READINGS

1. John 9

HOMILY

This Sunday we have the second of our three more or less chapter lengths Johannine passages.

Last week we saw Jesus offering living water and we saw the effect on the Samaritan woman as she was turned herself into a bearer of Living Water.

Today we have a look at Jesus as the light of the world and as the criterion for the world that he's come as the Judgment or the Criterion of the World, by which we may know and see things.

Next Sunday he will be the resurrection and the life.

If he was more than a prophet last time, here he is doing something even more striking: he's demonstrating that he is the creator.

The relationship between Creator and humans - this is Central to John's Gospel and to our understanding of the Gospel - is beautifully brought out in this passage.

The man blind from birth is going to become the picture of the disciple in this Gospel.

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.

A relatively young man as we discover since his parents are still alive (they'll come into the picture later).

His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’

They're living within the moral universe or the magical universe of 'if someone is in some way defective, someone this fault it must be'.

Someone must have done something wrong.

I think that it's here we have one of the absolutely clear answers from Jesus, which later gets brought out very clearly by the blind man.

Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.

What we have in this chapter is precisely the revealing of God's works in this person.

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.

Jesus is now going to do the works of him who sent me.

And the works refer to the continuation of the creative work of God. That's the way it works.

In John's Gospel, Jesus says my father works is working still and I am working.

So here we're talking about the creation being made full in a human.

The night is coming when no one could work, so at the time of the crucifixion it'll all be opened again thereafter.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’

This Gospel is the illustration of him being the light of the world.

It's not merely an accidental light, it's the light that flows from creation itself.

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, ...

Apparently behind the Greek here, there are Hebrew or Aramaic references to ground, Adam, Earth and Adam the first man.

What is he doing? He's fulfilling Adam. He's making Adam whole.

The notion that, as humans, we are all in one way or other incomplete and that what Jesus is doing, what the Creator does coming into our life is not simply rescue us from, as it were, an evil creation.

Say no creation was wonderful. It somehow got trapped in something less than itself.

I am here to make it whole, so here is the Creator producing Adam.

saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). 

Some people seem to see this as a reference to baptism, but it would be a standard sign of respect for the customs of being able to show afterwards that you had gone through purification.

Up till now, he's been purely passive.

People have seen him, he hasn't said anything, he's being purely an object: nothing human about him at all really.

Someone who people appointed to talked about and then Jesus has done something to him.

No conversation until he says to him go wash in the pool of Siloam.

That's the first instruction he gets.

Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’

Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ 

Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’ 

He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’

So they're still used to him being a non-person in their midst, about whom people talk, but who does not himself talk.

He has no agency, but now he keeps saying I am the man.

In Greek, what he says is a phrase which usually only Jesus gets to say: ἐγώ εἰμι (egō eimi) - I am.

The other person who has to say is Jesus when Jesus says I am.

It's a reference to the Lord: it is God, it's the Creator.

So here we have the created one at last standing up and being a human being able to be the image of I am, as if we know that Jesus is I am in the big sense.

This is what it looks like as a human to being gradually brought into agency and life.

But they kept asking him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’

He'd had to interrupt them to get across that point, but now they ask him 'if you are that person, why your eyes opened?'.

He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, “Go to Siloam and wash.” 

That's all very straightforward.

Then I went and washed and received my sight.’ 

They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ 

He said, ‘I do not know.’

That's probably obvious - he couldn't see when he was around and now he can see - you wouldn't recognize him.

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

Obviously something rather significant has happened.

Here we get a second clue about why this is important.

Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

So the importance of while it is still day this was the final day of rest before the whole of creation had to start again.

At the Sabbath day, theoretically Jesus ought to have done a work, but he'd already talked about having to work while it is still light and the father is working still and I am working.

So he had done this work, which was the bringing of creation to completeness.

Now that's going to be a discussion: is this sort of thing able to be done on the Sabbath?

Then 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.’ 

He's very straightforward.

Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.’

Rather than looking at the person, they're looking at the events, the propriety of all this being done.

But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?’

That seems a reasonable question.

So something has happened what are we going to do about it.

He can't be a good person, because he's under the Sabbath.

But how can he have done something and he had not be a good person?

They were divided.

This is the worst possible thing that could happen to religious authorities: a division of opinion amongst them.

They can't present united front.

So 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.’

So they're now trying to recreate their unity thanks to the blind man.

They're giving him the chance to take part in this conversation.

He's a prophet.

Well of course this was not a happy answer for them, because that didn't resolve the problem.

How could he both have done this work and it not be another Sabbath and it must still be a prophet?

So some of them came up with the idea that he had not been blind.

The 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 and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’

After talking to the blind man himself, they go for the parents in the hopes that they can put off their division problem.

His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but 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.

In other words, as parents, they realize that they're facing up a bunch of righteous and that's a very dangerous place to be so they passed the buck back to their son.

His 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.

Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’

You could see here it would happen in any group, in any religious culture.

It's not a particularly Jewish thing that, as the religious in charge feel the threat of division, they try to unite together over against someone and put them out.

So 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.’

'Give glory to God' is the formal phrase for putting somebody on oath.

So they want him to give evidence to that, they want him to recognize the truth of that.

He answered, ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’

Again this is this marvelous charity for the response, just as Jesus's response to the disciples earlier.

I don't know any of the issues to do with morality here.

I know that I was in a bad state and I'm in a better state. Simple.

They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’

They're now looking for some technical excuse by why they can solve their problem and retain their unity and not have to deal with this.

Maybe it was by witchcraft or something that Jesus had done this and they could dismiss him.

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?’

So it's clear that this guy is now standing up and having talked straightforwardly. He's being quite provocative.

You know, really, come on... you really don't need to work out your divisions against me and what he did was perfectly clear.

So you can't be united against him either.

Then they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 

We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’

This is a possible reference to a Nazareth being a kind of a non-place, but they want to say 'we've given you under oath', that's to speak in the truth, all the law is the law of Moses and this man was absolutely not part of our understanding of anything to do with God.

The man answered, Here is an astonishing thing! 

You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 

We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.

So here we have the bound born blind actually beginning to engage in a theological argument with them.

A person of no preparation, no education obviously, no reading skills up until now.

We know that God does not listen to sinners, so that takes out the sinner aspect of it, but he does listen the one who worship him obeys his will.

And that takes us back to the phrases used in the discussion with the Samaritan.

Here it's the Jewish former blind man who is lecturing the Pharisees on worshiping him and obeying his will.

Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.

If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.

And this is the conclusive argument after all.

He's saying: this man has taken part in the Act of Creation out of nothing.

This is not possible unless he comes from God.

Only God conceivably could do this.

So it's really rather a masterful argument and they of course have no response to this.

It doesn't resolve their question, but it does bring out how lost they are.

They answered him, ‘You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ 

And they drove him out.

In other words, they resort to ad hominem and they throw him out.

Finally their unity coalesces around him.

So we have this interesting account of simultaneously an inclusion: Jesus bringing the Adam into fulfillment of Creation, that person acquiring ever more agency being able to say 'I am'.

Starting to be able to get recognition as a starting travel to talk and then to answer back and then to recognize who God is in a very falsome way.

He's being brought to life and has recognized the criteria, which is of someone who is turned me from someone who was in some way lacking something to someone who now has it.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’

He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ 

Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’

So you have seen it and the one speaking with you is he.

It must have meant referring to the time that he was actually curing his eyes, but presumably he wasn't able to see very well.

He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him.

So here is someone worshiping in Spirit and in truth, who has been brought to the fullness of humanity not simply by allowing God to do something to him, but by having fought his way as it were through various false paths to interpret this way so that he would fit into someone else's system.

And this is very significant.

Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’

This is exactly what he's done here.

He's indicated that someone who was visibly blind he has turned him into a symbol, a sign of those who are treated as without worth, without personhood, without voice, without sight, nothing to enable them to participate how they are brought into full piece of participation, while those who think they can see, they're the ones who control everything, have voice, have participation, run the show.

They're compliant, they can't see what's going on in front of their face.

Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’

I think we can imagine the translations being slightly more cultural than that.

Is it as meaning effectively and I suppose you're saying we're blind.

Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. 

But now that you say, “We see”, your sin remains.

If you were in the position of people who weren't able to see what's going on, would not be a problem.

It's your reinforcing of your unity over against this person that has made you sinful, because you're insisting on your sight over against something that everybody can see, which has been brought into being and which you have rejected.

So Jesus, the Creator, brings the fullness of creation into the light in such a way that Creation becomes fully human and develops agency, being able to recognize the Lord in what he makes.

At the same time, those people who are frightened of loss of authority, prestige and power, gangs up against this person and actually becomes blind, not actually being able to see the Creator in their midst.

This is a wonderful dynamic account of the Creation, because we normally think of Creation as something separate from the cultural process of becoming fully ourselves.

Yet, in the Christian understanding, it's precisely the notion that we are all on our way to being fully created, but that are being fully created requires the work of the Lord who requires us to be forgiven, so that we can learn our way out of the entanglements of our blindness, our belonging to false structural forms of goodness over against despised others, so that eventually we can stand tall and say, as an image of God, 'I am'.