This past Sunday we heard the story of the healing of a man born blind. What awesome news! Or, one would think. But as we found out in our Gospel passage, after receiving his newfound sight, this man’s testimony was dismissed by everyone around him, leading him to be driven out of community.
Each time I read this story in preparation for Sunday, I empathized more and more with this man. Putting myself in his shoes, I recognized the true gift that Jesus had offered him. But I also recognized the disdain that this man received simply from the assumptions, judgments, and long-held beliefs that the Pharisees, the disciples, and his neighbors held so dearly.
I’d like to say that I’m better than those people who ostracized this man. But I also know my sin. In the words of Peggy Hahn, “We can be so fast to resist someone who doesn’t match our own worldview or who questions our own formation. We all know that feeling of ‘don’t rock the boat’, or ‘move the cheese’, or whatever analogy you prefer.” (click here to read Peggy’s full blog).
Like the characters in our Gospel story, we may have (seemingly) valid reasons for our resistance to a new idea, a new perspective, or a new experience of God. But the longer we uphold our assumptions and long-held beliefs as something that cannot – in any way shape or form – be changed, the longer we inhibit the healing that God desires to give to us, to our world, to our church, and to our neighbors.
So this week, as we continue to dwell in this passage, consider what assumptions you carry. Where did those assumptions originate? Do any of those assumptions inhibit you, or your neighbor, from life? And if you’ve recognized that some assumptions were misguided, what caused you to change your mind?