When I was a child, I didn’t know my
eyesight was different from anyone else’s eyesight. I thought everyone had to
hold things this close to their noses to see what they were. (About 4 inches.) I
didn’t see well enough to notice that anyone else saw differently than I did. I
thought people and things were colourful blurs until everyone got close to
them. Just to give you an illustration of how my vision is without eyeglasses,
when I remove them, all of you look like blurs. I can see shapes I know are
people, but I can’t tell females from males, or see people’s facial features,
or see what kind of clothing you are wearing.
When I was about 2 ½ or 3 and learning
to read, one of my parents noticed I was holding the book about an inch from my
face. I was taken to an eye doctor and given a pair of eyeglasses. I don’t
remember much about it except that suddenly I realized the world was an
exciting colourful place, full of beautiful things to look at and touch.
Last Wednesday night my glasses somehow
fell off the night table and ended up under the bed. (I blame it on the house
elf.) I knew my glasses had to be
somewhere. I looked for them frantically, but I couldn’t see well enough to find
them, even using a flashlight in an attempt to reflect off the lenses. I could
not drive, or read, and prepare a proper meal. In case you’re wondering, I do
own several spare pairs of glasses, but they are in a box somewhere that the
people who helped me pack neglected to label. I’ve seldom felt so helpless. I
kept thinking, “I’m blind. I can’t see. What am I going to do?”
I remembered today’s Gospel. I was struck by the idea that I
had been defining myself by my problems rather than my possibilities. After
all, I could see enough to make some sort of breakfast. I could see enough to
know I couldn’t find my glasses without help. And I could root around in packed
boxes by touch rather than sight, even though I avoided boxes I thought might
contain sharp objects. But, I kept thinking, “I’m blind.”
I wonder this morning how we might view the Gospel story
differently if we changed what the man in John’s Gospel is initially called,
“the man born blind.” What would happen if we called him “the man who sees?” What
would happen if we made the same shift John’s Gospel makes by renaming him in
several ways and places? How would that be different for us? How might we view
the transformation of the man who encounters Jesus and receives his sight? And
what might that mean for us when we are confronted with a long-held notion
about someone or some thing?
So often we describe people and
situations in terms of problems. Listen to the language we use; it’s a language
of deficits, shortcomings, and problems. We describe others and ourselves like
this, high-school dropout, alcoholic, problem family, not the sharpest knife in
the drawer. These are all daily expressions we use that define people by their deficits
and by their problems. The man born blind in our Gospel story is one more deficit
description.
We’re a deficit describing society and we see things as
problems. One of our favorite questions is, “What happened?” It’s our polite way of saying, “Who is to
blame?”
And lest you think we only do this to other people, think
about how you sometimes describe yourself. I’m the victim of an unhappy
childhood. I’m a failure at mathematics. I can never seem to get it right. I
tried running but I could never do more than a mile. I’m not creative. I can’t
seem to stay organized. What if we do this instead: acknowledge what we learned
in childhood, praise ourselves for being able to balance our checkbook or
charge account statement, celebrate getting it right or even almost right,
running even one mile, creating something from a pattern, but still creating,
being organized enough to find our wallet?
We define others and ourselves by our problems rather than
our possibilities. And that’s how this morning’s Gospel starts out. The
disciples want to know who is to blame. Who sinned, this man or his parents? Notice, please, that Jesus doesn’t care what happened
or who is to blame. He cares about the greater glory of God that comes through
seeing, whether it’s actual or metaphorical sight. Jesus acts on possibilities
rather than problems. He does this because he knows if we continue to organize
ourselves around problems, we will not move forward.
Just like the people in John’s Gospel, it can be difficult
for us to remember we are no longer “the man born blind.” It can be difficult
for us to remember we have possibilities if we’re stuck in defining the problems.
Yet it’s often easier and more comfortable to define ourselves as less than God
made us.
Instead, Jesus calls us into the future. When we give
ourselves fully to become who God has created us to be, abundant life becomes a
reality: the blind can see, water becomes wine, enemies sit at table together,
people who have suffered a life time are healed, the old becomes new, people
are raised from the dead.
Do this with me. Put your hands over your eyes. Hold them
there so you cannot see. Think about being “the person who sees” and imagine
how things might change. Is there a part of you that objects to the change?
Thank that part of you and ask it what it needs to be satisfied and ready to
change. Remind that part of you that there have been other changes in your life
that were helpful and happy and full of possibilities. Imagine some of those
possibilities. And then imagine the uncountable blessings of transformation in
Jesus’s name. Imagine! Now gently uncover your eyes and see. Abundant life is a
reality. From blind to sight, from problem to possibility, from water to wine,
from enemy to friend, from hurting to healing, from old to new, from death to
life! AMEN
The
Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2017
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