Those of us who are spiritually blind are worse off than those who are physically blind.

Sunday, 3/18/12

The point of this Gospel story about the man born blind is that people who are spiritually blind are worse off than people who are physically blind.

People have long remarked on how today’s Gospel story reads like a play. Both the Man Born Blind and his parents offer rich comedy. With the help of a Korean Literature teacher I put this Gospel into a play fifty-five years ago. For it we rented the town’s barn of a theater, and the place was mobbed with people cheering for Jesus and the Man Born Blind.

Again forty years ago, when I was at the parish church for the University of Iowa, I scripted it, and with the help of a music teacher, made a musical out of it. Then here at St. Paul’s we put it on several times, leaving me with great memories of star performers years back.

One year after another the students we had as the Man Born Blind came on singing:

                  Our synagogue and market place are the best that you will find. We have our very own beggar here: me, the Man Born Blind!

The Pharisees strutted in bellowing,

                  Make way, make way for Pharisees, the men who have no flaw. We have a thing for purity, and the letter of the law.

We are spiritually blind like the Pharisees when we can’t see our smallness. We are blind if we never see Christ in his needy ones. We are blind if we don’t see the deadline for our lives coming at us. That blindness has us wasting our days.