Sermon 19th March 2023 – 4th Sunday in Lent
Text: John 9:1-41 – Whose fault?
Have you had difficulty finding some of your favourite shopping items
which seem to constantly be out of stock? I know that things like eggs and
lettuce have been in short supply along with a regular list of usual items
including prescription medication. And when you can get them they are sometimes
double or more the usual price. Sometimes we can trace back the shortages to
events. Weather events – droughts, floods, bushfires. Many blaming the war in
Ukraine. Last week a huge refrigerated transport company went into liquidation
that supplies many supermarkets and will impact the supply chain even further.
But what about when we can’t trace back a reason? Like in our Gospel
reading where the inquisitive minds of the disciples are active: Rabbi, who
sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? It’s an interesting
proposition asking if the blind man sinned considering that they state he was
“born blind”. But the confusion doesn’t end there. 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 – wasn’t he blind?”
Some were saying, “Yes, it’s him.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone
that looks like him.” In the meantime,
he kept saying, “I am the man.” And then the confusion continues. The Jews did
not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight. Who has ever
been born blind and received their sight back? So, they called his parents: “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’s old enough to answer. He will speak for himself.” All of this because
of that very first question by the disciples: Rabbi, who sinned, this man or
his parents, that he was born blind – which led to Jesus healing him.
The problem with this questioning however is that regardless of the
answer it will still leave a further question that will need to be answered. How
can an all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God allow totally undeserved
suffering to exist in the world that we believe God both created and loves? Remember,
he was BORN blind. The question is not a new question and it’s not a question
that has been answered. In fact Israel were taunted with this question by their
oppressors: Psalm 42 - As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants
for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and
meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me
all day long, “Where is your God?”;
There is a hunger for some explanation in the face of tragedy, pain, and
suffering—especially tragedy, pain, and suffering that apparently make no
sense, that we can neither understand nor justify. I won’t raise any examples
for fear of creating pains you may have but you can most likely reflect on some
tragedy that is just so hard to explain. Like us, the disciples wanted to
understand this tragedy – and with it, other tragedies. If the man had become blind because of his own
carelessness, or if someone else had blinded him on purpose, then it would
still be a tragedy, but it would make more sense; But that’s not what happened. He was born
blind – what did he do to deserve that? Some people believe in what’s know as
Karma – a system of justice that if you do bad things then bad things will
happen to you. To make this work they believe in reincarnation to explain the
unexplainable, such as when a child suffers – that the child must have done
something bad in a previous life. How is that justice?
Jesus rejects any suggestion that his blindness is a result of anyone’s
sin – his own or his parents. Jesus rejects the explanation that bad things
happen because people are bad, or because the devil makes them happen, or
because people don’t have enough faith, or because they don’t pray correctly,
or whatever human explanation evolves. The
sad reality is that we live in a world that really isn’t fair. We live in a
world where tragedy happens for no apparent reason to people who absolutely do
not deserve it. It’s interesting that
Jesus doesn’t give an answer. After all, what answer would satisfy their
understanding as it still leaves questions of why God allowed it if he loves
us. Instead Jesus says “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born
blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him”.
But let’s be clear what this is not saying. This is not saying that God
allowed this to happen so he could do something through him. Rather, Jesus is
saying that his blindness won’t stop God from using him to bring about his
glory. Suffering does not diminish or change the fact that we are created in
the Image of God. Any suffering is the result of our fallen world.
When Adam and Eve chose to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and
evil, it opened their eyes and all future eyes to “know” evil which includes
our generation and all future generations. Prior to that event the book of
Genesis says that everything God had created was “good” and the final product
“very good”. God had withheld evil but disobedience opened the eyes to know
good AND evil. But God does not allow evil entering into the world to prevent
his work being done. And we see that in the account of Joseph whose brothers
committed and act of evil to him. Firstly wanting to kill him but then selling
him as a slaved to Egypt. But through that act of evil God used Joseph to
prevent starvation in the world during a 7 year famine. So when Joseph has an
opportunity for revenge against his brothers he doesn’t take it saying: “Do not
fear, for am I in the place of God? You intended evil against me, but God used
it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they
are today.
We will never be able to explain suffering and evil to the point where
people are comforted by it. Instead, the place to find God is in bringing forth
something new—not something that fixes the suffering, but something that
redeems and transforms it. The God who
is found there – the God who is active there – is the God who has wounds on his
hands and feet and side as a reminder of his own suffering through which God
has brought about our salvation. It’s the God who knows, who cares, who
remembers what suffering is like—the God who shares our suffering and pain and
shows compassion and love. God can be found in very real transforming ways in
the very heart of undeserved and unexplained pain. Terrible things don’t happen
so that God can show compassion or use that person to help others.But God isn’t
hindered in achieving his will by the evil that exists in the world. Even in
his own son’s brutal and merciless death God brought about new life for us as
we see on that resurrection day when Jesus shows the scars rather than a healed
body. Suffering will never make sense no matter what answer we are able to
give. Instead, what makes sense is the
presence of God in compassion and love; A presence of God through us.
This isn’t the explanation the disciples asked for as it didn’t answer
“who sinned”. But Jesus assures us that we are never alone, never forsaken. God is indeed with us as one who has suffered
as we do but did not sin to give us hope of new and renewed life at the
resurrection.
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