Get It?

John 9:1-12 — John 9:35-38 (redacted: verses 13-34)

Oh boy, here we go again with the censoring. In this case the Daily Office Lectionary has omitted the very best part of the story and what’s more, the missing part is the absolute core of the story. Without it, the last section is out of context and makes no sense at all. This is the story of the man born blind whom Jesus healed with his spit and some dirt. The Pharisees got all wound up about it, and wouldn’t leave it alone. They even went and pestered the man’s parents. They kept on coming back to the man and asking the same questions over and over, hoping for a different answer.

The missing section contains some of the snarkiest comebacks in the entire Bible, and I’m even including Job’s “Won’t you ever take your eyes off of me, at least long enough for me to swallow my spit?”

(Hey, look, more spit! Everybody knows that spitting is nasty. In almost every context, all over the world, from the distant past to the present day, it’s an explicit way of showing insolence, contempt, ridicule, scorn, and complete disrespect. In Jewish law, if an unclean person spits on someone, the person who gets spit on becomes unclean as well. I’m not going to get sidetracked into the implications of using spit to heal, other than to say that if spit from an unclean person can transmit uncleanness, then doesn’t it make sense that spit from a clean, holy person might transmit health and blessing? It’s also a bit crude, indelicate, and very intimate, which tells us something important about Jesus.)

The censored portion of the text (verses 13-34) starts with the man’s neighbors, who think they recognize him, but don’t want to believe that he’s the same man — the one who was born blind. People who are born blind often have obvious defects: their pupils are cloudy, or their eye sockets shrunken. It’s reasonable to think that his appearance changed after he was healed. The story makes it clear that his neighbors weren’t talking to him, they were talking about him. He interrupts at this point, and the language of the Bible makes it completely clear: “He himself kept saying” or “He himself insisted” that he’s the same man.  Here’s an important point— the neighbors ‘took him’ to the Pharisees. He didn’t go on his own account, he got hustled along by the neighbors. He became a source of contention and upset, and people were getting annoyed. Then, of course, the Pharisees start arguing with each other about it, and “there was a split among them.” They try to resolve the argument by asking the ex-blind man his opinion, and he tells them he thinks the man who healed him was a prophet. That doesn’t help the argument, so the Pharisees start doubting that he was even blind in the first place. They haul his parents in. His parents get exasperated with the Pharisees and say, “Yeah, he’s our son, and yeah, he was born blind, and yeah, he can see now! We don’t know anything else about it! Ask him, you schmucks, he’s a grown man and he can answer for himself!” Here’s another important point— the text says that the reason the parents wouldn’t say any more about it was because if they acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah they’d get thrown out of the synagogue. So then the poor Pharisees subpoena the man again. They tell him they know Jesus is a sinner. He says, “I don’t know anything about that, all I know is I was blind and now I can see.” (I can just picture him shaking his head, and muttering under his breath, “Idiots!”) They keep on hassling him, so he says, “What do you want? I already told you and you didn’t listen! Why do you want to hear it again? Maybe you want to be his disciples too?” The Pharisees get all huffy, and say, “You might be his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses! We know God talked to Moses, but this guy— we don’t know where he comes from!” So the ex-blind guy sneers at them: “Well, hoo-ty-too to you too! It’s really weird that you don’t know where he comes from…since everybody knows that God doesn’t listen to sinners! It’s unheard of for a person blind from birth to be cured. Ever! If this guy isn’t from God, he wouldn’t have been able to do it!” Then the Pharisees get really mad, and say, “You sonuvabitch! Are you lecturing us? Get out!” and they throw him out. (Presumably his parents got to stay because they were sufficiently mealy-mouthed.)

Remember, the man born blind never saw Jesus. He doesn’t know where to find him. He just got excommunicated. His parents have disowned him. His friends and neighbors look at him funny, and walk the other way when they see him. How awful would that be? He didn’t do anything wrong, he didn’t even ask to be healed because it never occurred to him that such thing was possible. Jesus healed him for the sake of an object lesson to his disciples, to prove that such afflictions had nothing to do with sin. What he says to the disciples right before he heals the man is pretty telling: “As long as it is day, we must keep doing the work of the One who sent me; the night is coming, when no one can work.”

Now, this is why I think that leaving this whole middle part out is really stupid—

“Yeshua heard that they had thrown the man out. He found him and said, “Do you trust in the Son of Man?”  I repeat— “He found him.”

Jesus went out of his way to go and look for the man. Why?  Jesus went to look for him on account of all the things that happened in the part of the story that the Lectionary leaves out. The guy has never even seen Jesus. Remember, in the beginning of the story, Jesus just waltzed up to him, rubbed some mud on his eyes, and told him to go and wash in the pool called “Sent.” So, the poor blind guy gathered up his begging bowl and his stick and groped his way down to the fountain, muttering all the way about some crazy guy who rubbed mud in his eyes. He didn’t expect anything, he just needed to wash his face. Then all this other stuff happened, and here he is, seeing a brand-new world— but now he’s an exile and an outcast. People don’t feel sorry for him anymore and they probably won’t put anything in his bowl from now on. His life is turned upside down.

When Jesus asks him, “Do you trust in the Son of Man?”— “Sir,” he answered, “tell me who he is, so that I can trust in him.” ³⁷ Yeshua said to him, “You have seen him. In fact, he’s the one speaking with you now.” “Lord, I trust!” he said, and he kneeled down in front of him.” I repeat— “You have seen him.”

 ^“Yeshua said, “It is to judge that I came into this world, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” Some of the P’rushim nearby heard this and said to him, “So we’re blind too, are we?” ⁴¹ Yeshua answered them, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin. But since you still say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”

Pretty convoluted, eh? To judge according to who sees and who doesn’t see, that makes sense. But that’s not what the text says. It says that the judgment is this:  “to cause those who do not see to see, and those who do see to be blind,” and the consequence is: “If you say you see, you’re still guilty.”

If you claim to know what’s what; if you say, “I get it,” that means that you totally don’t get it. If you don’t get it, but you’re willing to trust God and keep on doing the best you can from moment to moment, well then, you don’t have to worry about whether or not you “get it.”

Get it?