story gets into some tricky territory.

First of all, as often happens in the Gospel of John, this story makes it sound like Jewish people are the bad guys. Of our four Gospels, this one was written last, at a time when the emerging community of Jesus followers was trying to distinguish itself from the Jewish tradition it came from.

So, the Gospel of John portrays “the Jews” as a monolithic group who just don’t get it and is separate from the “correct,” “in-group” of the Jesus followers. When you add two millennia of anti-Semitism and Christian supremacy, the us/them language of the Gospel of John becomes harmful to our Jewish siblings.

So, whenever you read “the Jews” in the Gospel of John, it’s helpful to look at who is actually being talked about. Often, it’s the religious authorities who were trying to protect their tradition in occupied territory. They were skeptical of this radical rabbi, Jesus, who might get them in trouble with the Roman Empire.

Most importantly, when Jesus says things that sound harsh toward Jewish people, it’s crucial to remember that Jesus was Jewish. When he says harsh things, it’s more like one of us holding accountable our siblings at another Christian church in our neighborhood. For Jesus, there was no us/them divide. For Jesus, there pretty much never is.

Another tricky thing about this story is the healing itself. As all too often happens, there is a lot of talking about, rather than to, a disabled person, or in this case, a formerly disabled person.

And his disability is spiritualized: blindness is made into a metaphor for lack of insight and understanding. This is unfair to people in the visually impaired community. One’s ability to see has nothing to do with one’s cognitive, intuitive, or spiritual capacities.

I can’t help but feel like the one who should be central to this story is being used as a plot device: because of his disability, healing, and place in society.

Jesus doesn’t even ask him if he wants sight.

Then, his neighbors don’t recognize him and are so suspicious that they go to the religious authorities.

The religious authorities interrogate him and his parents and then him again.

Then, he’s kicked out of his community.

His interaction with Jesus had life-altering consequences far beyond being able to see.

Often in biblical healing stories, the healed person is restored to their community. “Healing” can be distinguished from “curing,” because the experience encompasses more than the literal curing of a disease or change of ability. Healing can involve restoration of spiritual, emotional, and/or social health. But in this story, the person who had been blind is rejected from his community. In some ways, it seems like he’s worse off than before his encounter with Jesus.

His curing has not really brought about healing.

And yet, when he is at his lowest point after having been interrogated, investigated, and rejected, Jesus hears about it and seeks him out.

Jesus finds him.

Then, they have a powerful conversation, in which the person who had been blind declares his belief in Jesus. He trusts in Jesus, despite his treatment by his community.

Instead of a healing story, we can also read this as a call story.

This person had a transformational encounter with Jesus: Jesus mixed his own spit with earth—not unlike God creating humanity out of the dust of the earth in the beginning—and Jesus touched him with that creative mud.

Then, Jesus told him to go wash—a sort of baptism—in a pool named “Sent.”

Another encounter with Jesus shows the person’s insight and growing trust in Jesus.

God’s creative power mixed with cleansing baptismal waters and a growing spiritual understanding: Jesus is calling a new disciple here.

This new disciple is misunderstood and then shunned by his community, but Jesus is calling him to a new community in the Reign of God.

The new disciple’s belief is more than mental agreement with a set of statements about who Jesus is. He’s trusting Jesus to bring him into a new community and new way of life. Belief in the Bible is never just intellectual. A call story is about changing someone’s life.

Jesus in this call story is found in the margins, commissioning and equipping disciples among those who are overlooked and excluded.

Lest we look down our noses at the religious leaders in this story who just don’t seem to get it and exclude the person who had been blind, there are still so many people who are ignored and pushed to the margins today.

Since we’ve already touched on disabilities, let’s explore that further.

So much in our society is set up in a way that excludes, marginalizes, and disadvantages people with disabilities.

Some things have shifted to make spaces and opportunities more accessible. For instance, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 made it illegal to discriminate based on disability and enacted a lot of accommodations for employment, public facilities, housing, etc. There’s still, of course, a lot of room for improvement, but it was an important step.

And in Jesus’ example of inclusion and empowering the marginalized, one might expect that churches would have celebrated such an achievement for civil rights.

Alas, that was not the case.

The Collaborative on Faith and Disability described it this way:

“In the passing of the ADA, the religious communities of the USA essentially asked to be excused from the table. For a number of reasons, the act exempted faith communities from parts of the ADA even though it does impact new construction and some congregational programs. Whatever the rationale, and in spite of great progress in inclusive faith communities since 1990, that action confirmed the feelings of many people with disabilities that the religious community was not an ally.”[1]

While I understand that there are beautiful, historic church buildings like this one that would have been very difficult and expensive to make fully accessible, I wish we could say that Christians were at the forefront of striving for equity instead of putting our buildings and bank accounts before people.

There is much, much more to explore and wrestle with when it comes to ableism and inclusion. This needs to be an ongoing discussion, and I personally have a lot of privilege in this area, so I ask that you keep me accountable to continue learning and striving for justice.

In our Gospel story, Jesus was found making disciples at the margins. Jesus is very often found at the margins of society—wherever people are ignored, excluded, and disadvantaged.

He seeks out, includes, and celebrates people who have been pushed aside by society.

If we want to follow Jesus, we need to go where he goes and do the things he does.

If we’re looking for Jesus, we’ll find him in the margins.

We’ll find him standing outside the door that is too narrow for his wheelchair.

We’ll find him at the bottom of the stairs his legs are too shaky to climb.

We’ll find him at home watching church on YouTube, because his immune system makes it too risky to be around so many people.

The Reign of God is abundant and inclusive, and it starts at the margins.

When we put people first instead of buildings and bank accounts,

When we answer Jesus’ call that causes us to get kicked out of our communities,

When we seek the true healing of our spirits and relationships and social systems so that everyone is valued and celebrated as they are,

We’ll find Jesus there.

That is the healing we need.

[1]https://politicaltheology.com/excused-from-the-table-churches-and-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-lorraine-cuddeback/