Rev. Sandy Lacey
March 15, 2026
When I think about things that are a challenge to explain, one of the things I think about is communion. Author, Robert Schnase, describes the sacrament of communion as a mystery in that the act transcends description: any attempt to describe or explain it will not be adequate. Words or phrases said in the liturgy stand out for us at different times in our lives and help us to understand its meaning in a new and different way. Those words and phrases are likely insufficient, however, to someone who has never participated in the sacrament of communion. In today’s Gospel passage, the blind man found himself in a similar situation as he tried to explain the miracle of suddenly being able to see. It was a mystery that defied any explanation he could provide or that the religious leaders would accept.
It is hard for most of us to imagine being born blind in our world. My friend, Charlie, taught me a lot about what it meant for him to be blind. After losing his sight as a youth, Charlie told me he was determined to live a “normal” life and he stubbornly insisted on doing things that most people imagined he would never be able to do, such as play t-ball and basketball with his nieces and nephews. He also managed to drive a car at one point in his life too! He enjoyed proving the naysayers wrong. Those of us who knew Charlie remember that he would get angry and upset if people treated him differently because of his blindness. He was an advocate of the blind his entire life and worked both locally and nationally to demand rights for blind people. He truly was a force to be reckoned with, and he did his best to help us understand (as best we could) what it was like to be blind and what he needed and what he absolutely did not need from others.
I do not know what kind of life the blind man had in today’s Gospel text; all I know is that he was born blind and spent his days begging for food/money. We also know that the cultural understanding of the day was that ill and blind people suffered their condition because of some sin that they or their parents did. Jesus not only refutes that cultural understanding, but also heals the man of his blindness. In doing so, Jesus causes a stir in the local Synagogue on the Sabbath day, and we are left with questions of exactly who is blind and who is not.
I know we like to be able to explain things that happen, and we also look for someone or something to blame when things go wrong. For some reason, it seems to make us feel better if we can rationally explain those things that trouble us. If we can point to the cause for our difficulty, then we can do our best to avoid that perceived cause in the future – whether it is an activity or whether it is a person. But some things are just not easily explained and to scapegoat a person or a people for an illness or a condition may make us feel better for a while, but the explanation will ring hollow eventually. Because we know that there will always be some difficulties that defy any explanation.
Gail O’Day, in her commentary on the Gospel of John, says “sight and blindness in John are not defined by one’s physical sight but by one’s openness to the revelation of God in Jesus.” Jesus tells us in this passage there is opportunity in any difficulty, blindness or something else, for God’s goodness to be revealed if “our eyes are open to see it.” In John’s Gospel we hear about a blind man who could not physically see but had more “sight” than the Pharisees/religious leaders who were spiritually blind.
Let’s talk about the religious leaders – what was their problem? Could it be a lack of imagination? Could it be closed-mindedness? It is as if they said, “Wait a minute – this cannot be the same guy who was blind. It is a trick!” They asked him the same questions over and over again to see how he would change his story, knowing that he must be lying. And then when semi-convinced that it is the same guy who was blind and begging, they focus their skepticism on what God is able to do. (As if that is a question we should ever ask!) Sometimes we can be so closed-minded that we, in essence, limit God’s work in our lives. We clench our fists and close our eyes – “it cannot be – God never works this way.” Or we roll our eyes and dismiss the report of an extraordinary experience, saying as we shrug our shoulders, “That never happens. “Bring his parents and we’ll get to the bottom of it!” After questioning the blind man and his parents and failing to achieve the satisfactory answer they were hoping for; they tried something else. Their next tactic was to insist that the extraordinary healing had been the work of a demon, someone who is against God. But the newly sighted man rebuffs this when he reminded them that no demon has that kind of power. The religious leaders were then left with no choice but to throw him out of the synagogue. That is the problem with closed-mindedness; we cannot imagine all the different ways God can be revealed in our midst. The religious leaders closed their minds and hearts and eyes to the grace of God standing right in front of them. Fear of change, fear that they might not know everything, kept them from imagining something great. Instead, they kept their eyes (and by extension, their hearts) clenched shut and their opportunity to witness God’s amazing grace passed them by.
I wish I could say that we never struggle with this kind of closed-mindedness, but the truth is that being open to a different reality from what we have always known is scary to us as well. Being closed-minded means allowing fear of the unknown, fear of the what-if, fear of the not being in control – to consume us. It is unsettling for us to not be in charge and it is hard for us to shut up, be quiet, and listen for God’s purpose to be revealed. We would rather put up our hands or put our finger in our ears, and shake our heads, “no.”
The religious leaders did not know they had a gift that day in the synagogue. Instead, they perceived Jesus and the healing of the blind man as a threat. As I connect this lesson both personally and corporately, I wonder where we have our eyes clenched shut. Where is Rockledge Presbyterian’s “blind spot?” Are there programs or ways of doing things that no longer work for how they were intended and we need to consider something different? Change is hard, no question. It makes us a little unsettled when we do not know the future. But sometimes we do have to make way for possibilities. It is okay, and even good, to grieve what has been lost as we make way for new possibilities. The newly sighted man’s life in today’s text did not stay the same. His life would have to change. New possibilities were definitely on his horizon. Even good changes require openness and self-reflection as we move forward.
In today’s passage, we learn that there was a cost for the man in telling the truth. It cost him his original community of faith, and perhaps estrangement from his parents. There is always a cost when we listen to Jesus and follow where he leads. It may mean leaving some things behind – traditions, particular world-views, protections, old ways of seeing, even friends and family who refuse to see and who shake their head, “no” to us.
The famous preacher Tom Long says that what we have in this passage, and many times in our lives, is a collision of worlds – where the new world confronts the old world. The blind man found Jesus and that is when his troubles really began. To really see is to be drawn into the light of Christ and light always drives away darkness. That will likely necessitate change. In the familiar images of John’s Gospel, light always confronts darkness and not only confronts it, but invades it. Like yeast that permeates dough and salt that completely changes the flavor of food, light changes the world that it is in. That kind of change is trouble with a capitol T because people do not want to have their world, minds, hearts, and sight turned inside out and upside down. You don’t just get run out of church for that; Jesus’ witness is that you get killed for that.
So why take the risk? Why even try to overcome the fear and listen/wait for God? Why be open and receptive to a new way of seeing, a new way of knowing, a new way of living, a new way of being community, a new way of healing? Because God is always interested in giving us light and life. Because God’s vision for us is worth seeing, is worth the risk, makes all the difference, and is truly mind and life altering, not only for us personally but also for us as a community of faith. Jesus never promised our faith journey would be easy, only worth it.
The blind man says, “I do not know who he is; I do not know where he has gone; I do not know why I can see, but I do know this: I once was blind and now I see.” May it be so for each one of us. AMEN.