The story of Jesus and the Blind Man in John 9, is very ‘John.’ It’s funny and deep. Like the stories of the Cana Wedding (expectations), Nicodemus (rebirth), the Woman at the Well (understanding), it plays with a one word spiritual theme, in this case blindness. Like some super-Socrates, John crafts the dialogue so that we come to see that we don’t really see what we think we see about the spiritual theme. I remember reading this passage in seminary and for the first time, I got John. I had read his gospel many times without noticing that each thing Jesus says is misinterpreted and that leads to someone asking a stupid question. The answer to the stupid question goes way beyond what the person’s (or the reader’s) capability to grasp spiritual things. In the end, John tells us that you can’t see Jesus unless you are really ready to see Jesus.
The pharisees ask the formerly blind man to rat Jesus out. The man responds by telling his direct experience. They respond by telling the man all the things their great learning has taught them about people like Jesus. The blind man says, “I only know what I see.”
On one level, it makes perfect sense that a person born blind would focus on the moment by moment experience of his senses. The fact that our eyes are working every waking moment, makes us blind to the actual experience of seeing things. We look for what we expect, rather than what is. We are blinded by what we know or have learned. We don’t see what we are seeing right now. We live in the past or the future instead of the current moment of experience. Our assumptions about people and things blind us to current reality.
Going to the next level, this story is also about enlightenment. Those who have sat under Buddha’s bodhi tree, or been reborn like Nicodemus, or been rescued from demons, like Mary Magdalene or the man who was Legion, see the world differently. One might also mention Plato’s story of the cave, but those who aren’t enlightened hate that story. Both Jesus and the former blind man are victims of mistaken identity. Those who are enlightened in this world will be mistaken for nuts.
Then there’s Jesus, who everyone is talking about, but nobody is seeing. It is amazing how much Jesus talk we can have in the church without dealing with the reality of our day to day experiences of him. When we wake up in the morning, is Jesus helping us to see this day and live it fully? Are we able to be Jesus in our love for the person we are looking at in the mirror? Are we able to take that honest acceptance of people as current reality and carry it into our relationships with those whom we have previously found to be difficult? Can we live without prejudice? Can we speak to our kids, spouse, or neighbor without judging them for past failures or weighing them down with future expectations? Can the kingdom of God be in us, the way the gift of sight is now in this formerly blind man?