Look For The Shepherd

John 9:13-17

The story of Jesus healing the blind man in the Gospel of John is a story many Christians know well. Myself?

I struggle with some parts of it.

The story is the entire 9th chapter of John and it starts with a really important question, and the first of my struggles with the story. "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that this man was born blind?" This is a very direct example of a problem we have today in our scriptures, praying, and even hymns—where physical disabilities (blindness, paralysis, etc.) are directly linked to whether or not someone has sinned or is sinful.

In this question we see the additional problem of linking generational sin to blindness. Were his parents sinful and thus he was afflicted with blindness since birth? Was he destined to be blind because he was a sinful person? These are the questions Jesus is confronted with by his disciples. And I really, really dislike his answer: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him."

Great! It isn't about his or his parents sin, instead he is simply needed as a prop in John's story of Jesus' miracles to prove Jesus' divinity or something. Effectively, this blind man (who has not spoken yet in the story) is a prop, a narrative device used by John to "prove" Jesus' power and anointing.

I don't like it.

Whether Jesus actually did this, or this is simply the way the gospel writer of John wrote the story remains to be seen--but in either case, I think one thing that strikes me is an invitation NOT to objectify people's disabilities. There is more to someone in a power chair who has cerebral palsy than how they might inspire you because they are still able to function. There is more to someone than the blindness they deal with while still living their life.

There is an entire body of academic theology that focuses on disabilities. Disability theology raises a vital stop sign for us who aren't physically disabled or neurodivergent when we unthinkingly allow these lived experiences to be linked directly with sinfulness, or when we neglect the wisdom and revelation God extends to disabled people because they aren't the kind of people we are used to following or learning from.

The only time I have had a spiritual director, it was a friend, ordained Deacon in the UMC, and someone who used a wheelchair to get around because he had cerebral palsy. In some ways, he unlocked my awareness of deep struggles I didnt know I had until I later really understood them in therapy.

There were times where I unconsciously objectified his disability. I remember thinking about how instructive it was for me that I had to slow down my frenetic pace of thinking and put more effort into listening because my spiritual director spoke much more slowly than I was used to listening. I objectified the physical embodiment of his disability: "Look at me and how my spiritual director's disability helps me to listen better!" I am a little mortified.

When Jesus did heal the blind man (have you noticed how the blind man actually didn't ask to be healed?), he was immediately met with absurd skepticism. "Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided."

We have a tendency as humans to box one another into what we can expect of them. We do it to people with disabilities today, and the Pharisees put their willful ignorance of Jesus' power on full display back then. The disciples limited the blind man's experience of life down to whether or not he or his parents sinned. We do this all of the time.

What if we made ourselves ready to be surprised by people? What if we got our own lack of imagination out of the way and expected great things from people that society tells us don't offer great things? What if we could really find the abundance that is hidden in our perception of scarcity? What if we strove to build a world that didn't put so many stumbling blocks in front of those whose physical embodiment is not "normal?"

That's where the miracles are. At the end of this story, the man-who-was-once-blind worshipped Jesus. And Jesus flipped the entire notion of everyone's beliefs about blindness on its head: "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains."