Who's to Blame?

Scripture

John 9:1-12

¹As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. ²His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. ⁴We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. ⁵As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, ⁷saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. ⁸The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” ¹⁰But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” ¹¹He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” ¹²They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”  (NRSV)

Devotion

 Have you ever looked at someone in distress and find yourself asking what they did to get where they are?  I'm ashamed to admit that I've done so too many times to count.  "If only they had been more frugal," I think.  "If only they had planned ahead better.  If only they hadn't made that bad decision or given into that one temptation, then they wouldn't be where they are."  

Wanting to establish the cause of someone's problems is a normal human tendency.  We convince ourselves that if we can figure out what people did wrong to make something happen to them, then we can make sure that it doesn't happen to us.  Establishing fault may make us feel better as individuals, but it is also harmful.  When we spend all our time figuring out how to blame people for their misfortune, we lose our sense of compassion and gain a sense of superiority. That in turn, tends to lead us to judge folks instead of doing what we can to help them.  After all, we decide, if they got themselves into that mess, why should they expect us to get them out of it?  Even if we do not fall into the trap of losing compassion for someone, we can devote so much energy to figuring out who or what to blame that we have no time, resources, or will lift to actually help the person in need.

This kind of scenario is exactly what Jesus addresses when he and his disciples encounter a blind man in John 9.  At that time, physical maladies were generally thought to be proof that you or your parents were sinful.  Because there were few social safety nets in place, people who were blind usually had little choice but to rely upon family members or beg to survive.  When the disciples see the man, they don't even have enough compassion to learn his name--much less try to help him.  Instead, they want Jesus to quickly tell them who sinned so they can alleviate their own discomfort by casting blame for the man's difficulties on either himself or his family.

Thanks to the Greek language's lack of punctuation at the end of sentences, there are two ways to translate Jesus's response.   

1.  The NRSV says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.  We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day"  This translation makes it seem as if God blinded the man in order to make a point.  Again, we are given a rather cruel out of sorts.  If God is to blame for the person's misfortune, why should regular people step in to help?  After all, the situation seems out of their hands.
   

2. It is equally as valid to translate Jesus as saying, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind.  So that God's works might be revealed in him, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day."   Simply shifting the punctuation makes it seem as if to blame for the person's blindness; it is just a fact of life.  This translation puts the emphasis not on the cause of the problem but on people's response to it.  If God's good works are to be revealed in the afflicted person's life, then Jesus and his followers have some work to do.

 I find the second translation convicting.  Jesus challenges me to stop looking for ways to blame people for their afflictions and instead focus on ways that I can help reveal God's works in their lives.  If someone faces food or housing insecurity, I need to avoid the temptation to personally pick apart every aspect of their spending habits so that I can focus on helping them get to a place where they can not just survive but thrive.  If someone struggles with addiction, Christ wants me to stop thinking that they are obviously a weak or immoral person and instead help them find resources and interventions that can help them overcome it.  

Shifting our focus from blame people to revealing God at work in their doesn't mean that we don't ask people to be accountable for their mistakes.  After all, we all have things we need to change.  It does, though, mean that we understand accountability differently.  Fist, we must learn to accept that some things occur through no real fault of the person's own...and that it is useless to play the blame game.  Second, even when we see things that are holding a person back, we can lovingly try to help them address those issues rather than using them as an excuse to shirk our responsibility toward one another.  The more empathetic we are and the more we work to give each other a helping hand when necessary, the more the Holy Spirit transforms our world into something that better resembles the Kingdom of God.

When I find myself wanting to judge people for their situation instead of help them, I try to remember a story about my grandfather.  Grandpa's served on the board of this rural community's public water and sewer district.  During a board meeting, another member mentioned that a pregnant woman was about to have her water shut off for non-payment.  The board member hemmed and hawed about how unfortunate it was, but she and her husband (who had been laid off from work) should have had more saving, waited to have a child, etc.  Then Grandpa stood up and said that he didn't care why they were in the situation they were in, because at the end of the day, it didn't matter.  As long as he was around, no child in his community would come into the world without access to clean water.  Then, he demanded that the board let him work with the family to figure out a payment plan.  The water stayed on.  

Decades later,  the pregnant woman told my sister just how much Grandpa's act of compassion had impacted her family. Working to keep the blame away and the water flowing hadn't just met their immediate, physical needs.  It had given them a sense of hope and provided them with a first step on the path to getting out of financial arrears.  The family never accumulated great wealth, but they were able to get by and save a little.  They thought that had he lived long enough to see it, Grandpa would have enjoyed knowing that their now-adult daughter was doing great things with her life.  And because Grandpa cared enough to help reveal God's good works in their lives, the woman and her husband made a point of helping others when they could.  

Friends, there is a great deal of hurt in the world.  Some of it can be traced back to a person's decisions, while other things just are the way the way they are.  Debating who or what is to blame for a certain situation often matters far less than what needs to happen in order to bring about healing and wholeness.  What's more, Christ calls us to act as his hands and feet in the world and make a difference on his behalf.  We must act now--in this time and this place so that God's work can be revealed in even the most painful of situations.

I admit that I am more often-than-not like the disciples in today's passage.  That's why one of my goals in life is to be more like my grandfather, who took Jesus's lesson to heart.  I want to be known as the person who showed compassion instead of judgement and who tried to heal instead of hurt.  I will not always live up to Christ's expectations, but I can try to do better.  I hope you will join me on this quest....for together, we can be instruments of God's mercy and help reveal Christ's transformative work throughout the world.  

Prayer

Merciful, Jesus.  You look beyond our pain and our mistakes to see the potential in each of us.  Make me an instrument of your goodness so that I too may refrain from judging others and instead do what I can to reveal God's works within the life of  each and every person I meet.  Amen.