A pastoral resource for Christians in exile

Barry J. Robinson

Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, "We see," your sin remains. . . ."

  A charming man, the spoiled darling of all the women, came to the holy man with marriage difficulties. For him the problem was obvious. His wife was unapproachable, cold, frigid. In particular, she had no interest in sex. Then, suddenly, the man started having a dream. He dreamed that, just as he was about to have an evening of pleasure with a lover who was not his wife, a dark-clad, somewhat older, ugly, sickly man suddenly entered the room, moving past the dreamer in silence, and disappeared. The man was so shocked, right in the dream, that no further intimacies could occur with his lover.

  The man was shocked by the holy man's answer. Shame overwhelmed him and he began to confess to the holy man the many extramarital affairs he had had and was still having with other women. He immediately changed his lifestyle, made amends with his wife, and their marriage improved dramatically.

  The real story begins after John tells us how the blind man was cured. It begins with the curiosity of the man's friends and neighbours, the people who have known him for many years and who see now that he has been cured. Understandably, they are perplexed. So taken aback by what has happened, all they can think of doing is to ask the man how it all happened.

"The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight again."

And John has now set us up. We have now in the story the people John really wants to talk about, the people who are identified with entrenched ideas, ideas on which rest their personal authority. They are the people who become disturbed when something happens that seems to contradict their precious belief system. A man born blind has been healed. People will think that such an act is from God. But it is an act performed in violation of everything they believe to be true.

  So they respond to what has happened by trying to discredit it. First, they remind people of the law against healing on the sabbath. Since the man who performed the act also violated the law, he cannot be from God; nor can what he has done come with divine blessing. Not everyone is convinced by such a twisted argument however. Under their breath, they could be heard saying,

  When confronted by uncomfortable truths that shake our perceptions of reality the human tendency is deny the facts on which the truths rest. That is precisely what the Pharisees do. They press the man to repeat his story, no doubt hoping for some discrepancy that they can use to discredit his testimony. But this is where the story becomes almost amusing. Not only does the man stick to the truth of what happened, he takes the offensive against his interrogators and challenges their motives, adding just a hint of sarcasm as he does so.

He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again. Do you also want to become his disciples?"

  We are now at the finale of this amazingly human story. Jesus appears again with a pronouncement that, at first, seems rather mysterious.

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

  Some of them standing nearby become uncomfortable when they hear Jesus says this. Surely, they think: he can't be talking about us? Their suspicion, however, is that he is. So when they ask him point blank, he leaves no doubt about what he meant.

"If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains."

  It was no accident that Jesus encountered tremendous resistance within the deepest recesses of institutional religion. It is equally no accident that institutional religion today seems to have great difficulty in coming to terms with some of the dark, ugly truths that go on in religious communities. We don't want to believe that such things go on. We don't want to believe that "good Christian people" could be capable of abusive behaviour toward others. We don't want to believe that some of the people we trust the most could be capable of terrible crimes against others. But, no matter how many lawyers we hire, no matter how much money we spend, no matter how many prayers we pray in an effort to deny the facts, sooner or later the truth will come out. Ordinary, little people will keep telling their stories and will eventually call us to account.

  Denial is not a river in Egypt, my friends. It is a very common effort undertaken every single day by those who cannot acknowledge the truth that they do not possess the truth, by those who cannot acknowledge that there is a dark side to every human nature - including their own. For when we persist in the erroneous conviction that we see and understand all there is to be known about ourselves, life and God, then it is we who are truly blind.

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