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Sermon on John 9: Why Bad Things Happen

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Primary Text: John 9

If God is good, why do bad things happen? The old answer is sin. God is punishing us. There is plenty of biblical evidence to support the idea. Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden. Moses never enters the promised land. The Kingdom of Judah went into exile in Babylon. For thousands of years, sin was the standard answer. And then Jesus came along.

He was walking along, and he saw a man blind from birth. The Bible specifically says he saw the man, not the disciples. Jesus stops, and the disciples ask, “Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” They’re not even asking why. They already know why. He’s blind. Therefore, somebody sinned. The only question is who. Mom? Dad? Or was it the baby? Maybe the baby thought some sinful thought before it was born and that’s why God made it blind.

What an awful thing to say. About as awful as calling AIDS the gay plague. Or saying hurricane Katrina was sent to punish New Orleans. Or that girls who dress provocatively get what they deserve. Or any of the hundred ways we still blame victims for their circumstances today.

But Jesus refuses to answer their either/or question. It’s not Mom’s fault. It’s not Dad’s fault. It’s not the baby’s fault. This blindness is not God’s punishment for sin. This blindness is an opportunity for the light of God to shine in the darkness.

And here’s the crazy thing. He doesn’t even ask permission. Jesus spits on the ground kneads the dirt into mud, puts mud on the blind guy’s eyes, and tells him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Get it? He’s still blind! He’s got spit-mud on his face, and now he has to walk across town to go wash in this specific pool.

Brothers and sisters, I wish I could say this was unusual, but it’s not. Look at scripture. Look at the lives of the saints. God has this nasty habit of stepping into the middle of people’s lives with an interruption and an obligation. Abram had to leave his people. Moses had to save his people. Noah had to build an ark. And if you think that wasn’t a hassle, go listen to Bill Cosby talk about God arguing with Noah. It’s hilarious.

Again and again, God steps into our lives and wrecks everything. That’s what we see. That’s all we can see. The interruption. The obligation. We don’t see the healing until after we take the step of faith. That’s what this blind man did. He didn’t ask for it. He didn’t understand it, but he did it. He trusted, and he hoped, and somehow he made it to the pool. He washed his eyes, and he saw.

That would be a great place to end the story, wouldn’t it? God messes with your life, you respond with trust, and God heals your life. Woo hoo! That works great in fairy tales. Everyone lives happily ever after.

But scripture is too real for that. The formerly blind guy goes back to his own hometown, and nobody recognizes him.  “Hey, isn’t that the blind guy?” “Nah. Just looks like him.” He’s been living off their charity his entire life, and they don’t even recognize him. Jesus is the only one who actually sees him.

And look at the difference. A beggar his whole life, an embarrassment to his parents, and a shame to the community, bent with the weight of ostracism and prejudice, and look at him now! He looks his neighbors in the eye and says, “I am the man.”

Everyone is questioning him, and you can almost see him growing. First, he’s respectful. Then he starts to get a little terse. “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.” Which puts the preachers in a quandary. It’s the sabbath. You’re not supposed to work on the sabbath. Even to help. You’re only allowed to help people if it’s life threatening. Blindness doesn’t cut it. Plus Jesus made mud, which is kneading. Kneading is specifically not allowed. And then he tells the guy to talk a long walk and wash up.

It’s almost as if Jesus is intentionally messing with the sabbath laws just to make them angry. It’s almost as if Jesus is forcing them to decide what matters more, their religious rules, or that fact that a blind guy can see.

They call the man before them and question him again. “Give glory to God and tell the truth,” they say. So he does. “I was blind. Now I see.” Which makes the even angrier. Then he starts getting sarcastic. “I’ve told you already. You want to hear it again? You want to be his disciple too?” One day ago, he was filth under their feet. Now he’s throwing out one-liners. “You don’t know where he comes from? How remarkable. You’re the religious elite, this guy healed a blind man, and you have no idea where he’s from?”

Then they play the card they’ve been holding all along. “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out. The truth of their heart comes dribbling out their mouths.“God stuck you blind because you started sinning inside your mother’s womb.”  The truth of their religion is shown by their actions. They don’t just throw him out. They excommunicate him for the fault of not being blind any more.

He’s abandoned by his own parents. He’s shunned by his own church. That’s what it is to be a disciple of Jesus. He messes up your life, fixes what’s broken inside of you, and the victory costs you the life you used to have. He can’t live his small little beggars life, pitied, and half-loved, and ashamed. That life doesn’t fit him any more. Which is great! Except he’s alone.

That’s when Jesus finds him. Jesus finds him! This is the good shepherd. He knows his flock by name and they know his voice. He binds their wounds. Builds their strength. Leads them through the dark valley. And when they’re lost, he finds them.

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” The ones who have been pushed down so long they almost think they deserve it? He opens their eyes. The people with all the power, especially the religious power? He shows the entire world how blind they truly are.

Jesus is upending the order of things. It’s not just the power structures. It’s the ideas that go with them. If bad things happen because of sin, then every horror in history is the fault of the victim, and every one of us who isn’t tall, pretty, and rich doesn’t really count. It’s a venomous idea that reenforces everything cruel and stupid that we still see on the TV every day.

No, bad things are not God’s punishment for sin. They are opportunities for the light to shine in the darkness. Just like he saw something in us, and messed up our life, so that our stunted little life doesn’t fit us any more, that’s what we do for others. We see the people no one else sees. We see the potential where others only see problems. We see opportunity where others only see the cost. And when something hard or horrible happens, we don’t blame the victim. We get to work.

Sermon on John 9: Why Bad Things Happen



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