Scripture:
John 9:1-12

Several nights later, in London, the task was less daunting. The play was in English. The score was by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was about a bunch of kids who mistake a crook-on-the-run for Jesus ... in rural Louisiana ... in the mid-`30s. All of which was slightly more familiar territory. Still, I did the same thing. While waiting for things to get started, I read the plot synopsis so I would know "what's it all about."

If only my life came with a plot synopsis so I could read it before living it. That way, I would be able to say (in advance): "What it's all about." A London cab driver once had Bertrand Russell as a passenger. So he asked the old sage: "Lord Russell, what's it all about?" But much to the cab driver's dismay, Lord Russell said he didn't know.

Well, we don't ... always. Do we? But that doesn't keep us from latching onto answers. Even bad answers. Moments ago, we heard one of them.

Passing by the Temple at the Feast of the Tabernacles, Jesus and his disciples saw a man who had been blind since birth. Which is one clue that we are reading John's gospel. Because people who have predicaments in John's gospel always seem to have them more severely than in the other gospels. Take this blind man. He didn't lose his sight gradually (through glaucoma, macular degeneration, or getting hit with a hockey puck). He was born blind. Or consider the crippled man lying by the pool. He hadn't been in that condition for a day ... a week ... or even a year. He had been lying there for 38 years. What's more, John's loose lady with the water jug hadn't just suffered through one or two divorces. She had already made five unsuccessful trips to the altar and was giving serious consideration to a sixth. Even the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes feeds 1,000 more people in John than it does in Luke (5,000 over against 4,000).

Jesus looked at the blind man. The disciples looked at the blind man. Then the disciples said to Jesus: "Rabbi ... teacher ... learned one ... you who gives the appearance of knowing what it's all about ... we have a question. Who sinned ... this man or his parents ... that he was born blind?"

Notice what they didn't ask. They didn't ask: "Teacher, do you think there could possibly be a connection ... even a remote connection ... between this man's blindness and somebody's sin?" No, they already assumed there was a connection. They assumed that the poor guy wouldn't be in this condition if it wasn't punitive ... meaning that he was being punished for something somebody did. All the disciples wanted to know was "who."

Notice, further, that Jesus doesn't answer the "who" question. Instead, Jesus challenges their assumption, saying: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him." As concerns the last half of the quote, hold it under your hat. I'll come back to it momentarily. I promise I will. For now, let me tell you a story.

Sometime back, a man and his wife made an appointment to see me. I had known them from a former church. But I hadn't known them all that well. It was the death of their son ... their young, athletic, full of life, full of laughter, son ... with a college career soon-to-be behind him, and a wide-open world very much in front of him ... it was the death of "that son" that led to our becoming reacquainted. They came because they had reason to believe I would understand their plight with the perspective of "an insider." And they were right. So we talked. Then they came a second time and we talked some more. The best way to describe our "talking" was with the phrase Albert Schweitzer once used when he spoke of "the fellowship of those who bear the mark of pain."

As concerns the talking, I don't remember much of anything I said. But I remember a lot of what I heard. I heard what I expected to hear. I heard words about loneliness and loss. I heard words about grief and pain. And I heard searching, searing words about guilt ... "could I" ... "should have I" ... "why didn't I" ... those kinds of words. To which all I could really do was nod my head.

But then I heard some words I hadn't expected to hear. The father started talking about God ... and sin ... and retribution. He was speculating that his son's death was perhaps aimed at him (as the boy's father) by "The Father" as punishment for something he had done. "I lay awake nights," he said, "wracking my brain, trying to figure out what I could have done to deserve this."

I could visualize that ... tossing and turning ... rewinding the years ... taking moral inventory of his life ... trying to figure out what he had done that has been so displeasing to God, so as to lead God to have done this to him. But he couldn't figure it out. Not that he lived a perfect life. He certainly wasn't claiming that. There were the usual sins of omission and commission along the way. But, to the best of his recollection, there was nothing that would come even close to qualifying him for the Guinness Book of Reprobates. Using the Roman Catholic system of accounting, he figured that most of his sins were in the column marked "Little," rather than in the column marked "Big."

But that didn't give him any comfort, don't you see. That only made it worse. Because he figured that his son wouldn't be dead if somebody didn't deserve it. And, goodness knows, he was sure his son didn't deserve it ... even though his son chose it. So, if somebody deserved it, he figured it must have been him. But why? Which was when he said:

The only thing I can figure is Vietnam. Thirty years ago, I served in Vietnam. Which wasn't all that big a deal at the time. They called. I went. I came home. No tragedies. No atrocities. No victories. Just over and back.

I didn't even think much about it at the time ... I mean, about whether it was good or bad (right or wrong) that we were over there. But now, with all the stuff that's coming out, and what with McNamara's book and all, I sometimes wonder if our being there ... if my being there ... so displeased God that I am getting paid back for it now.

Now I hope that doesn't make any sense to you. Because I'm here to tell you that it doesn't make any sense to me. But, in a moment of anguished inventory-taking, it made sense to him (even though I tried to talk him out of it). And it probably would have made sense to the disciples that day at the Temple, when they ran into the blind man and said: "You ... teacher ... who seems to know what it's all about ... who sinned, this man or his daddy, that he was born blind?"

I suppose one could argue with the text on technical grounds. I mean, if the man had been born blind, how could his sin have played any part in it? When would he have had time to do any sinning? The Jewish theologians had a couple of responses to that. First, there were those who argued that it was possible to sin prenatally ... while one was still in the womb. I know it sounds ridiculous. But, as an idea, it's traceable through history. The second answer (as to how a person could be punished at birth for sins committed before birth) was an idea embraced by some Jews ... having borrowed it from some Greeks ... suggesting that souls may have had a previous existence. In other words, souls could have existed in other bodies. Or (if not in other bodies) in other places ... a holding room, if you will ... where they could have been corrupted while waiting to enter a body. That, too, strains credulity. But, as an idea, it has had a tenacity which has enabled it to stay alive for centuries.

The more common idea ... certainly at the time of Jesus ... is that children inherited their parents' sin. And suffered accordingly. That idea is even more compelling because all of us know someone to whom it has happened.

Go back to the man "blind from birth." Perhaps his father had engaged in an adulterous relationship ... wherein syphilis was contracted. Then, not knowing it ... or knowing it, but not telling it ... he passed it to his spouse (and, through his spouse, to his unborn child). Result ... congenital blindness ... thanks to the sins of the parents. Ditto for crack-addicted babies ... HIV-infected babies ... babies born with fetal-alcohol syndrome. Nothing new about any of that. It happens all the time. Far more often than you know.

And what of this as-yet-unnamed six year old who recently carried a gun to school (like I used to carry a peanut butter sandwich and a Hostess Twinkie). Whereupon he took the life of that lovely little girl ... all pretty in pink. Yesterday's paper said: "When he squeezed the trigger on that cheap pocket pistol, the six year old who killed Kayla Rolland extended his family's entanglement in the criminal justice system for a third generation." Then, if you read the incredible roll call of the boy's family members who have done crime ... done time ... shot up their bodies ... beaten up their kids ... it's no wonder that the Genesee County Prosecutor said that "the boy's chaotic upbringing virtually programmed him for a life on the wrong side of the law."

There's no question about it. Lots of people suffer for their sins. And lots of people suffer for their daddy's sins ... their mommy's sins ... or the sins of their cousin, second cousin, funny uncle, or other family members trailing back into the third and fourth generation.

But ... says Jesus ... just because there may be a connection does not mean that there is necessarily a design. To be sure, God established the universe in such a way so that choices have consequences. But God did not establish the universe in such a way so that pain is always a form of divine payback. Yet, I hear such talk all the time. Something happens. Somebody gets hurt. Somebody suffers. And somebody says: "God is punishing me ... God is punishing you ... God is punishing them ... God is punishing us."

When we had all those floods a few years back, somebody took a poll. And the poll revealed that 18 percent of the respondents believed God was punishing the people of the Midwest for their sins. Do you believe that?

Every time a plane goes down, someone says the same thing. "It was terrible what happened to those 182 people, but they must have had it coming." Do you believe that?

William Barkley ... brilliant biblical scholar (whose commentaries I use weekly and whose commentary on the gospel of John I used yesterday) ... lost his daughter and son-in-law in a sailing accident caused by a sudden squall off the coast of Ireland. A critic, who viewed the Bible from a different perspective, wrote him a letter. In it were the words: "Dr. Barkley, God killed your daughter because of your heretical writing." Do you believe that?

Jacqueline du Pré ... world class cellist ... left the religion of her parents in order to create a one-faith household with her husband, pianist Daniel Barenboim. When she was subsequently diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis), her mother ... her mother (if you can believe it) ... said: "This disease is God's punishment for turning your back on Christianity to marry a Jew." Do you believe that?

Troubled by her mother's response, she talked to her rabbi. Theirs was a close relationship, leading her rabbi to feel comfortable in saying: "If there's any good thing to come out of this, it's that we now know what causes multiple sclerosis."

Somebody once wrote a letter to John Wesley, suggesting that God "sent" suffering as punishment for sin. Wesley fired back a letter that included the sentence: "Your God is my devil."

Or, consider those dual tragedies at the outset of Luke 13. In one, Pontius Pilate slaughtered some Galileens. In another, a tower fell and crushed 18 people. Jesus said: "Do you think that those who suffered were worse sinners than anybody else?" Then he began his answer with the word, "No."

"Who sinned ... this man or his parents ... that he was born blind?" And Jesus said: "Neither, but that the works of God might be manifest in him."

Now, don't go misinterpreting that. You've come this far. Don't screw things up now. Jesus isn't saying: "God blinded him so that I can cure him ... so that I can impress everybody ... convince everybody ... convict everybody ... convert everybody." I suppose it's possible to read it like that. But I think it's a mistake to read it like that. Instead, Jesus is saying: "If you are going to focus somewhere, focus on the cure rather than the sickness ... focus on the Who of the healing rather than on the Why of the disease."

As the story unfolds ... when you go home and read it at lunch (and I hope that you will go home and read it at lunch) ... you will find that the remaining 37 verses all deal with the healing. And they keep coming back (like a record which has been wonderfully cracked at just the right spot), so that the blind man repeatedly says: "I may not know everything. In fact, I may not know anything. But I know one thing. And that's that I used to be blind, but I ain't blind anymore."

Did it ever occur to you that if we really believed suffering was punitive ... and that it was visited upon us by God as retribution for sin ... then we of the church would have no business carrying on ministries of healing. I mean, if God means for you to suffer, who am I to interfere with that? Maybe I should just get out of the way and let God do his thing. If I try to heal those whom God wants to hurt, then God might get me, don't you see. And if the church tries to heal (through hospital ministries, prison ministries, Stephen Ministries) those whom God wants to hurt, then God might get the church. Which is completely and utterly ridiculous. But, as Maurice Boyd says so beautifully: "If one has a mean theology, one can't be too careful." But, every time I read the gospel, I come away with the notion that God is in the healing business ... .Jesus is in the healing business ... the church is in the healing business ... which is why I must be in the healing business.

If I purchase a pair of houseplants in the autumn ... and (come spring) one is as green as Ireland and the other growing brown on the vine ... it does me no good to whisper in the ear of the withering one: "You miserable plant, there must be some dirty little secret in your past." No, that won't do anything except reveal my total lack of compassion. Instead, I ... like my Lord ... must come down on the side of all who are being afflicted, whatever the reason of their affliction. I don't know why we can't see that. Just blind, I guess.

As for Jacqueline du Pré, I don't know why she has multiple sclerosis. As for Kayla Rolland, I don't know why she went to school last Tuesday and never came out.

Nor do I know why planes go down and rivers rise up. I don't think it has much to do with who deserves (or doesn't deserve) anything. If it did, Saddam Hussein would have died of cancer, years ago ... if I were King of the Universe.

And to my friend who puzzles over his role in the Vietnam War of 30 years ago, all I can say is this. God didn't take your son. Although God gave his.

Like I said, if you're gonna focus on something, focus on the healing.

Note: I owe a debt of gratitude to a 1996 sermon by Dr. Maurice Boyd of City Church, New York, for his treatment of the same text.