The Pharisees said to the blind man Jesus had cured: “You were born and brought up in sin, and you’re now trying to teach us?” And they expelled him from the synagogue. When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked him: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man answered: “Tell me who he is, sir, so that I can believe in him!” Jesus said to him: “You have already seen him and he is the one who is talking with you now.” John 9: 1-41
Today’s gospel-reading is an account of how a nobody triumphs over a community’s big shots; it is an illustration of how the law of love trumps inflexible orthodoxy. It’s a story that sits comfortably with those of us who have met authoritarian religious people who are so sure they are right that they are no longer able to make space for the ongoing and renewing action of God’s Spirit. What’s more, this is a story from John in which Jesus revealed his identity to the man whose blindness he had cured. In consoling him for the punishment the Pharisees had meted out to him for his outspokenness, Jesus asked him if he believed in the Son of Man (the Messiah). “Sir”, he replied “tell me who he is so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said: “You are looking at him; he is speaking to you.” (John 9: 36-37) Jesus’ exchange with the woman at the well was almost identical. “I know that the Messiah, that is the Christ, is coming; and when he comes, he will tell us everything. “I who am speaking to you,” said Jesus, “I am he.” (John 4: 25-26)
The Pharisees in today’s gospel-reading saw themselves as being superior to the ordinary people around them. Worse still, outcasts of society like tax collectors, prostitutes, the lame, the deaf, the blind and the lepers were decidedly inferior. That phenomenon is as alive today as it was in the time of Jesus. There are still people in our society who need misfits, drop-outs, and drug addicts against whom to compare themselves, in order to demonstrate to themselves and others that they are better. Moreover, we can all catch ourselves pointing to the faults, failures and foibles of our neighbours in order to prove that we are on a rung above.
Pope Francis said all this another way back in November 2013, when he wrote:
“Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”. Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel, #53
Lest we conclude that this gospel-reading is John’s way of highlighting the fact that only the Pharisees in the story were spiritually blind and that they had much less insight and self-awareness than the man Jesus cured of his physical blindness, we might need to take another look and realise that it is a story as much about us as it is about the Pharisees. The word for “man” (as in man born blind) usen by John when he wrote his Gospel in Greek was anthropos, a generic word meaning human being. (English words derived from this Greek word are anthropology, the study of man as an animal, and anthropomorphic, attributing human qualities to things, animals and non-material beings). So, John’s “man born blind”, as well as referring to the man Jesus healed, refers to humanity, to us. We are all born, to some extent, blind to things like ignorance, ambition, greed, bullying, selfishness, prejudice and the like. Back when we learned the catechism by heart, it was called original sin. The sacrament of Baptism, giving us membership of the Christian community, was meant to assist us to manage all those inclinations that could weigh us down. And that’s the point of Paul’s plea to the Christian community in Ephesus in today’s second reading: “You were in darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; be like children of light…Wake from your sleep, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5: 8-14)
The first reading from Samuel is a reminder to us that, in our efforts to use our sight to the best of our ability as we live out our vocation in life, we also have to make space to let in the revelations of God’s Spirit. Samuel, after interviewing seven of Jesse’s sons in an attempt to find one who would succeed Saul as king, was prompted by God’s Spirit to ask Jesse if he had any more sons. Jesse admitted that he did have an eighth son who was a callow youth but was out looking after the sheep. Samuel insisted that the boy be called. The boy was David. And it was David who was selected. Seeing clearly means making room for the unexpected that might well contain inspiration from God’s Spirit.
I suggest that there is another arrow in John’s quiver in the gospel. The man born blind made no attempt to get Jesus’ attention. By choice Jesus reached out to him to reveal something of the mercy and compassion of God. Crowd members, who witnessed what happened, were accustomed to viewing physical disability as a consequence of sin. They regarded sound physical health and comfortable circumstances as signs of God’s favour. On seeing the special treatment which the blind man got from Jesus, they responded with jealousy. If other people with disabilities were to get special treatment, the status and security of decent people, who made up the majority of the onlookers, might be threatened. So, they took the man Jesus had cured to the arbiters of law and order, who were totally unprepared for the challenge dished up to them by a man they had categorised as disreputable. The Pharisees argued that, if Jesus had sinned by curing the man on the Sabbath, the cured man must also be sinful. When the man beat them at their own game, they excluded him from the synagogue. When status and privilege are threatened, resentment often follows. Is there a lesson there for us?