Blind or Ignorant? (4th Lent A)

A sermon by the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, written for and delivered at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Rincon, GA, on Sunday, March 15, 2026, the 4th Sunday in Lent (Year A).

Image Credits: https://biltrix.com/2020/03/22/christ-opens-your-eyes-the-healing-of-the-man-born-blind/

Primary Bible Reading(s)

(Click on March 15, 2026, to see all of the Lectionary Texts)

John 9:1-41 (NRSVue)

9 As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7 saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. 8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” 10 But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, 21 but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” 25 He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 28 Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” 38 He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

Blind or Ignorant?

By the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, Program Manager for New Starts, ELCA

Raise your hand if you have ever worn prescription eyeglasses. What about reading glasses? Keep your hand up if you basically need eyeglasses all the time to function day-to-day. Does anyone have such poor vision that you are considered “legally blind?” My vision wasn’t quite that bad, but before LASIK surgery a few years ago, I couldn’t do much without glasses or contact lenses. Even after surgery, I still need eyeglasses for driving at night. All of us might have been considered “blind” in the first century. Before the invention of corrective lenses, many people would have low enough vision to prevent them from working certain jobs.

I have a family member who is an optometrist who specializes in serving very low-vision patients. Many of them need additional accommodations in order to navigate their lives even with the strongest possible glasses. They might need bigger clocks or larger fonts for reading. Many of them can never drive a motor vehicle. Many churches have larger print Prayer Books for lower-vision worshippers. And of course, some people today have complete blindness that modern medicine cannot correct. They might use white canes or service animals to help them move around in public with awareness of their surroundings. 

These are just some examples of ways that society can adjust itself to include people with low or no vision. In other words, visual impairment does not need to  cause isolation or poverty. But in many societies, it does. It is not uncommon for many extremely poor or unhoused people to have disabilities of some kind. That’s especially true in countries with less access to modern medical care, but it happens in the USA too. I have worked with unhoused ministries in several different US cities, and I have regularly met people with a variety of impairments, including blindness. In a lot of cases they are unhoused because they are disabled and unable to find ways to support themselves. Our society sometimes gives lip service to inclusion, but it often doesn’t really want to be that flexible.

Today’s Gospel reading is challenging because it contains some ancient assumptions that today we might call “ableist.” Candidly, some of those assumptions are still around today, which is why some people who have chronic disabilities cringe a little bit when they hear Jesus’ healing stories. 

First of all, the apostles assumed that anyone who was born blind was suffering punishment for some sin. This was a common way of explaining why someone was a poor beggar, why they suffered socially. “This is God’s judgment,” people would say, “not our society’s brokenness.” Instead of taking responsibility to care for and accommodate people who have different abilities, they just wrote it off as God’s will. Thankfully, Jesus corrected the disciples. He told them that this man’s blindness is not a punishment for sin. Neither he nor his parents are to blame for his disability.

Then, Jesus healed this man of his blindness. It’s one of the more tactile healings in the Gospels. Jesus spat on the ground, rubbed that “mud” or wet clay over the man’s eyes, then he told him to go wash in Siloam, a pool in Jerusalem. A couple of things to notice: Jesus sent this man to the pool whose name means “sent.” And Jesus himself was sent by the Father to bring healing and freedom to the world. This is also an example of Jesus’ divine creative power. Just as God molded Adam and Eve from the clay of the earth, Jesus gave this man “new eyes” through his own clay. 

When the man returned to the city, people started to recognize him as the beggar who they knew was born blind. He immediately testified to what happened, that it was the prophet Jesus who healed him. He was not shy or bashful about what happened and he didn’t hold back from pointing back to Jesus as the one who worked the miracle. The religious authorities already disliked and distrusted Jesus, so they were not happy to hear that he performed another miracle. 

Jesus preached and ministered to poor people outside the temple system. He taught them about the radically equitable reign of God. He defied religious customs around sabbath, handwashing, and more. All of these things offended religious leaders who were confident that they were right about God. They didn’t think they had anything more to learn. They thought that they had God figured out enough to know that someone who looked and talked and acted like Jesus could not be godly. So they judged him a troublemaker and deviant. They tried to pressure the man who was born blind and his parents into denying that Jesus healed the man’s vision. To his credit, the man who Jesus healed refused to back down because of their pressure. He stood on the truth of his experience of Jesus’ grace, kindness, and power, no matter the consequences. 

So the Pharisees drove him out of the community. This man who was ostracized for his entire life for his vision (a thing he couldn’t control) was ostracized again. This time, he did control it. He was rejected because he refused to lie. He leaned on the truth, and that truth offended people in power, and they tried to punish him. Where did he find the moral courage? How did he feel being set aside again, right after he thought he might be restored to his community? The Pharisees didn’t seem to care. They would rather preserve their sense of normalcy and status quo. They cared more about “being right” than being kind.

But when the Pharisees rejected the man again, Jesus didn’t. He went and found him (John 9:35). Then they spoke about the Son of Man, and Jesus revealed himself to the man who used to be blind. That man became the first person to worship Jesus in John’s Gospel (9:38). It’s the emotional climax of the story. The person who Jesus healed got it right over and against the self-righteous religious leaders!

But then Jesus’ final words slip back into a bit of ableism that we need to talk about: “39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.””

Here, Jesus uses blindness as a metaphor for ignorance and/or arrogance. Using Jesus’ analogy, the Pharisees are spiritually “blind” because they deny their sinfulness. They think that they are righteous and they look down on others who are different from them. That’s really problematic and sinful. But I want to caution us to avoid using blindness as a metaphor for these negative traits. It unnecessarily hurts our siblings with visual impairment. We can think of more creative and accurate ways to preach against hypocrisy. 

But that major caveat aside, this Gospel story has a lot to teach us. God is always doing new things. God is always on the side of the neediest people. And none of us is perfect. We can never be so confident that we have it right that we try to silence testimony about God’s radical love and inclusion. We should never be so self-assured that we think our theology is settled. And we just might need to adapt and change to discover God’s message from surprising messengers. We might need to be extra careful to include people in our community who struggle with vision or movement or anything else. Accommodation is not just trendy “wokeness” or “political correctness.” It is how we live out the Gospel. It’s how we love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Amen.