Don't choose blindness

Today is the Sunday of the Man Born Blind.

Fr. Paul had a lot of beefy things to say about this gospel story (John 9:1-38), things that'll stick to your ribs if you let 'em. Three things that stuck to my ribs were the following:

Christ came to give sight to the blind, and sometimes He even restored physical sight, as in the gospel story. But spiritual blindness is more serious. There are three kinds alluded to in the story.

The blindness of passers-by.
After the man was given his sight, people saw him walking around cured and asked each other, "Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?" They had never really looked at him closely enough to have really seen him, when he was a blind beggar.

The blindness of "I don't know, and I don't wanna know."
The blind man's parents were hauled in for questioning by the authorities. When asked if this was their son, and if he had been born blind, and how he came to see, they responded evasively, "Yeah, he's our son and he was blind at birth, but how he got his sight, we don't know. Ask him yourself." This has to be an example of one of the worst cases of uncaring parents or, maybe just fearing for their skins, they just copped out. Fr. Paul sensed that they just wanted to be left alone, "we don't know, and we don't wanna know." Because if they admitted to knowing (and seeing), it might result in a difficult situation (getting kicked out of the synogogue, maybe?).

The blindness of not seeing what is right in front of your face.
The pharisees who questioned the man born blind, when they got his answer that Jesus had given him his sight, they refused to accept it. To them, Jesus was not only NOT the messiah, he was also a sinner (and therefore couldn't possibly have worked a miracle). The blind man mocked them, to show how ridiculously blind they were themselves. The pharisees just told him off and kicked him out, "Are you trying to teach us, and you a sinner through and through, since you were born?"

Yesterday, Brock and I went on our 6th sortie to downtown Portland to read the Word of God. We read the gospel of Mark cover to cover, standing in front of the Skidmore Building at Saturday market to the passing crowd. Fr. Jerry and his presbytera (wife) and their kids passed by while it was my turn to read. I was reading a very good passage nice and loud when I heard "Hey, Roman!" and there I saw the smiling faces of Fr. Jerry and his family. I stopped the reading long enough to take off my cap and call out, "Good morning, Father!" Then I put my cap back on, the Markopoulos family waved a farewell and continued on their way, and I picked up where I left off. This is looking, AND seeing. A few minutes later, a couple I know from church and who often stand near us went by me as I was reading, quite close. I was happy to see them, and so I read a little more boldly and looked right at them as they passed, following them with my eyes until they disappeared. But they never even turned their heads. Did they look at us from a distance and decide we might be something unpleasant, Jehovah Witnesses or something like that, and chose to not see us? Or were they just pre-occupied, innocently, with each other?
This is an example of "the blindness of passers-by" (contrasted to the seeing of passers-by).

When it's Brock's turn to read, I stand next to him and, with an idiotic smile on my face, I look directly at everyone who passes, right in the eyes, if I can catch them. This is not to try to grab their attention in some foolish way. In my flesh, I actually feel afraid to make eye contact, because I don't want to become involved with others; I'm actually a shy person by nature. But when we are witnessing to the Word of God, I try to smile at each person and look them in the eyes, and sometimes they look me in the eyes too. Sometimes a meaningless, almost mocking stare, other times a warm sparkle, sometimes a return smile, and sometimes a kind word. What I want to do by catching their eyes and smiling, is to say, "Hey, from me it's just a greeting, to wish you well, but the risen Lord is in our midst, and He is looking for you!" My flesh (the "old man") doesn't want the bother of getting involved. "I don't know, and I don't wanna know." But my spirit (the "new man" created by Jesus Christ, who lives in me) knows, and wants to know, whatever and whomever the Lord has put before me, in my path. It is the Lord who calls us out of that "don't bother me" tomb—"Lazaros, come forth!"

I cannot give an example of the third kind of blindness without revealing the sins of others, but let me give a short hypothetical situation. Pharisees aren't just folks in the Bible, the bad guys who got Christ killed. It's a kind of spiritual bondage which I have learnt to call "the spirit of religion" or "religious professionalism." This is not dead, but unfortunately still with us in the Body of Christ. It's the spirit that plants the weeds in God's field. It makes for "the appearance of godliness while denying the power thereof." This kind of blindness can affect clergy in their ministry to the laity, and it can also work the other way around. A pastor can refuse to see the true spiritual gifts of one of his flock, because he doesn't have the right educational credentials, for example, or maybe because he doesn't fit into the pastor's 'program'. In this way, the plan of salvation can be delayed (but never derailed) by "the blindness of not seeing what is right in front of your face."

No matter what happens in life, the Word of God is always relevant, and can always be applied to every situation, with faith. This true story of the man born blind is there to tell us, "Don't choose blindness."