ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Sermon preached by the Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at High Mass on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, 2nd March 2008

Readings: 1 Samuel 16. 1-13; Ephesians 5. 8-14; John 9;

Who sinned, this man or his parents? That's the question the blind beggar provokes in this morning's gospel. Who sinned? Whose fault is it? Who's to blame? The implication is that the disciples want to judge. They want what we all want: justice, punishment. Jesus, the Rabbi, disconcertingly (as always) doesn't answer the question. He subverts the either/or (this man or his parents) by making the most extraordinary declaration. He was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him.

I find repugnant the idea that God is a Dr Frankenstein tinkering with human tissue to prove a point. I suspect that John's Gospel is not relaying a real event but illustrating a theological truth about blame and judgement. He does this by playing off against each other notions of inclusion and exclusion (who's 'in' and who's 'out').

Because of his disability the blind beggar is excluded from the world of which we are a part. We see. He's blind. We've got money. He begs. At the time of Jesus a blind person would have been excluded from religion as well. Being physically imperfect he couldn't take any part in the rituals of the temple.

But Jesus includes the blind beggar. And he doesn't just speak to him; Jesus remakes him. He finishes him. Jesus, the light of the world, spits on the ground and makes clay. (In Hebrew the word for clay is adamah which gives us the name Adam.) Then Jesus sends him off to the Pool of Siloam. The blind beggar has been recreated and by washing in the pool ('baptism') he is reborn.

So the restored man enters society. He comes back to where he's begged. He's no longer an outsider but an insider. He can see. But he's still being treated as an outsider. To begin with people talk about him instead of to him. But now that he's an insider (a child of God), he speaks: he finds his voice; he cuts through the quarrelling over his identity. I am the man, he says.

'I am' is one of the great God-phrases of scripture. 'I am who I am' is the usual translation of the name Jehovah. 'I am' is the way in which Jesus talks about himself in John's Gospel. I am the light of the world. The blind beggar is a man made whole by the Creator himself.

But can he be accepted? Can he be included in human society? Enter the Pharisees, the arbitrators of who's in and who's out, who's included and who's excluded.

Now we're told that Jesus had healed the blind beggar on the Sabbath. Jesus included him not just in the six days of creation but in the seventh, the holy. According to the Pharisees the Sabbath excludes work and what Jesus has done is to work. He had made clay. Their whole understanding of the holy, of the Law given through Moses, of keeping the Sabbath day, is under threat. This is intolerable. The Pharisees seek the exclusion not just of the blind man healed but Jesus, too. Jesus is a Sabbath-breaker. He's a sinner.

But if Jesus is a sinner how does he do godly things like making people see? The blind man is asked his opinion. Sight is now accompanied by insight. Jesus, he says, is a prophet. The controversy intensifies. The Pharisees turn violent and bullying but the man is undeterred by the claims that he and Jesus are sinners. He mounts this impassioned defence

"Here is an astonishing thing! You (Pharisees) do not know where (Jesus) comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began (notice the reference to creation) 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." (The Pharisees) answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and you are trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.

The blind beggar, born into exclusion, who has been included (who has been remade, 'baptised' and now speaks of God) is being excluded by the very people who armed with the Law claim to know God, the Great Includer.

Having been driven out the ex-blind man is once again found by Jesus. He who bestows sight stays out of sight until now. Jesus creates not just physical sight but grows the faith that generates vision. Do you believe in the Son of Man? Jesus asks.

"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 worshipped him. Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind." The irony of the story and indeed the truth of the story is that the Pharisees who see perfectly - they see with their eyes and make judgements according to the Law of Moses - are in the light of Christ the ones who are blind.

But the blind beggar now not only sees but has made a pilgrimage of faith. He began by recognizing Jesus as the man Jesus. Then he came to understand him as a prophet, and then as one greater than Moses and finally as the Son of man and revelation of God. He has travelled from the margins of society to kneel at the altar at the centre of the cosmos. Judgement is stood on its head. Inclusion and exclusion are reversed. The Pharisees act as judges yet they are judged by the very ones whom they have judged. The Pharisees stand condemned by their actions and by their violence.

Some of the time life is a mess. We know that it should be beautiful and perfect but we can't ignore the blind beggars. They're all around us and they live deep within us. So do the Pharisees. When we see the blind beggars we want to apportion blame, exclude them and judge them. We become violent and bullying. When we see that in ourselves we need to look to Jesus; look for Jesus, the light of the world. He's the one we're seeking to exclude. He won't judge us. We'll do that for ourselves.