Whose Disciple Are You?, Rev Steven R Mitchell, First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY

Whose Disciple are You?
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 4/3/2011
Based on John 9:1-41

Back in the days when I was in Seminary, one of the activities that my class had to experience dealt with “sensory deprivation.” Two of those exercises we participated in consisted with variations in sight and sound. At one point we were blindfolded, then lead around by the hand, then we were pushed into a direction that the leader wanted us to go, and finally we were allowed to wonder around, unassisted.
A second exercise was being placed into a sound proof room, for a good ten to twenty minutes, being totally deprived of any sounds. At first you hear nothing, but eventually you begin to hear the pinning of molecules bumping into one another, so there is never a total void of sound. The purpose of these exercises is to give you, a potential care-giver some sense of what it is like to be a person living without the benefit of sight or sound. Once you have experienced one or more of your senses not being available to you, when you do come in contact with an individual who is living without sight, hearing, a leg or an arm, or any other physical limitation of their body, you become more sensitive to the challenges of a person in that situation.
In today’s Gospel reading, we learn about a man who from birth has not been able to see. Along comes Jesus, who recognizes this encounter with the blind man as a “teachable” moment for his disciples, by explaining to them that “sin” is not the reason for this man to be blind. What starts out to be a happy occasion for the man who is healed by Jesus, very quickly deteriorates into a tumultuous situation when he is presented to the Pharisees at the temple. He is badgered about his healing, with his testimony not being believed, even his character was being questioned.
It is almost like a scene out of the T.V. show, Perry Mason, where the Pharisee plays the part of District Attorney, Hamilton Burger, cross-examining Perry’s client, in this case the man who was blind, in order find some flaw in his story. Frustrated in not finding any change in the defendant’s testimony, the Pharisee changes tactics and tries to discrete this man standing before him, by attacking the witness’s character. He calls in the man’s parents and tries to get them to admit that their son has been lying about being blind his entire life. When this doesn’t work, the defendant is brought back in for further cross-examination and then the unthinkable happens, the defendant begins to accuse the Pharisee of being uninformed. Out of frustration, the defendant is dismissed from the court, and is also barred from every stepping foot back into the Synagogue. Not because he was guilty of a real crime, but rather, because he was seen to stand outside of what the Pharisees understand as truth. Their final accusation being, the defendant is a disciple of Jesus and they are disciples of Moses.
Today’s true focus isn’t in the actual healing of the man who was born blind, but rather a broader truth that centers on both “seeing” and “hearing”. If you go back and re-read the progression of this story, you will see where the man who is born blind moves from his first encounter with Jesus as being not able to see, of being in the dark. For the writer of John, being in the dark is very symbolic of not knowing “truth”. The man born blind, when being questioned the first time by the Pharisees, recognizes that the man who gave him sight must be a prophet. When being questioned a second time by the Pharisees and listening to their theological arguments about not knowing who Jesus was, the man born blind then moves into understanding that Jesus must be a man from God, as God does not honor the requests of “sinners”. Finally, when Jesus comes back to visit him, he knows that Jesus was the one who healed him, even though he was not able to see, he could hear and he recognizes Jesus’ voice and calls him “Lord” and falls down to worship him.
In the same progression of the story, the Pharisees are assumed to be able to see, to possess the truth, for they are disciples of Moses. This means that they follow the law, for it was through Moses that God gave the Israelites the pattern for living. Yet these men of the truth, are not able to recognize Jesus as being from God, they were unable to see who Jesus was because they did not recognize his voice! They never understood anything that Jesus said to them as coming from God, because they had stopped being open to new possibilities, the possibility that the true Messiah had indeed arrived.
We in the church have the potential to be like the Pharisees, of not able to hear the voice of Jesus, because at some point we came to stop being open to the ever speaking voice of God. What I learned as a child in Sunday school, which made sense to me then has become the stable truth for me. I learned as a child that God created the earth and all that lives on it, in just six days. It says so right in black and white. As an adult, I still read the same black and white, God created all of life in six days, but have I closed my mind and reject all sorts of scientific data that says, those days are not measured in 24hr increments or am I open enough to realize that God speaks in many ways and that the collective knowledge of science suggests that creation is more evolutionary than creature specific, and that the truths about God creating me might not be based on what I learned as a child?
Do we accuse an individual of not being a Christian because they do not conduct their life in the manor that we have decided to be consistent with our understanding of Jesus’ teachings? Do we shun people who are not at our level of education or economic standards? There are many ways in which the church is blind and does not recognize Jesus, because we have become closed and unable to hear the voice of Christ.
Are we disciples of Moses, living and judging life by a standard that was giving thousands of years ago, or are we like the man who was born blind and received sight in a non-conventional way, open to hearing the ever still speaking God?
As we come to this communion table this morning, are we coming as Disciples of Moses, worshiping a stagnate God, or do we come this morning, recognizing Jesus’ voice and open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, which was sent to guide and to comfort us, as Disciples of Christ? For us to recognize the Still Speaking God, we must have an open and active relationship with Christ! Amen