Seeing and Hearing

OK I have not posted on here in nearly a year... Kind of busy with the New Priest thing.

I preached this sermon on John 9:1-41.

Our gospel today is about a man who could see because he could hear. Healed, through what must have seemed to him to be a really strange ritual. As wonderful as it was for him, it had to be bizarre when this itinerant Rabbi, (this “Yeshua”) rubbed mud on his eyes and told him to go wash himself in holy water.

I am sure that this formerly blind man found it even more bizarre
that no one would believe what happened. Even though they had eyes that worked and that witnessed everything. He was a a man who showed an entire community their own blindness. Showed them all that they did not see because they could not hear.

I grew up with a person who taught us all how to hear and see. My friend Mark Dowdy could see in some amazing ways because he could hear, even though he was blind. I first met him When I was 13 years old. I had agreed, as a long-term Eagle Scout Project, to be his guide, and counselor and friend. I escorted him about the scout cabin. I taught him how to build a fire and put on his uniform and cook scrambled eggs over a fire. And yes, we even made this blind boy dig latrines. Later on, I drove him around.

(And incidentally, I did not teach him how to drive, though one of our friends did. When he got pulled over by the State Patrol the man asked for his license. Mark said, “Sir I don’t have one.” The trooper asked him, “Why?” Mark said, “Because I am blind!” I think they dropped the charges…)

I recorded things for him to read and taught him the Scout Oath and Law and generally helped him to be a good Boy Scout and became his friend in the process.

One of the first things he taught me to see was that he was not helpless. He hated it when people grabbed his arm and tried to guide him around. “I… Will hold your arm” he would tell folks who tried to help him. We learned how well he could see because he could hear. He taught me how to understand people with disabilities in ways I never would have known. Up until I knew him I was not friends with anyone with any kind of disability. We did not have a lot of that in the mostly middle class, white, over-achieving suburban enclave we lived in around the lake.

His first year at Scout Camp, the rifle instructor wanted to give him a chance to shoot.
He’d never shot a gun before. He rigged a bell behind a target on the rifle range. He connected a string to the bell and ran the string through an eyehook to behind where Mark was shooting. We would ring the bell And Mark would fire at it I remember that afternoon thinking that this was a waste of time and that I was angry this was cutting in to my swim time. He’d never get close, we knew.

Mark lined up the rifle and shot once toward the bell, and was slightly to the left of the target. He shot again and hit the outer rings of the target. On the third shot I felt the string jerk a little right after Mark shot. We put the rifle down and went out.He had put a bullet right through the center of the bell. Mark could “see” the target and “see” the bell that was hidden right behind the target. He could see because he could hear, and we had evidence to back it up!
Even though they could see and touch the evidence and even though the healed man walked among them. Nobody could believe it. He goes back to his parents-
“That man healed me….”
“What? Impossible!” they say… “Go to the Priest,” they tell him, “This does not happen…” He goes to the priests and pleads, “But he healed me..”
The Priests reply, “He’s no healer… no prophet… he can’t even obey rules..”
They cannot see him… even though he stands right in front of them.
“But he healed me…but but I can see!” the blind man keeps pleading.
The Priests will have none of it, “You are born of sin.. yet you teach us? ” they tell him…”Get out of town….”
They see nothing because they cannot hear him.

Our hero heads out of town, probably to the next village where he can start anew. Cast out from his friends and family because he saw and heard. On his way to the next town, he sees a group of men walking along. They seem strangely familiar to him. But he’s never seen them before with his new eyes and his brain and eyes do not connect.
The one that seems to be the leader stops him and asks him what had to be a question from left field-

“Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
The man stutters a reply, saying, “Who is he, where is he so I can see him now..” Staring Jesus in the face ……yet he does not recognize him until Jesus speaks, saying, “You have seen him… the one speaking with you is he…”

The blind man hears and then sees because he remembers Jesus’ voice. His brain probably not trained to recognize Jesus’ face. Funny how John caught a really interesting neurological fact. That a newly healed person who was blind will take a while before his eyes and brain will connect and be able to take in the amazing array of data it requires to recognize a face. Even the newly sighted must hear in order to see.

Years later I saw Mark at a Boy Scout reunion. We got our Eagle Scouts together about 2 years after he joined the troop. My friend had been healed, I had heard, through the miracle of ophthalmological surgery and could see, with the help of very thick glasses. I walked over and stood in front of him and held out my hand. He did not have any idea who I was until I said, “Mark, it’s Tim.” And immediately he recognized me. Hearing my voice, he knew who I was.

We are called today to learn how to see and hear. We are called to connect our eyes with our hearts and souls. We are called to listen for and hear Jesus’ voice so we too can recognize his face in every person and see him in all places and situations and times.

We are called to hear and see, so we can, many of us, finally open our eyes for the first time.