Blink

"Blink" (a brief Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

I found myself chuckling while reading John Chapter 9, one of this week's Lectionary passages.

Now, if you did what I think you did, you jumped out and read the passage ... and are no doubt wondering if I have lost my mind. How could it be, you might be pondering, that I would think a story about a blind man is humorous? What could possibly be funny about a man who was born blind? A story about a man who, now an adult, has spent his entire life in actual darkness; how is that funny? What's so humorous about a man who was ostracized all of those years because it was commonly believed people with disabilities had brought the situation upon themselves? You're right. There is nothing funny about any of that.

What IS funny to me is how everyone ELSE acts after Jesus restores the man's sight (Jesus rubs mud in his eyes and sends him off to wash in Siloam's fountain). And the reason I find it funny is this: Several decades ago, I married into a family that includes several people with visual challenges. Over the years they have been gracious enough to teach me this key lesson: blind people are just like everyone else; they just also have a visual challenge to deal with. I know blind people who would, upon reading this story in John Chapter 9, be chuckling and shaking their heads; identifying with their fellow "blink". They would readily recognize the words and actions of the sighted people in this story as similar treatment to which they have been subjected.

When blind people socialize, it is common to share stories about the stupid things sighted people do and say upon encountering people who are visually challenged. For example: asking if the blind person knows sign language. The only reason a blind person would need to know sign language is if they were also deaf (like Helen Keller). Among the more vexing is a person who acts as if the blind person cannot speak for himself, and/or, similarly, referencing them in the third person as if they were not actually present.

I was lucky to be present on some occasions when Uncle JQ (a wonderful man who was both blind and a hilarious raconteur) told this tale of a cross-country airplane trip. The stewardess (they weren't called "flight attendant" until later) came by to take orders for alcoholic beverages. JQ was in the center seat. After taking orders of the two men seated to either side of him, she asked the man sitting on JQ's left, someone JQ did not know and had never even spoken with, if JQ would like some juice. To which JQ replied (and he would already be cackling with joy at this point as he related the tale to us), "No, I would NOT like a juice. *I* would like a scotch on the rocks!"

Something like that is happening in verses 8-33. The people are talking about the formerly blind man as if he is not present. They are debating whether THIS man is the same man who used to sit out here and beg. Back and forth, back and forth. And the entire time, the man keeps saying, "I am the man!" But no one is listening.

After the local folk finally decide to hear him, they switch to interrogating him about the process of his miracle. Isn't that just like people? Standing before them is a miracle; and instead of rejoicing that the man's sight has been restored, they want to pick the thing to pieces. Finally, after squeezing all the details out of him, they ask him to point them to where Jesus is. In other words, "If you're so special that someone restored your sight, point him out!" The scripture records the man replying, "I don't know." But you can bet he was thinking something like, "Hello-o! Blind guy! How could I tell you where he is? *I* didn't see him!"

Later, when the Pharisees are grilling him about the miracle (and not believing what they are hearing), they turn to his parents(!) for confirmation, as if he were a child. Imagine being these parents and having to say, "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."

The final chuckle, which has everything to do with lack of vision and nothing to do with lack of sight, comes when the former blind man says, astonished, "You (the religious leaders of Israel) do not know where he (Jesus) comes from, and yet he opened my eyes!" Blind people have learned through experience that sighted people will often say and do some pretty asinine things to and around blind people. They've also learned that, sometimes, you just gotta laugh about it.

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This week's passages are all about vision, light and dark, seeing correctly. I especially liked Ist Samuel 6:7 and Ephesians 5:8-10.

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fourth Sunday in Lent (April 3, 2011)
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41