seeing and not seeing

A man who had been held in solitary confinement for 29 years spoke of how his eyes had adjusted to looking no further than the length of his cell. When he was released, it took many months for his eyes to begin to see further than a few metres.

Chris had been out with his mates for a drive. He commented later how they had teased him because he was continually drawing their attention to things he saw along the way. “I thought everybody noticed things, but they don’t.” he said, disappointed for his friends that they missed so much.

In the story from John 9, we have a number of different forms of seeing and not seeing. Jesus saw a man who was unable to see, because he had been born blind. The disciples, with their question about who had sinned had a blinkered view of the causes of blindness. The Pharisees, with biased religious views, were upset that the man had been given his sight on a Sabbath day. They were blind to the ways of God. The neighbours didn’t know if they could trust what they were now seeing because he looked quite different to them as a sighted person.

We are probably not physically blind, but many of us have had our sight restricted by walls built to protect our religious views. We may find it hard to see beyond the boundaries of our Biblical understandings. No  one may have pointed other insights out to us or encouraged us to look further.

Brother Pinto says that if the way we see God now is the same as the way we saw God five years ago then our vision is severely limited and we haven’t been hearing God’s offer to open our eyes to the possibilities that are available to us. The good news in this is that God is willing to open our eyes, heal our blindness and help us to adjust to new visions of ourselves, others and God. May you be blessed with a clearer vision of God, others and yourself and many new insights.

(Rev Julianne Parker) (for full sermon see sermon page above)