A Blind World

Today’s reading is from the Gospel of John, a story in which Jesus heals a blind man. Frances Merritt, our Pastoral Fellow for Congregational Care, is preaching today. She cites Jesus as the light of the world, but she also suggests that there is light from the world itself when one opens oneself to look around. The story in John is of a man who might have been hopeless because he had been blind from birth. Jesus saw the blind man as an opportunity, and she says that whenever there is hurt there is opportunity. We are sent to open blind eyes. Jesus knew his time was limited, and to heal the blind man was an urgent act. On the other hand, we rarely realize the urgency of a situation that calls for our acts of healing. On the other side of that story is that the only one who can testify to God’s work is the one who has been healed, and that telling sometimes risks the teller being tossed out of a religious institution that is blind to the work of God.