FRUSTRATED BY GRACE
John 9:1-34

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
November 13, 2005 / 26th Sunday of Pentecost

John tries to tell the whole life of Jesus in twenty-one chapters. He is actually one of the wordiest Gospel writers. But it is still a short space to tell all about Jesus.

And yet, here in chapter nine, John simply drops Jesus in the dust and goes on to use the chapter to tell us about the man blind from birth. Jesus disappears after verse seven, and doesn't return to the story until verse 35, after what I read this morning. Most of the chapter is a diversion, a tangent, an episode that takes us away from the content of Jesus' life. Why does John take us on this side journey?

At the start of the chapter we see Jesus as a healer. This is not unusual. We see Jesus this way in many texts. And we also hear Jesus trying to put an end to the awful idea that suffering is the direct result of sin. The disciples want to know who sinned to make this man blind. I still hear this archaic judgmental idea today. Sick people say to me, "God must be punishing me for something." Now it is true that some sins can produce suffering: cigarette smoking, driving under the influence, certain types of promiscuity. Some sins produce suffering to the sinner. But not all suffering is caused by sin. Put that idea away. Some suffering just is. And in that suffering God's glory may still appear.

Jesus gets all this wonderful healing and teaching done in just seven verses! Then John diverges to tell us the story of the man blind from birth. Why?

This man, who is the center of chapter nine, has had a great gracious thing done for him. Somehow Jesus has found a way to cure him of his blindness. Jesus covers the man's eyes with some type of muddy compound, and has him wash in the pool of Siloam. We don't know all the medical details. There may have been some type of membrane on his eyes from birth, some membrane that the mud cracks away. Or there may have been some chemical in the mud that activates a nerve ending. We don't know. So let us put our technical issues aside and just rejoice that this has happened. Sometimes wonderful things happen in life that we can not explain. Accept them at face value. Grace has been given! Wonderful! The man is healed. Praise God!

But then why does John draw this story out for a full chapter? It seems to me he is trying to teach those of us who would be future disciples. He is trying to show us what might happen when a grace from Jesus enters your life. While the book is about Jesus, this chapter is about what happens to one given grace. This chapter is about us.

You would think that grace would be wonderful. You would think that healing would be wonderful. And in the end I think it is. The man remains able to see. And, in the verses after our reading, Jesus and the man get to celebrate what has happened. So it is good.

But it is also frustrating. It is very frustrating. Having something good happen in your life can be very frustrating.

Look what happens to the man. When he comes back from the pool of Siloam, now standing straight, not walking into things, they think it's a different person. They think he's an impostor. They refuse to believe him.

That often happens when a grace enters your life. You say you have had a prayer answered; people don't believe you. You begin to act differently. People say its drug induced, or you've been hypnotized, or you are just acting that way in order to get something.

Then the crowd brings the man to the Pharisees, the experts on religious orthodoxy. They get into an argument about the day when it happened. They want an explanation.

The same thing happens today to the person who has a grace. If you can't explain how it happened, people won't believe you. And there are not only days, there are places, neighborhoods, groups, religions that people believe can never have any good happen. Say someone helped you in a neighborhood that has a bad reputation and people will say I don't believe that. Say you were inspired at a Muslim worship service and you will be held in contempt.

So the nay-sayers try again. Those set on denying bring in his parents. They want the family to explain what is going on, or to mollify his extravagant claims. Again today people are put down because of who they are related to. And parents are used to deny the truths of their children. I have seen young people go through the process of coming out as gay or lesbian, a truth telling, gracious honest moment for them; only to have their humanity denied by their parents; only to have their parents reject their very being.

Grace can be frustrating! Telling the truth can get you in much hot water!

Finally the people who want to reject Jesus reject the blind man as well. You are cast out for your associations. Your are rejected because of your friends. You are not believed because you are on the wrong side of things.

Well known preacher Tom Long says that communities maintain stability and moral order by having designated sinners, designated bad neighborhoods, designated problems. These are the bad people that shouldn't be trusted. These are the places you never should go. This is the reason this is happening.

I heard a French politician on the radio this week giving his explanation of the weeks of rioting in France. He said "it has nothing to do with unemployment. It is simply young hooligans. They are twelve years old, unemployment has nothing to do with it." As if twelve year olds do not have older brothers or cousins. As if colonialism and racial segregation do not produce violence to the human soul. We want to keep the designated problem out there, so we will not have to look inward, so we will not have to change.

So we are not ready to believe someone else's grace; not if it will cause us to have to change.

Are we like the people who will not believe the wonderful story told by the man born blind? Do we reject grace in order to maintain certainty?

The world might not be the way we think it is. Let me offer a few pieces of information that might challenge the easy assumptions of our culture. Use of expensive illegal drugs is much higher in wealthy neighborhoods than in poverty areas. Serial killers are usually white. Billions of dollars in white-collar crime is committed by well educated people. Most teenagers involved in drunk driving accidents come from middle to upper class families. Things may not be the way we imagine. Years of education and suburban living may not provide what we imagined they would.

What we think may be wrong.

Therefore can we believe that a man born blind has not sinned, neither he nor his parents? Can we believe that a disease has been healed miraculously? Can we believe that an unknown prophet from a small town can really help someone? Can we believe that the world is not the way that the powers imagine it?

The man born blind is an example of a disciple. He has found a grace in his life. May you find a grace in your life. And he has come to believe that he must hold his grace, and believe his grace, no matter what other people say, no matter what they argue.

Can you believe? Can you hold your grace?

If you can, then I invite you to believe these unpopular ideas: we can live without war. I believe it. We can live life more simply. I believe it. We can live by abundant giving. God will take care. I believe it.

May you find a grace in your life. May you believe it no matter what. May you be able to believe in other graces. Keep the faith!

Amen.