Lent 4 / Year A
This
morning we hear our third big conversation of the Lenten season. This one involves Jesus, his disciples, a man
blind from birth, the man’s parents and neighbors, and local religious
authorities. Unlike the first two
conversations and the one we will hear next Sunday, Jesus is a minor actor in
this encounter. The blind man has the
leading role with most of his lines coming after he receives the gift of
sight.
The
conversation begins with the disciples asking Jesus a question. On seeing the blind man they wonder, “Who
sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” It is telling the disciples don’t address the
man or do anything to help him. To them,
he is little more than an object lesson; the impetus for asking a theological
and theoretical question. For Jesus, the
blind man is a human being. And his
blindness is not the result of sin, but like everything broken and bruised in
this world it is an opportunity for God’s gracious and merciful healing power
to make a person whole.
The
disciples do what we do even in our own day.
That is, when something goes wrong we want to know who is at fault; who
is to blame. Blame has been much
discussed this week as some people seek to determine who is at fault for the
COVID 19 pandemic. A popular target is
“the Chinese” – whatever that means. Now,
finding the source of an outbreak – either initially or locally – is important
work because it can help to contain the spread, but finding the source is not
the same as assigning blame.
Why do we
blame? When something goes wrong we have
a deep need to understand what happened and why it happened. Rarely is it satisfying or comforting to say,
“There is no one to blame because ‘it just happened.’” If bad things can “just happen”, it follows
they can’t be fixed and therefore can occur again… and again… and again. Simply put, we do not want to live in a world
where we have so little control. When
something goes wrong it is much more comforting to find someone – anyone – to
blame.
Every time
a company introduces an Edsel or New Coke, the blame game kicks in. It was marketing’s fault, or R&D, or
manufacturing. Eventually someone will
take the blame, heads will roll, jobs will be lost, and everyone left will feel
better about themselves. In business
they call this “the blame culture.” If
it is your fault then it isn’t my fault.
You are a bad person and I am a good person.
Most of us
don’t accept blame passively. We fight
by deflecting the blame either back on our accuser or onto a third party. In fact, the more narcissistic a person is,
the less he or she is able to accept a share of responsibility in what has gone
wrong. For such an individual, the
emotional pain of being wrong is simply too great to bear. As a result, a narcissist always has to be
right and this means those who disagree with him or her always have to be
wrong. Have you ever known a person with
a desperate need to build up him/her self by tearing down others?
For the
disciples, getting word from Jesus about who is to blame ultimately is rooted
in a desire to believe no matter who is at fault they themselves must be good
because they are not afflicted. But, as
I said, for Jesus this is not about finding fault. It is about respecting humanity. It is not about who did what wrong. It is about what can I do or (better put)
what can God working in and through me do for a person in need.
This is the
first great drama played out in today’s big conversation. The second has to do with who deserves
compassion. Oh sure, the religious
leaders feign offense Jesus heals the man on the Sabbath, making him in their
minds a sinner, but their response most certainly is rooted in jealousy and
envy. Like a child who watches a sibling
get something he does not – “Hey, no fair!
How come Billy gets extra ice cream and I don’t?” – the religious
leaders are upset Jesus does something compassionate for the man while doing
nothing for them. Perhaps even more to
the point, Jesus does something compassionate for the man they are not able to
do. Envy and jealousy.
Have you
ever noticed how acts of compassion are often met with criticism? “Why should the church give out bags of food
each week? Those people should go out
and get job and work for a living.” “Why
do senior citizens get their own shopping hours and I have to fight it out with
everyone else when the shelves are bare?”
“How come those NBA players got tested for the virus while ordinary
people are turned away?”
Compassion
criticism rooted in jealousy and envy sees the world only with the eyes of
self-interest to the exclusion of all other perspectives. But those other perspectives add something
critical to the picture, like adding color to a black and white
photograph. Did you know many of our
Food Pantry clients hold jobs. I see
them working at Food Lion and Hardies, but this work does not provide enough
income for them to make it on their own.
A bag with five food items supplements what they are able to do for
themselves and is well deserved. Others
are elderly or disabled and not capable of being productive wage earners. When it comes to special shopping hours,
rather than complaining about what others get that you do not, perhaps you
might advocate for additional adaptions that might be beneficial, rather than
petty. And when it comes to who gets
tested and who does not, isn’t the important question not how scarce resources
are meted out, but why such necessary resources are scarce in the first place and
what can be done about it.
So, we add today’s
conversation to our first two. “The
Intentional Conversation” and “the Accidental Conversation” have a new
companion. Lets call it “The Blaming and
Complaining Conversation.” Perhaps the
single most significant effect it has is to obscure the incredibly wonderful
and marvelous thing Jesus does in one person’s life. This should not surprise us because blaming
and complaining have a way of blinding us to the good things God is doing in
this world. And they have a way of
blinding us to the miracles God does for us.
I realize I
am not fully aware of the anxiety these days raise for many of you. My life, which is largely lived alone, has
not changed much. The more I interact
with many of you the more I realize I am the exception, not the rule. Still, during these days of trial and fear,
God is doing incredible things. It is
easy to be blind to what these things may be.
I love the tenacity of the man who sees for the first time in his life
(and just imagine what an overwhelming sensory experience it must be for
him!). In hurricane of blame and
complaining he remains focused on the blessing he experiences: “Here is an
astonishing thing… Jesus opened my eyes!”
In the midst of all that is troubling and fearful, may your eyes be open
to all the ways God is present and active in your life. This is not the time to allow blaming and
complaining to swallow up all that is good and godly.
