Whatdyaknow?

Text - John 9

I really like that line:
“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
I guess that this can be used to serve a sort of head-in-the-sand approach - it must be a favorite verse of those who don’t want to do any theological reflection - but there is a simplicity here that is rich. “well, you guys are after all sorts of stuff - but I know that he healed me...”
Perhaps this appeals to my inner pietist.

One thing we can do is turn to this story to speak about how each one of us can speak to our neighbors and invite them to Church. You don’t need to have it all down. . .

There’s so much here, it is easy to get lost. . .
Richard Lischer has a real nice sermon that opens

In a church I served, one of the pillars of the congregation stopped by my office just before services to tell me he'd been "born again."
"You've been what?" I asked.
"I visited my brother-in-law's church, the Running River of Life Tabernacle, and I don't know what it was, but something happened and I'm born again."
"You can't be born again," I said, "you're a Lutheran.." . . . He was brimming with joy, but I was sulking. Why? Because spiritual renewal is wonderful as long as it occurs within acceptable, usually mainline, channels and does not threaten my understanding of God.
In her novel Revelation, Peggy Payne tells of a Presbyterian minister who experiences a theophany. One afternoon, while grilling steaks in the backyard, he hears the voice of God speaking to him. It's a revelation. It's the kind of revelation that will change his life; he will never be the same. The rest of the story tells of the price he pays for revelation, Do the leaders of his congregation rejoice with him? Not exactly. They do provide free psychiatric care and paid administrative leave.

Of course, there is a deep danger that when we hear this text, as we judge the Pharisees, we become Pharisees ourselves. . . we are the judgmental ones. . .
As Lindy Black quotes Barbara Brown Taylor:

One reason they are so repellent to us, I think, is because they remind us of ourselves. However much we prefer the role of the blind man, we are not naturals for the part. We are not outcasts, most of us. We have not been set outside the community for our sins. We are consummate insiders--fully initiated, law-abiding, pledge-paying, creed-saying members of the congregation of the faithful--or in shorthand, Pharisees,

I’m not sure what all that means, but one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.