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Week Thirty-Eight, Day Five

John 9

The Pharisees are upset because Jesus healed the blind man on the Sabbath. First they challenge whether he had been actually blind at all. They call his parents as witnesses. The parents refuse to stand up for Jesus, or even for their own son for that matter, but they did confirm that he had been blind from birth. Twice they question the man himself. The second time they accuse Jesus of being a sinner because he did not live by their rules. In response to that, the formerly blind man utters one of the best known lines in the Gospel: “Whether he is a sinner or not I do not know. This I do know, once I was blind, but now I can see.” (John 9:25)

This is an example we all must learn to follow. We don’t have to get caught up in theological debates or disputes about what the Bible says or means. All we must do is bear witness boldly to the experience of our life. I have spent almost 30 years trying to persuade lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of this. They have experienced God’s love and grace, and no more proof is needed that you can be lesbian or gay and Christian.

In this response to his unwillingness to deny his own experience, the fundamentalists of that day put him out of the temple. What happens next, however, is a beautiful parable. The man is healed, but he is abandoned by his parents and then rejected by his own faith community. Alone now, Jesus seeks him out and comes to him.

Ironically, even there the Pharisees see and challenge them. Jesus tells the man that those who claim to see (know) so much are the ones who are actually blind. That is the great danger we who know so much face. We forget that at best our knowledge is partial, and we presume to judge others with our partial knowledge. Whenever we do that, we become the fundamentalists. Or, as the wise cartoon character Pogo put it, “We have met the enemy and s/he is us.”

Blessings,

Michael Piazza
President, Hope for Peace & Justice

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