“Don’t Lecture Me“
Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
On March 2, 2008
The lectionary gospel text this morning brings us a story from the gospel of John. This passage, in the cycle of lectionary readings, is read just once every three years, and this is the Sunday. It’s a powerful story about the healing by Jesus of this blind man. It’s one of the longest, if not the longest of lectionary passages that are given to us in the cycle. We’ll read it with several readers as a way of helping to break it up.
As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. Jesus’ 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 Jesus 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.” The blind man kept saying, “I am the man.” 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, I washed, and I received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
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.” But 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 Jews 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 Jews; for the Jews 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, and 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 near 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.
John 9:1-41
Where have you seen Jesus this week? Sometimes faithfulness simply looks like seeing God. Sometimes discipleship simply looks like discerning where Jesus is close to you.
I started reading this text this week, and was trying to think of a title for this sermon. I was drawn to the line in this story where the Pharisees say to the blind man, “Don’t lecture us.” Do you remember that part in the story?
The Pharisees, who see that this man has had a miracle in his life, or at least they see that something in their scheme of things is disrupted, they start trying to quiz him and to interrogate him again and again. He grows weary of their questioning, and finally he just lets them have it.
“Isn’t this interesting,” the man who was formerly blind says to them, “Isn’t this interesting… never in the history of the world has someone who was born blind suddenly been able to see. And this man did this for me. Now you teach that God responds to those who follow him. Yet you’re trying to move heaven and earth to resist acknowledging that God is responding to this man.”
And the Pharisees said to him, “Don’t lecture us. You’ve been blind since you were born, and you’re going to try and lecture us about where we see God at work?”
Where do you see God at work? Have you seen Jesus anywhere this week? Ahh, but the gospel of John is clear that seeing is a lot more than simply having your eyes function. Sometimes, those of us whose eyes have functioned almost our whole lives, or at least did function well our whole lives, sometimes those of us who have eyes that have functioned well have a difficult time discerning what it is that we are seeing. Or at least seeing what is really important. Seeing the priorities around us. Seeing what’s really valuable.
Sometimes people think that preaching is like lecturing. Can you imagine that? Sometimes people think that the preacher goes into his study on Monday and makes a list of things that he needs to lecture the congregation about, and then rifles through the Bible to try and find verses that will help him or her do that, so they can climb up into the pulpit on Sunday and say, “Now you listen to me!”
I want you to know it never happens that way. Never, never, never.
At least when it works, when you let it work, you open the text and you read and you pray, and it starts to bubble up. The living water. The word of life. It just starts coming out. And the text starts coming to you, and bringing you its word. And then, for the rest of the week, again and again, you just keep seeing the text show up in different places in your own life, in your own story.
Jesus just keeps showing up.
I started reading about Jesus helping people to see on Monday. And I found myself wondering where does this happen today? And then, a fellow shows up in my office later in the week. He came to Bruce, and he asked him if he could come back and see me for a moment. I didn’t know him. But he had in his hand a letter that my father had written his parents back in the 1960s.
He said, “You don’t know me, but my mother died two weeks ago, and I’ve been going through her effects. She lived down in Sun City Center. Your father was her pastor. In going through her effects, I found this letter where your father was writing to her and talking about how good it was to see them in church, and how grateful he was for their life and for their presence in the body of Christ.” He said, “I loved my parents so much. I always, when I told them goodbye, I always went up to them and hugged and told them I loved them. And they told me they loved me, too. And then my father died, and that particular day he went to his car and he was kind of in a hurry, and I was in a hurry, and I didn’t have time to say to him what I usually say, and he didn’t have time to say to me what he usually says, and he got in the car and drove off, and he died. I’ve always been troubled, ever since, that I didn’t get to tell him I love you. And then I had a dream. In the dream, my father drove up to me in his car, and he got out of his car and he came up to me and he said, ‘Ken, I love you, and I’m with Jesus.’ And he went and got back in his car and drove away.
“I drove up here because, going through my mother’s effects, that story is with me still, and I just wanted to come and tell you that I think God let me see that. God let me see that.”
And I said, “Amen!”
I started reading about Jesus helping people to see on Monday, and I found myself wondering where does this happen today?
I was in the line at the pharmacy, in the cashier’s line. I was on my way to a meeting where I thought it was really important that I be on time. But my spouse had gotten me to promise I would stop by the pharmacy and pick up this prescription. “Don’t come home without it!” she had said. So I knew that I had just enough time to park, get in the pharmacy, get the prescription, get through the cashier, and get to the meeting right on time. But I didn’t know that I was going to draw Chatty Kathy as the cashier. There were two people ahead of me, and she just had to be cheerful and talkative with every one of them. You know, talking about how nice the weather was, and some of the things that they were buying. And I’m thinking, Good Lord, woman, would you just move it along!
Have you ever felt like sometimes you feel like everybody driving faster than you is a jerk and everybody driving slower than you is an idiot? I was in that place right at that moment. I was irritated! And I was one person away, from her, and I was trying to get her to move it along in my own mind, and all of a sudden she said to the person in front of me something like, “Well, my parents live a long ways away and I haven’t seen them in a year.”
It was just all of a sudden like my eyes were opened. I just saw her differently. I realized this is somebody’s daughter. I just saw her as a real person.
I started reading about Jesus helping people to see on Monday. And I found myself wondering where does this happen today? Mike, I went to see your friend who is recovering from brain surgery. I took Bill Wallof with me, because he’s been through surgery in the recent past and he knows what it’s like to go through that experience, and I haven’t. We sat there and we talked with this fellow together, in his home where he is recovering now. He got to talking. He got to talking. We didn’t ask him to talk about this. He got to talking about what it was like to be in the recovery room and have someone gently nudge you on the shoulder and say, “Wake up. Wake up.” And he said, “Suddenly, you open your eyes and you see.” He said, “It’s like, it’s like you see in a way you’ve never seen before.”
And Bill said, “It’s like suddenly you have the gift of life again.”
He said, “Yes! It’s like you never saw before what a precious opportunity this is, and how important it is that you be someone who is making good use of it, and how important it is to try and discover what it is that God wants you to do, how important it is to try and discover the purposes that God has for you in your life. It’s like suddenly you can see in a way you could never see before.”
I thought, “Amen!”
I started reading about Jesus helping people to see on Monday, and I found myself wondering where does this happen today? Lamar Williamson, a fine biblical scholar says about this text, Everybody’s in this story. We’re all in this story someplace. Either we are people who, like the blind man, suddenly find ourselves stunned recipients of the gift of God’s grace that we don’t fully understand but we can’t deny it, and we are moving steadily towards understanding it and understanding in some way more, with more commitment, the giver who brings it to us. Or we’re like the neighbors nearby who are just unaware of the fact that these miracles are happening around them. Or we’re like the parents who are aware that Jesus has done something in the world but are afraid that if they bear witness to it, something will change in their own personal status or their own welfare, and so they’re quiet. They deny it, to be sure that they are going to be safe themselves. Or we’re like the teachers, the leaders of the faith and of the law here, who say to the man who has received the miracle, Don’t you lecture us about where God is. Who say suddenly, because they are so intent on preserving their own theology and their own understanding of what it means to experience Christ, that they are unwilling to have anybody experience it in a way other than theirs. Unwilling to have anybody the experience of it other than the way in which they are taught to be the custodians of the purity and the righteousness of the truth. So they deny it. We’re all in this story somewhere.
Maybe on some days you’re like one, and some days you’re like another.
Jesus’ final word in this story warns us against saying we see too quickly. The scripture calls us here to worship as a way of gaining discernment. Jesus heard (I read from the text) that they had driven the blind man out. And when he found him, he said, “Do you believe the son of man?” And the man answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me 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 then he worshiped him.
Jesus is the Son of Man. The one to whom the future belongs. Jesus is the one who is leading you into your future. We worship him so that our eyes might be opened. We worship him so that our ears might be opened, so that our minds and our hearts might be open to discerning where he is close to us.
Sometimes faithfulness looks like simply seeing God. Sometimes discipleship looks like simply becoming aware of where Jesus is at work near us.
I’ve been reading about Jesus helping people to see all week, and there’s a tune that’s been running around in my head. Do you remember it? You know this song. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…”Don’t you know this song? “…that saved a wretch like me? I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.”
©John T. DeBevoise 2008
