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“Spiritual Blindness”
March 2, 2008
John 9: 1-41
Why in the world is the preaching before the Scripture reading? The primary reason is that I believe the Scripture passage itself is the best illustration of spiritual blindness and then you can carry its dynamic message as you go from here.
The evidence of spiritual blindness, as you will see demonstrated in the upcoming Scripture, is conversational round robin. In other words, when entire testimonies have to be repeated more than twice and still are not understood at their core level.
Round Robin is the conversational phenomenon where the very same talking points keep returning to the forefront as though they had never been spoken in the first place. Why is it that people become spiritually blind; or perhaps more accurately in this case, spiritually deaf?
I believe there are two main reasons for spiritual blindness and deafness. The first is long-standing tradition and teaching. The second is a powerful reluctance to accept change and new discoveries.
Not only does our nation have a tradition of resistance to the truth, but the organized church in the world is as much or more resistant. New discoveries historically have been seen as threatening to the Christian faith.
New discoveries and new realities, of course, cause us to have to re-define elements of truth. But when Jesus says that he is the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus is referring to himself as being the truth about God and salvation—not the science of the earth.
The Bible tells us that the earth is flat and that the sun does all the movement around the earth. Christianity was so threatened by the round earth theory that a 15th Century Pope excommunicated Galileo for espousing scientific theory of an earth which is round and moving and an earth that moves around the sun. It took over 300 years for the church to admit its error and a full 30 years after the first man orbited around the earth.
We could be dismissive and say “oh well, that’s the Roman Catholic Church,” but we Methodists have a tainted past also. The Bible tells us that slavery can and should be a good thing, so a significant number of Methodist Christians owned slaves and made them sit in the back balconies of the Methodist Church of the early and mid 1880’s.
We could be dismissive and say “oh well, that was 150 years ago,” but not that much has changed. The General Conference of the United Methodist Church will meet in April in Dallas, and will once again, as they do every four years, reject the science of human sexuality, and exclude Christians whose sexuality does not seem to fit the Bible’s pre-scientific descriptions.
In our Scripture reading this morning, Jesus comes to the world in the Gospel of John to bring new truth and new reality to what was old and familiar to the organized religion of his day. The religious leaders were amazingly unable to “see” or “hear” what was being said because it ran contrary to popular and then-current religious understandings.
The religious leaders were so afraid to open their eyes and their ears that they wound up defiling and murdering the Son of God. I believe it is appropriate for us as Christians today to examine new discoveries and new elements of truth so as not to anger and disappoint the very God that has created all that we call “new discoveries.”
New discoveries, new truth, and new wisdom, are some of the most powerful gifts which come to us from God. Listen now to the spiritual blindness and deafness of the religious leaders and teachers as they hear testimony of the marvelous works of God through Jesus Christ.
Scripture John 9: 1- 41 Healing of the Blind Man
1As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him,
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3Jesus answered,
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.
4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7saying to him,
“Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.”
Then he went and washed and came back able to see. 8The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask,
“Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”
9Some were saying, “It is he.”
Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.”
He kept saying, “I am the man.”
10But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”
11He answered,
“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.”
12They said to him, “Where is he?”
He said, “I do not know.”
13They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them,
“He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”
16Some of the Pharisees said,
“This man is not from God, for he does not observe the
sabbath.”
But others said,
“How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?”
And they were divided. 17So they said again to the blind man,
“What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”
He said,
“He is a prophet.”
18The 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 19and asked them,
“Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
20His parents answered,
“We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”
22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23Therefore his parents said,
“He is of age; ask him.”
24So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him,
“Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”
25He answered,
“I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
26They said to him,
“What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
27He 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?”
28Then they reviled him, saying,
“You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”
30The man answered,
“Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34They answered him,
“You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?”
And they drove him out. 35Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said,
“Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36He answered,
“And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”
37Jesus said to him,
“You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.”
38He said,
“Lord, I believe.”
And he worshiped him. 39Jesus 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.”
40Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him,
“Surely we are not blind, are we?”
41Jesus said to them,
“If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
