"Some of the Pharisees said, 'This man [Jesus] is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.' But others said, 'How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?' And they were divided. 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'." [John 9:16-17]
It's not a lack of piety or belief that keeps people from recognizing the saving power of God in this story; it's arrogant religious certainty. That's the tragedy, and the warning for us. Sometimes the Respectable Religious People are so unquestionably sure they know who is a "sinner" that they are unable to acknowledge the miracle in their midst that has come from God's own hand. And it quite literally a damn shame when we miss it.
This is one of those realities we have a hard time wrapping our minds around, because most of the time we'd think it's a good thing to have strong faith, sure convictions, and solid confidence in what we believe. And, sure, all of that is true. Waffling faith that keeps looking back or is afraid to step out of the boat and onto the water is not a virtue. But when faith curdles into dogmatism--when our faith shifts from being focused on God to being focused on our rightness about what we think about God--we can end up missing what God is actually doing among us, because we've filtered out anything unexpected from our view.
That's what has happened in this story: some of the Respectable Religious People have pre-decided that nothing Jesus does can be good or holy or from God, because he has healed someone on the sabbath day. And this is the hitch--they've decided that their interpretation of what the sabbath commandment means is unquestionable, and therefore when Jesus does something that breaks their interpretation of the rule, they are dead certain that he's broken the commandment... and therefore is a sinner... and must hate the word of God. Funny, isn't it, how we so easily make that leap from "we disagree about what this religious commandment means" to assuming "because you and I disagree, YOU must be wrong, YOU must be the sinner, and YOU must reject the word and authority of God." Jesus, of course, doesn't do any of those things, despite the fact that he believes the sabbath commandment allows for healing and restoring life--in fact, that is the purpose of sabbath in the first place. The trouble here with the Respectable Religious People isn't that they take their faith seriously and care about practicing their piety--it's rather than they are unwilling to even consider the possibility that they could be wrong in their interpretations... and because of that, they set themselves up to miss out on the presence of God's saving power in their midst.
And of course it's easy for us 21st century church folk to rag on this particular group of Pharisees in this particular episode, and to miss the way we do the very same thing. It may not be a miraculous restoration of sight that happens in the course of this day, but all too easily, we make decisions in advance of who "must be" a sinner because they disagree with us, and therefore, we assume they are not only wrong but opposed to God and God's ways. And instead of seeing other people who differ as people who love the same God we do and who are striving their best to live out their faith in that God, we end up saying, "Because we disagree, YOU are wrong--and since I love God you must HATE God." We end up parting company with folks who are striving their very best, just as surely as we are striving our best, to seek the will of God and love the way Jesus loves. And we end up letting our faith become rigid and brittle like a weathered old wooden beam, rather than flexibly strong like a living oak that can sway in the breeze without snapping.
This is at least part of why it is so vitally important for love to include intellectual humility rather than unquestionable arrogance. Arrogance isn't just bragging about my accomplishments: it's also what happens when I am so certain about my rightness than I cannot fathom even the possibility that I could be wrong, or that I could have something to learn. And it's not just bragging that kills Christ-like love--it's when I allow my rigid certainty to keep me from seeing others as people through whom God might be moving, people whom God is healing and saving right now, and even people through whom God might be teaching me something. When our faith is no longer teachable and correctible--when I am unwilling to hear someone else's perspective or see how another person views things--I should be worried that my faith is no longer in God, but in my own certainty. And that kind of certainty is an idol of the most insidious kind.
Today, without becoming spineless jellyfish who have no substance or convictions, perhaps it's enough for us simply to practice the humility that dares to say, "Maybe I'm not right about everything--and if I'm not, how would I know?" Maybe before we leap to saying our disagreements automatically mean that THOSE PEOPLE must hate God or reject the Bible, we could stop and ask, "Is there the possibility that I have something to learn here--and could I be at risk of missing out on what God is up to?"
A story like this one says to me that Jesus is willing to go out of his way to help us to remove those filters we've put up that keep us from seeing God moving in unexpected ways. Maybe today's the day we let him in close enough to restore our vision to see God's goodness where we didn't think it could be found, right before our eyes.
Jesus, break down the arrogance in our minds that keeps us from seeing where you are at work, and keeps us from recognizing the people through you are trying to get through to us.
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