The Scripture Reading this week is John 9:1-41
The Sermon title is He Spat on the Ground...What Happened Next will Amaze You
Early Thoughts: Why didn’t someone tell me decades ago that spit and dirt make such a
great healing tool? I could have been a millionaire before starting
kindergarten!!!!
Who is blind? How and Why? How is that blindness to be removed? SOme of the questions that come up for me this week.
In the passage this week we have a healing story, though to be honest it really appears that the
healing is not the point of the pericope. The healing is a launching
point for some theological (and possibly political) discussion leading
to a statement of faith. Then we end with some shade being thrown at
those who are unwilling to see (there are none so blind…).
Another problematic piece is the political overtones of the dialogue
with the parents. The text claims that the parents choose not to answer
because of fear of “the Jews”. [To me it makes perfect sense that
parents would say of their adult child–go ask him, he can speak for
himself.] Traditionally I have been taught that this, and other
references in the Gospel, refers to a time when Christians were being
turfed from the synagogues, which would still make it anachronistic
within the narrative as it stands. In the Jewish Annotated New Testament
they suggest that even this is something that is hard to find
historical references for. As with any time John says “the Jews” I see a
potential for anti-Semitic interpretation. It makes it possible to read
the rest of the passage as saying “those silly sinful, willfully blind
Jews. why will they not see?”
Finally, there is a whole issue of how do we talk about the need to
be healed from blindness, or the question of being willfully blind,
without verging into a form of ableism?
A man is healed and becomes a witness. With a whole lot of other stuff surrounding it. I wonder what the sermon will have to say about it?
--Gord
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