As a response to Pastor Al’s sermon this morning I decided to translate one section of my Bible blog. The chapter I have chosen is naturally chapter 9 of John’s Gospel, the gospel reading for today. The idea with the Bible blog is to write down thoughts and speculations that arise when I read through the whole Bible, publishing a chapter a day here on iSpeculate.net. I hope my translation is slightly more accurate than Google Translate would be.
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It is easy to get stuck focusing on irrelevant issues. Especially if it is difficult to face what matters the most. I have read this text numerous times focusing on the miracle. How Jesus changed the life of the blind man through the healing, praising Jesus’ healing powers. I also know people who like to make fun of this text, pointing out how disgusting it is to blend saliva and dirt and put it in someones eyes.
However, this is not the main issue in the story, even though it is said to have taken place. The story addresses in a radical way the common understanding of some kind of “family karma” (which is a separate issue from the original sin, which I might address in a later blog). Jesus seems to reject notions of disability, in this case blindness, as a some kind of judgment over the family. I know I am influenced by a dialogue currently taking place in Iceland, when I read in the text that Jesus rejects the notion that disability is somehow bad, shameful, something that needs correction. Disability is part of humanity and the problem is not the disability but the way the society seems to be incapable of giving all the opportunity to blossom based on their own abilities.
We read also that the miracle we so often focus on, does not change much except for the person that starts to see. Not even his parents seem to be to excited, they are first and foremost afraid of the changes the new situation might bring along. We cannot even be sure that the blind man’s life becomes better, like Monthy Python reminds us in their own Gospel. All of a sudden the blind man has become an issue for the religious leaders, who understand him to be a problem.
The religious leaders act as we might expect, laws are broken, changes are in the air. The threat in Jesus’ behavior is not to be accepted. And what is more troubling, by healing the blind man, Jesus is indicating that the injustice towards those on the margin is not part of God’s plan.
The writer of John’s Gospel gives us once more an image of Jesus, that calls us to look at ourselves. Jesus reminds us at the end of the chapter that it is the blindness on our own limitation that judges us.