As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth.
His disciples asked him,“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered,“Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him."

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and said to him,“Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” —which means the one who is Sent—.
So he went and washed, and came back able to see. His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?”
Some said, “It is,“but others said, “No, he just looks like him.”
He said, “I am.”

So they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?”
He replied,“The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’
So I went there and washed and was able to see.”
And they said to him, “Where is he?”
He said, “I don’t know.”
They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees.

Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath.
So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see.
He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.”

So some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.”
But others said, “How can a sinful man do such signs?”
And there was a division among them.
So they said to the blind man again, “What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?”
He said, “He is a prophet.”

Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see?”
His parents answered and said, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself.”
His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue.
For this reason his parents said, “He is of age; question him.”

So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give God the praise! We know that this man is a sinner.”
He replied, “If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.”

So they said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
He answered them, “I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”

They ridiculed him and said, “You are that man’s disciple; we are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from.”

The man answered and said to them, “This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God,
he would not be able to do anything.”

They answered and said to him, “You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?”
Then they threw him out.

When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”
Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, the one speaking with you is he.”
He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him.

Then Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.”

Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?”
Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.

The Miracle of Christ Healing the Blind
El Greco - Domenikos Theotokopoulos - 1540 - 1614
Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the beginning of this gospel, the disciples see a man blind from birth and they ask, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?"

The belief of that time was that: God rewards good and punishes evil. If you are rich, that was a reward. If you were poor, your life was a punishment that was either blamed on you, your parents, or your ancestors. In many ways, it was a belief that resulted in the rejection of the poor and marginalized.  Their difficulties were seen as a result of their being sinners.

The Prophet Jeremiah said something like: the parents have eaten sour grapes and their children’s teeth are set on edge. In other words, the actions of the parents fall on the children. It was deep in that tradition, and it might be somewhat true in ours today. 

We all hand down things to our kids, good and bad.  How many of us have been completely humiliated by our 3 year old repeating something we said -- in a really public setting? We had no idea they were listening.

In this Gospel, Jesus goes against the traditions of his day. The beginning of the story of the Man Born Blind challenges this view of inherited evil: Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.

In John’s gospel Jesus doesn't refer to things he does as miracles - he calls them signs.  We see this at the wedding feast at Cana. John says, "Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs … and so revealed his glory." The point of his ministry was not to dazzle but to reveal something.

Who is the man born blind?  He is an outcast -- and he doesn't even have a name. In John's Gospels, there is a method to this. Often, John doesn't use names: The Woman at the Well.  The Man Born Blind. 
He even refers to himself simply as the disciple Jesus loved. 

The power of what John does is that when we hear the story, if there is not a name, any one of us can step into that story.  We can see ourselves as a woman given living water, a man who is healed of blindness, and we can picture ourselves as a disciple loved by Jesus.

Jesus spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and said to him, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam”

Jesus spits on the ground and makes mud and put it on the blind man’s eyes and sends him off to wash in the town water.   Really? That's it? We usually like our grand signs to come with claps of thunder and lightning.  We want a crowd going, "Ohhhhhhhhh!!" 

This miracle is so ordinary and so "every day" that its very ordinariness seems to be part of the lesson Jesus wants to give us. Jesus comes into our life without the thunder and lightning. 

The man in this Gospel received, not just his sight, but a gift of healing, wholeness and peace. He has a new understanding about the world, about life and about Jesus.

“Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” —which means the one who is Sent—. So he went and washed, and came back able to see.

Siloam means the one who is sent.  Jesus sent the young man.  He washed in the pool and has new sight.  And we who have been baptized, we have washed in the pool of Siloam. WE have been sent. We have been sent here for something.
And from this place tonight, we are being sent out into the world for something else.

Tonight is not a story about how Jesus had power 2,000 years ago to cure the sight of a blind man.  It's a story of how Jesus has the power to give us a sign today when we are blind. That is important because we need to accept the invitation God is offering.  That invitation leads to a relationship with God and changes our relationships with each other. 

Let’s think about our ability to see.   I wish I could see better without reading glasses. But do you know what kind of vision I’m really good at?  Seeing how my husband could do things better!  
I can see a long list of things that start with “How come HE never….” and “How come I always have to be the one …”

How well can I see? I can see very clearly how my neighbor should raise her children. 
My vision is impeccable when it comes to seeing a sister-in-law’s many flaws.
My sight is 20-20 when I can see what someone else needs to do with his or her life.

But what am I missing? Maybe I can’t see who Jesus is for me. Maybe we are blind to where Jesus wants to lead us and our lives.  We’re blind to the many ways Jesus wants to love us.

If we can't see how Jesus wants to love us, then all we see is our own sinfulness and certainly the sinfulness of our spouse, our children and our parents.  We can be blind to the good news.

In this story about blindness, no one got it. 
His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?”
Some said, “It is, “but others said, “No, he just looks like him.”

No one could even recognize him because his life had been changed -- he had washed in the pool of Siloam.

They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. So some of the Pharisees said, “This man, Jesus, is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.”

How often do we say this person in my life cannot be from God because he is a sinner?  The Pharisees are saying, God cannot work in this man’s life because he is a sinner.   How often do we limit God?!

Jesus' biggest critics and disbelievers are those who cannot see -- the Pharisees! Yet they are supposed to be the see-ers of Israel, the Visionaries. It’s clear they can’t see the one who is right before them. 

His parents answered and said, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.
We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes.
Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself.”

His own parents, terrified by the Pharisees, didn’t want to get in trouble. These parents, who must have loved their child, can’t see the goodness of God’s love for their son and how it opened his eyes and leads to his salvation.

It makes us question: how often do we let those we love not grow, not come alive, not find Jesus.  Or how often do we not recognize that they have been changed?

In the Gospel for the 3rd Sunday of Lent, we read about the Woman at the Well.  Jesus offered her life-giving water. 
Whoever drinks this water will never thirst. Now the water he offers the man born blind is to wash, to be healed.  He says whoever washes in me will never be blind again.  We will see life in a new way.  And we will see each other in a new way, with a new vision!

The invitation of Jesus is clear: Go. Wash. See. 
Our response should be just as direct: I went. I washed. I see!

Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” —which means the one who is Sent.

I know that I get blind in many parts of my life. I can get caught up in what I see as expectations.  I focus too much on my own success and on how I am performing in a situation and I am blind to God’s love for me.  And when that happens, my focus gets all off.  I don’t see or feel God’s love and I see only things that are wrong or off.  My life is out of whack, out of focus.

For those of us who are parents, we may have had a few times where we wanted to have our kids hearing checked. 
My kids heard fine; they just didn’t want to listen! It reminds me of the kind of blindness we all have in many areas of our lives.  There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.  I just don’t want to see things from your point of view. How often do we argue with someone and we can’t see their point of view?  It's not that we don't agree with them - we won't even see their point of view. We are blind to it.

John tells us so many stories of blindness, including the disciples on Road to Emmaus who don’t recognize Jesus. Mary Magdalene in the Garden after the resurrection – she thinks Jesus is the gardener.

At Creighton University we send students on Spring Break service trips - not so they can do service for "poor" people but so they can see the world and see people from a different perspective.  What did they learn on their trip from those people they went to serve?

When our students come back from these immersion experiences in the Dominican Republic, doing service and learning, they get a T-shirt that says, "Abre Los Ohjos."  Open your eyes!

We all have blindness in our lives - and we can all turn to Jesus and pray in the simplest words:

Jesus, heal my blindness!  I get blind in the same ways over and over in my life. I lose sight of your love when I think there is competition, when I'm pushed to perform, whenever I wonder:  "what will they think of me?" When I want to make sure I come across as competent and I don’t see clearly when those competence buttons are pushed by my family, my friends or at work. 

I lose sight of your love, even your presence in my life.  All I see is ME.  Lord, restore my sight, not just tonight, but in all those ways I live every day without seeing you, and especially in those situations
when I go blind even temporarily."

The Pharisees answered the young man and said to him,
“You were born totally in sin,
and are you trying to teach us?”
Then they threw him out.
When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out,
he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”
Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, the one speaking with you is he.”

Now, finally, at the end of the story, we see that the young man who is sent, becomes one with Jesus who sent him and
who now experiences intimacy with Jesus in being rejected.  To be one with Jesus does many things. It places us in relationship w God and in relationship with our brothers and sisters. It also leads us to imitate Jesus in loving those he loves on the margins and experiencing being rejected by those who reject Jesus. 

One thing we can be sure of, the evidence that we are becoming more like Jesus will be that we will disturb the culture around us.  The more we are like Jesus, the more counter cultural we will become and the more people will notice and reject us.

'I went. I washed. I saw.'  Four times the Man Born Blind says that.
What will we say this Lent.  I went. I washed. I saw? 

I went to Jesus and let him touch my heart?
I washed in the love of his heart and experienced his love for me?
I saw and understood what I had never understood before: He is sending me to love others.

The blind man receives his sight and is re-born.  So tonight we look around this church and imagine if this entire village received its sight together. What if we asked Jesus for this new sight? What would it be like if we accepted it?
What if our entire family prayed for that? Our whole parish?

Lent is a process of having our eyes opened to see and hope and desire as Jesus does.  Lent is about re-forming our seeing, our hoping and our desiring. Sometimes we despair and say, "I don't have any home. I don't see any way out of this!" 

Lent's answer to our dilemma, our hopelessness: Wash in the One sent by God to heal me. "I washed; I see; I hope; I desire."  It's all new."

- Maureen McCann Waldron