As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
John 9:1-42
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” 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. 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.”
The [religious leaders] did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the [religious leaders] , for the [religious leaders] had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
My sermon from the Fourth Sunday in Lent (March 15, 2026) on John 9:1-42
When I was in college, I spent eighteen months working as a web programmer for Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. My work involved maintaining the school’s website and helping professors with a variety of IT support. But the primary project I was involved with was moving the school towards a more paper-free future. When someone needed to buy a new computer or needed something fixed in a classroom, a lot of different pieces of paper signed by a variety of people needed to be gone through before it was taken care of. The school wanted to put this clunky yet efficient system onto the World Wide Web. This was, at that time, not easy to do since everything needed to be built by hand. And many of us know from personal experience the weeping and gnashing of teeth that comes when management or a consultant decrees it’s time for the company to change what we do. The sales pitch we’ve all heard or shared about how our lives will be infinitely better rarely comes true. It’s possible the new system would make everything flow in amazing ways. Yet what usually happens is those who built the system – or who are making the money off the new system – become the focus of everything instead. And those who don’t seek out early retirement spend their days filing dozens and dozens of support tickets showing how everything is way harder than it needs to be. Staying focused on what matters isn’t always easy to do and in today’s reading from the gospel according to John, Jesus invites us to keep our focus on what matters too.
Now we, once again, heard another long story from the gospel according to John. Two weeks ago we listened as a religious leader named Nicodemus visited Jesus in the middle of the night and heard how much God loves the world. Then, last week, we saw that love lived out when a Samaritan woman’s experience of Jesus led her to become the first evangelist in John’s version of Jesus’ life. Today’s reading occurred a bit further along in Jesus’ story and he was, once again, wandering around the city of Jerusalem. After getting in an argument with some folks in the Holy Temple, he then took a long stroll outside the city’s gates. I imagine, as he walked, Jesus noticed all the pilgrims, travelers, merchants, and workers who moved in and out of the city. Yet it the midst of all those people, Jesus also saw a man who was born blind. We sense that this man lived a rather precarious existence. He spent a lot of his time by the gates begging folks for money and food. Those who saw him and who even shared their resources with him expected him to always be there. But he also, at the same time, faded into the background, remaining nameless and not worthy of their attention and focus. And one of the reasons why that might have been was expressed by the disciples’ question. It was assumed those with a physical, mental, or emotional ailment or difference had either caused that issue for themselves or inherited it because of some misdeeds caused by a prior generation. And while we might not be as blunt as the disciples, we often wonder the same thing. We do recognize there are some things we can’t control and we know our genetics and the environment we were raised in shapes who we’ve become. But we also, either consciously or unconsciously, assume that if we work hard, play by the rules, try our best, and do more good than we are bad, our life will end up okay. It’s a way of looking at the world that seeps into how we see everyone else in the world too. And while we don’t necessarily believe everyone’s outcome should be the same, we trust everyone already has every opportunity they need to make life grand. We can, with a lot of grit and individual effort, overcome whatever hand we’ve been dealt. And if someone is not living the kind of life they want to live, then someone must have done something wrong.
This point of view can, I think, influence what we focus on when it comes to what happened in John chapter 9. When we hear about Jesus’ ability to change someone’s eyes, we act as if that’s what Jesus’ ministry was all about. But I wonder if John was inviting us to notice something different since Jesus’ time with the mud only lasted for a handful of verses. In fact, Jesus’ physical presence within this story is very short. Most of this text is devoted to how this man, after his encounter with Jesus refused, to be declared as anything other than a beloved child of God. He, like the Samaritan woman at the well, heard how he was already known to God and God promised to never let him go. And this reading is supported if we notice our translation of this passage has chosen to add a few words to the text that don’t necessarily have to be there. In verse 3 where it says “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him,” those words – “he was born blind” – remind us of the question Jesus was answering. But if you look at the ancient Greek text behind our English translation, those words aren’t even there. This man didn’t exist to be an object lesson for what we receive when we’re faithful. And that’s because even before Jesus mixed a little spit and dirt together, he was already part of what God was doing in the world. When we focus too much on what happened to his eyes, we forget what he already saw and who saw him. And while the community around the man couldn’t imagine him as something other than a beggar sitting by the gates, Jesus saw him as a person worthy of grace and love. The miracle in chapter 9 we should focus on wasn’t his eyes being changed in some extraordinary way. The real miracle was that no matter what the rest of the world said or saw, he was – and always will be – a beloved child of God.
Now it’s completely typical, normal, and faithful to wonder about all that stuff that’s happened to us and if our choices and experiences shaped the life we lived. But this wondering, I think, shouldn’t remove the fact that sometimes stuff just happens. We can’t predict or control every joy or every heart break because life is complicated and when our focus ignores the real people who make up our story, what we see ends up being too small. Back at the school of hotel administration, what we did to help people participate in the new digital system was just ask what they wanted. And what all the Phd’s and those who didn’t graduate high school wanted was to make the digital forms look like the paper ones they knew so well. How those forms were handled were completely changed. But when we keep our focus on the people as they truly are, our life grows. And that’s because when we do that, we’re already participating in the promise Jesus has given to us and the world. You are, in baptism and through faith, a beloved child of God. And one of your purposes in this world is to to be one of the ways God reveals God’s love to the world. You are, because of Christ, always more than what you’ve lived through or whatever’s happened to you. And even when the rest of us act as if you’re less than us or merely an object lesson for what faith can do, Jesus has, through the Cross, shown how His focus has always been on you. We can, with His help, refuse to see anyone as something other than who they are and through the love, mercy, compassion, and support we share reveal how God’s grace is always focused on them too.
Amen.