Posts Tagged ‘stereotypes’

Whose ministry – Mary’s or Martha’s

July 19, 2025

Pentecost 6 – 2024

Luke 10:36-42

Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us to different roles and responsibilities and who encourages us to use our different gifts and abilities in the sharing of the gospel. Amen.

I am sure that I don’t need to tell you that Peter, James and John were part of Jesus’ inner circle. They were witnesses to his transfiguration and were close to him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter identifies Jesus as the Christ.  It may surprise you to know that these three are largely absent from the Gospel of John. In that Gospel, the significant players – those with a speaking part – are Andrew, Phillip and Thomas. This leads to the conclusion that peter, James and John played a significant role in the communities behind the Synoptic Gospels but not in the community from which the Gospel of John emerged.

The different characters suggest that in the emerging communities behind the Synoptic gospels Peter, James and John were people of some significance but that in the Johannine community others – specifically Andrew, Phillip and Thomas – were leaders for it is these three who have speaking roles in the fourth gospel.  

In a similar way, if women are given a significant role in a gospel it suggests that they also had an important role in the emerging church.  In a society in which women were relegated to the margins, the fact that they are mentioned at all is significant. This is most clearly demonstrated in John’s gospel, in which nearly half a chapter is devoted to the role played by Mary Magdalene as a witness to the resurrection. What is more Mary is given the responsibility of telling the disciples that Jesus is risen which making her the Apostle to the Apostles. 

It seems that at the time the gospels were written the memory of those who played foundational roles in the early communities is still fresh. Even though the church is settling down and conforming more to the world around it, women who played important roles in the early communities cannot easily be written out of the story.

This is particularly evident when it comes to the sisters Martha and Mary who are mentioned twice in the gospels – here in the gospel of Luke, and in connection with the raising of Lazarus in John’s gospel. In both accounts the women are depicted as women who make up their own minds and in John it is Martha not Peter, who identifies Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. 

Unfortunately, thanks in part to our translators, in Luke, the roles of Martha and Mary are domesticated and circumscribed. It is easy to read the account of Jesus’ visit as a silencing of both women – Mary who passively sits and listens and Martha who is described as distracted. The translation and the subsequent stereotyping of the two women creates a binary between action and contemplation that continues to this day and suggests that the role of women is either passive listening or busy organising.

The account of Jesus’ visit to the home of the sisters takes up only seven verses, so there is much that we do not know. We do not know for example how old the women were, what their financial status was or why there is no male in their household. Nor do we know if Jesus turned up alone or (more than likely) in the company of the twelve, whether he dropped in for a meal or planned to stay for a day or two. What we do know is that the culture of the time placed a high value on hospitality – think for example of the man who wakes his neighbour in the middle of the night so that he can have some bread for an unexpected guest.

Clearly, in the absence of a brother or husband, Martha is the householder. It is her responsibility to ensure that Jesus and those with him are made welcome and fed. As the householder, she naturally expects Mary to help.

Our translation leads us to believe that Jesus chides Martha for her preoccupation with getting ready when in fact Jesus may be offering her sympathy in recognition of the demands of her ministry. Margaret Wesley translates verses 40 and 41as: “But Martha was overwhelmed by many ministry responsibilities, so she came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the ministry by myself? Tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are going to so much trouble and you have so many responsibilities to worry about!” 

But does Jesus chastise Martha for wanting to determine Marry’s choice – yes perhaps. Note that the Greek tells us that Mary is commended for choosing the good (not the better) portion, that of a student. Martha’s fault, if she has one, is that of not recognising that it is not her role to determine Mary’s path. God’s call on Mary is not for Martha to determine. Both women are called to and assume ministry roles – one of deacon, one of student – neither is better than the other, both are necessary. 

Before we consign Martha to the role of easily distracted, shallow woman and elevate a silenced Mary to the ideal model of womanhood, we need to unpack Luke’s purpose in telling the story, the blinkers worn by translators, and the preconceptions we bring to the tale from the ways in which we have heard the story in the past.

Before we apply stereotypes to anyone in our society, before we assume that know their interests and their capabilities, before we limit and define their roles and their contribution, we need to be sure that we know the full story, we need to understand the lens through which we see and the assumptions that we bring to bear.

We are all called to serve in a multitude of different ways. The one who calls and equips is never one of us, but always God.

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Not dancing or mourning

July 4, 2020

Pentecost 5 – 2020

Matthew 11:16-19,25-30

Marian Free

In the name of God who defies all our expectations. Amen.

In February 2006 a woman at a University bus stop in Brisbane was left face down in her own vomit for 5 ½ hours. Delmae Barton, an internationally renowned opera singer had been on her way to work when she had a stroke and a mild heart attack. For five and half hours she lay in 35 degree heat while people walked around and past her and even sat in the bus-stop beside her. Not one of up to a thousand commuters or one of several bus drivers thought to call an ambulance and not one person stopped to offer help. Finally, two Japanese men stopped and asked if she needed help and offered her a glass of water.

Delmae was well-dressed and was on her way to a university job which in most circumstances would have given her respect and status on campus, if not in the broader community. She was well-educated, well-travelled and well-regarded, and she was left to die in broad daylight, in a public place frequented by many people. It seems unbelievable, until you realise that Delmae is aboriginal and that the colour of her skin led people to assume that she was drunk – apparently a good enough reason not to offer assistance or even to ask if she was OK. 

Like most university campuses, this one is off the beaten track. There was no reason to think that anyone would be there unless they were related to the university – whether students or staff – but it seems that no one stopped to think of that. Those who chose not to assist Delmae were blinded by their prejudices and their stereotypical images of first nation people. They could not imagine that the person lying in front of them was a university lecturer. They were unable to see her as a fellow human being, let alone as a woman of stature in Australian society. 

The colour of Delmae’s skin led passers-by to make assumptions about her condition and those assumptions freed them from any sense of responsibility towards her.

Expectations and stereotypes are not limited to people of different races or cultures. We are all guilty of categorising those who are different from ourselves and of placing realistic and unrealistic expectations on groups of people. Stereotypes free us from thinking and allow us to make broad generalisations that may or may not fit anyone in a particular group, let alone each individual person. 

Stereotypes simplify our lives and are useful when they help us to understand people and cultures that are different from ourselves, but they also confine and limit those people to specific roles and behaviours and can prevent us from seeing each person as an individual in their own right and from understanding that for every person who fits the stereotype there is another who does not. 

It is this all too human tendency to classify and stereotype that Jesus is challenging in today’s gospel. “This generation”, presumably Jesus’ fellow countrymen and women, seem unable to recognise either John the Baptist or Jesus for who they are – people sent by God, whether prophet or anointed one. John’s austerity is associated with demon possession and Jesus’ more relaxed behaviour leads him to be called a glutton. Both have been characterised, demonised and rejected on the basis of one aspect of their behaviour – their attitude to food and drink. Neither, it appears fit their generation’s expectation of a saviour – whatever that was. 

In all likelihood, Jesus’ contemporaries would have had great difficulty identifying him. As the parable suggests they would not have recognised Jesus as God’s anointed if he had been less like them and they didn’t recognise Jesus because he was too much like one of them. John was too different for them to relate to and Jesus was too ordinary to be seen as someone extraordinary.

Jesus is making is clear that he is in a lose-lose situation. No matter how he behaves, no matter what he does, he will not meet the expectations of his contemporaries. Even Jesus’ followers will need the benefit of hindsight to see that Jesus’ teaching and actions were consistent with God’s promises. 

You and I can trawl through the scriptures and locate all the references relating to how God will work or will be revealed in the world and we will not be able to pin them down to one or even two possibilities. This is because God refuses to be categorised or restricted. The very nature of God is that God cannot be pinned down or confined by human imaginations. No matter how creative or free-thinking we are, God will always beyond our horizons. We will catch glimpses of God’s presence from time to time, but never be able to fully grasp the enormity or the awesomeness of God. 

Jesus’ condemnation of his generation is a warning to us – a reminder that our understanding is always limited and that however much we think we know there is always more to know. We cannot afford to be complacent, nor can we afford to stop exploring and searching – for this is a journey that has no end point except death. God will always be just beyond our reach until we are finally face-to- face. Until that time our task to retain an openness to God’s presence in the most unlikely people and places. Through prayer and contemplation, we must let go of our stereotypes and expectations and allow God to be God and not who or what we think God to be. Or else we will play the flute and be disappointed that God does not dance, or wail and be frustrated that God does not mourn and we will miss the fact that God has been right there in front of us all the time.

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If we truly trust God, we can trust God with our doubts

January 13, 2018

Epiphany 2 – 2018

John 1:43-51 (Some thoughts)

Marian Free

In the name of God whose shoulders are broad and who will not turn a doubter away. Amen.

My father did not tell many jokes and those he did tell, he told over and over again. One that I particularly remember was about an Irishman named Paddy. Paddy was a Council worker who was working with a group of men on a road outside a village. It was a hot day and at lunchtime the group sent Paddy into the village to buy some beer. Paddy got to the pub and ordered the beer. The publican asked where he was going to put it. Paddy thought for a minute, took off his hat and said: “Put it in here.” The publican filled the hat, but there was not enough room for all the beer. He asked Paddy where he would put the rest. “No problems,” said Paddy as he swiftly turned the hat over so that the remaining beer could be poured into the crown of the hat. Walking very carefully so as not to spill the beer, Paddy made his way back to his workmates. Seeing the beer in the crown of Paddy’s hat, his astonished workmates asked him if that was all that he got for the money they had given him. “Of course not,” said Paddy, as he turned his hat over once again.

Of course, today we are careful not to cause offense and we avoid making jokes that are based on country of origin, gender and hair colour or any other stereotype. In the past though every nation and subgroup had their jokes about other cultures or sub-cultures. (Apparently if you were in France you would tell my Father’s joke but substitute a Belgian for an Irishman and so.) One of the ways that we use to set ourselves apart or distinguish ourselves from others is to demean or to make jokes about them. If Irishmen/Belgians/New Zealanders are foolish then by inference the person telling the joke is not.

In first century Palestine, a person might tell jokes about the Galileans – those unsophisticated yokels from up north who knew little to nothing of the real world. That helps us to understand Nathanael’s response to Philip. Nathanael reports that: “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” To which Nathanael replies: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Nathaniel can be forgiven his skepticism. Nazareth was, archeologists think, a village of 2-300 people (and no I didn’t leave off a zero). Nazareth consisted of 40-60 families at the most. These families lived in limestone caves that dotted the hillsides (and which form warrens under modern-day Nazareth). It was extremely unlikely that anyone of any note would emerge from such an environment – let alone the long-expected Christ. Nazareth was close to many significant Roman cities including Sepharis. Nathaniel came from Bethsaida which like Capernaum was a fishing village whose residents lived in stone homes, not holes in the ground. From his point of view Nazareth, and anyone who came from Nazareth was not deserving of any attention.

Undeterred by Nathaniel’s disbelief, Philip insists that Nathaniel come and see Jesus for himself. Instead of berating Nathaniel for his doubt, Jesus commends him for his honesty – “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”

There is a tendency among some Christians to believe that doubt is the antithesis of faith, that doubt suggests disbelief or a failure to truly trust in God. Those who doubt sometimes feel guilty or are made to feel guilty by those who claim certainty. Others (afraid that any form of doubt will bring the castle of belief tumbling down) hold on to their certainty in the face of evidence that contradicts all that they hold dear. They dare not ask questions or allow others to ask questions for fear that that will lead to other questions. Their confidence in God and in themselves seems to be insufficient to allow even the smallest doubt to put a chink in their armour.

The results of a closed, unquestioning faith are manifold. People who cannot or will not ask questions are sometimes left holding conflicting ideas in tension, are forced to defend positions that science has proved to be untenable or are placed in a situation that can both stultifying and stagnant. Their faith cannot grow in part because it is too weak to withstand the rigor of challenge.

Perhaps what is worst of all is that those who are too anxious to question their faith demonstrate, not their trust in God, but their fear of God. They hold on to a belief that God demands unquestioning loyalty and obedience. They are afraid that at any sign of doubt God will cast them out of God’s presence. This attitude leads to an unhealthy and often dishonest relationship with God. Someone who is afraid to question God may bury his or her discontent (because one can’t question what God does or doesn’t do), accept the unacceptable without demur (because it is God’s will) and explain away any inconsistencies with platitudes that may or may not provide real satisfaction (because everything has to be accepted on faith). This attitude can lead to a relationship with God that is constrained and limited and which, as a result, fails to benefit from the sort of relationship that benefits from honesty, from robust discussion and seeking to grow through exploration.

Jesus’ reaction to Nathaniel’s doubt demonstrates that rather than dismissing those who ask questions, Jesus/God embraces and responds to them. From the time of Adam and Eve, through Abraham, Moses and the prophets, God has made it clear that God seeks to be in a strong, honest and real relationship with God’s people. God has broad shoulders and is not easily offended or put out – certainly not to the extent of casting people off. Nathaniel’s reaction to Jesus’ acceptance was to recognise Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus’ reaction to Thomas’s doubt was to provide him with the answer that he sought. Thomas’s reaction was to worship Jesus as: “Lord and God”.

Like human relationships, our relationship with God must be built on mutual trust, a willingness to say what we think and the sort of confidence in each other that allows us to work through any difficulties.

If we truly trust God, then we must know that we can trust God with our doubts.

 

 

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Who are you??

December 16, 2017

Advent 3 – 2017

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who cannot and will not be contained on constrained by our limited understanding. Amen.

 

Renae [1] and I have had an interesting week. I have been introducing her to people whom I visit. Among other things we discovered that not everyone is clear about the role of a curate or a Deacon. For example, one person asked Renae if she was going to be ordained, and another, despite our protestations to the contrary, continued to believe that Renae was my daughter. At one point this person commented how much Renae looked like me; at which point I realised that it was foolish to argue any longer!

Two of today’s readings are about identity – the identity of the prophetic voice in Isaiah and the identity of John the Witness. In relation to John the Witness, those who came to ask who he was, already had made up some guesses as to who he was. If those whom Rosemary and I visited were not troubled by dementia, a conversation between Rosemary and someone who knows a little about her might go like this:

Your maiden name is Solomon. That’s an unusual name, are you related to Peter Solomon? (No, I’m not.)

Solomon is a Jewish sounding name – do you have a Jewish ancestry? (No not at all!)

I guess that if you are a Deacon that you are expecting to become a priest. (Comment)

(If we already know some details about Renae – that she is a woman, a wife and a mother, that she has a Bachelor degrees in Arts and Theology, we might use our preconceptions and stereotypes about these roles and qualifications to fill out our picture of her. In the end, we might have a reasonable amount of information, but we wouldn’t really know her at all.)

It is all too easy to make mistakes or to draw conclusions about a person’s identity on the basis of very little information. Most of us are guilty of drawing conclusions about someone based on first impressions and most of us at some time, uses stereotypes to categorise someone because it saves time and makes life easier than trying to process a lot of information.

The conversation between the priests and Levites and John bears some similarities to that which I have just had with Renae in that it tries to fill out some very limited details by asking simplistic, stereotypical questions. That John is baptizing people in the river Jordan has become known in Jerusalem. In order to maintain their relationship with the Roman occupiers, the Jewish authorities have some responsibility for keeping the peace. They are keen to know whether John poses a threat to the stability of the region or whether his popularity threatens to unsettle their place and their status among the Jews. In short they want to know if John was simply calling the people to repentance or whether he was using his charisma to de-stabilise Temple worship and the priesthood. Was he stirring up the people to call for change or was he simply urging them to repent and to deepen their relationship with God. The former was dangerous but the latter was harmless.

The authorities didn’t go out to the Jordan themselves; they delegated the task to priests and Levites. John’s interrogators are stumped, they want him to fit into a preexisting category: the anointed one, Elijah or a prophet. John is none of these, but because his interrogators can only see the world through one lens, they ask the same question three times: “Who are you? What then? and Who are you?”

John does not fit into any of their boxes. His responses are all negative. He is not the anointed one, he is not Elijah and he is not the prophet. John knows that in and of himself he is nothing; his role is simply to point the way to someone else. He points to Jesus, to the light, to the one whose sandals he is not worthy to untie. He is a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for another. In the end we only learn what John is not, however his responses have reassured his questioners, they return to Jerusalem confident that he is not going to form a revolutionary movement that will upset the delicate balance of power.

John’s gospel is not interested in John the Baptist. The author of John is more interested in John who bears Witness to Jesus. John the Baptist is the wild man of the Synoptic gospels who preaches repentance, addresses the crowds as vipers and warns that Jesus will come with a winnowing fork in his hand and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. John the Witness is a peaceable, mild-mannered holy man whose spirituality draws people to him and leads them to seek baptism, John the Witness points forward to Jesus. He does not draw attention to himself.

The readings during Advent challenge us to pay attention – to the presence of God in and around us, in people and in creation and in the unexpected surprises in our day. Paying attention demands that we take time to focus, to notice details that would usually escape us and to celebrate God in our lives.

This week we are challenged to pay more attention to people whom we know or whom we think we know. Who are they really? What are their hopes and dreams? We are encouraged to ask ourselves: Do we allow the people around us to really be themselves or do we expect them to conform to our preconceived ideas? Have we boxed them in, restricted them to particular roles or fitted them into pre-existing stereotypes that are limiting and confusing? John didn’t fit the categories into which the priests and Levites tried to place him but so long as he didn’t cause trouble they were content to let him be.

There are no images or types that are able to contain Jesus the Christ. We must be careful to pay attention and try to adjust focus so that when Jesus is right in front of us we will not make the mistake of thinking that he is something or someone else.

This Advent, pay attention, keep awake, be alert. Allow God to stretch and challenge your way of thinking about God. Open yourself to new and different possibilities and experiences of the divine, because only then will you be ready when God in Jesus catches you by surprise.

 

[1] Renae was ordained as a Deacon two weeks ago and has begun working with us as a Curate.

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No really! An honest and moral tax-collector?

October 29, 2016

Pentecost 24 – 2016

Luke 19:1-10

Marian Free

 In the name of God who, through the Holy Spirit makes intelligible the unintelligible and continually opens our eyes to new ways of seeing. Amen.

 

The art of translation is a complex one. A translator cannot simply and mechanically change one word for another, but must make a number of crucial decisions, some of which can completely alter the intention of the speaker or of the writer. It is not just a matter of exchanging one word for another, but about determining the mood or the meaning behind the words and about creating a text that flows. This means that all kinds of decisions need to be made along the way. This is as true of Bible translations as it is of any other translation.

Taking the New Testament as our example, the translator is confronted with a number of issues that include:

  • deciding on which of the surviving texts is likely to be the most original[1]
  • determining where the punctuation should go[2]
  • and, where a word has multiple meanings making a decision as to which meaning best fits the context.

A good example of the latter is the word “πάσχω” (pascho from which our word Paschal comes) that can mean either “to suffer” or “to experience”. The meaning of a particular passage would change dramatically depending on which of the two possibilities the translator decided would work best in that situation. Given that there is an emphasis on suffering in the gospels, it is not surprising that “pascho” is more often translated as suffering in other New Testament writings.

By and large, translators endeavour to be objective but that can be difficult when it comes to Holy Scripture. Centuries of prior interpretations and theological understandings intrude on the process as do centuries of picturing Jesus in one way or another. It can happen that a translator is unable to give an exact translation because to do so would conflict with the way in which he or she have become accustomed to think of the meaning of a story or parable, or because they are unable to shed the ways in which they have become used to thinking of the person and nature of Jesus.

None of the above explains the usual translation of the story of Zacchaeus. Most of us know the story of Zacchaeus well. Zacchaeus is a tax-collector (one of the most reviled people in Israel because not only does he work for the Romans, but he almost certainly has enriched himself at the expense of his own people). He is also short. When Jesus comes into the town, Zacchaeus finds that he is unable to see because of the crowds – crowds who definitely will not move to provide a space for him to move towards the front. So he forsakes his dignity and climbs a tree in order to be able to see Jesus. This has the added benefit that Jesus can see him. To the shock and surprise of the crowd Jesus invites himself to dinner. In their eyes, Jesus is not only insulting them, but worse he is validating someone whose lifestyle clearly declares him to be a sinner.

According to this version of the story, Zacchaeus has a conversion experience as a consequence of Jesus’ acceptance of him. He declares: “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” It is an extraordinary and extravagant response to Jesus in the vein of the woman (a sinner) who anointed Jesus. It makes perfect sense, but is this the best translation, is this the meaning intended by the author?

In this instance Greek verbs – “give” and “repay” are unambiguously in the present (not the future) tense. In fact, translated accurately the text has Zacchaeus say: “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything I pay back four times as much”. This throws an entirely different light on the story. Read this way it appears that Zacchaeus is already more generous than every other pious Jew who only gave away 10% of his income. Further, it may well be that Zacchaeus is very careful not to defraud anyone so that he can avoid repaying four times the amount.

Zacchaeus seems to be the exception to the rule. He is an honest and moral tax collector – one who has been unjustifiably excluded from society by his neighbours. This is a surprising and shocking revelation. We are much more comfortable with our first century prejudices that have allowed us to judge and exclude Zacchaeus on the basis of externals, his role as a tax collector? It is much easier to believe that Zacchaeus’ extravagance is a result of his encounter with Jesus than it is to accept that his largesse precedes his relationship with Jesus and is the reason why he is so keen to seek Jesus out and why Jesus finds him in the crowd.

If we accept this version of the story, then we have to accept that it is not Zacchaeus who needs conversion, but the crowd who grumble and who are resentful that Jesus has chosen Zacchaeus with whom to eat. They have not understood Jesus’ message of God’s inclusive love, they cannot bear to witness Jesus’ befriending/eating with the marginalised and outcast and they are quick to pass judgement even though they do not know the full story.

How often do we do the same – judge and exclude on the basis of externals? How often do we take the easy route and allow stereotypes to inform the way that we think about a person or group of people. How often do we take the view that we know as well as God who should be included and who excluded from our company, from our church?

The story of Zacchaeus is a stark reminder that there are always, always exceptions to the rule, and that while we are busy judging, we may simply be demonstrating our meanness and small-mindedness in comparison to the others generosity and openness.

What a tragedy it would be if we were to discover that those we whom exclude and revile are in fact closer to heaven than ourselves; that our attitudes to others, rather than demonstrating our righteousness expose our prejudices and readiness to judge. Would we rather be able to share Jesus’ wisdom, Jesus’ inclusive love and Jesus’ welcome or would we rather stand with the crowd and grumble that he doesn’t behave the way we expect him to? The choice is ours.

Only God can see the secrets of the heart so let us look to our own hearts and leave the judging to God.

[1] No original texts exist. Translators work from copies of copies that naturally include mistakes made by the copyists.

[2] Ancient Greek was written in capital letters, with no gaps between the words and no punctuation

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Opening the eyes of the blind

March 29, 2014

Lent 4

John 9:1-41

Marian Free

In the name of God who causes the blind to see and the deaf to hear. Amen.

Some of you may have seen the movie A Time to Kill. It is based on a John Gresham novel and set in the Deep South of the United States. A black man (Carl) is on trial for attempting to kill the men who raped and tortured his ten-year-old daughter Tonya. The evidence is clear and the white jury have no sympathy for the grief and rage that led the man to take justice into his hand. It becomes clear that he will be condemned and that he will receive the death penalty. His lawyer (Jake) tries to persuade him to plead guilty but Carl says to him: “If you was on that jury. What would convince you to set me free?” What follows moves and challenges me every time I think about the movie.

In his summing up, Jake takes the jury on a journey in their imagination. He describes what happened to the child – how she was abducted, raped so viciously that she would never have children, used as target practice – full beer cans thrown so hard that they tear her flesh to the bone. He tells how she was urinated on, had a noose place around her neck and hung from a tree and how when her tiny body proved too heavy for the branch, she was tossed back into the truck, driven to a bridge and thrown thirty feet into a river. “Can you see her?” he says.” “I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she is white.” At that point the penny drops for the jurors. At that moment, the child is no longer a stranger, no longer a member of a race for whom they have no respect. She becomes their own child – their daughter, their niece, their granddaughter. The horror of the crime and the violent grief of the father become understandable. They would have felt the same.

Of course, powerful as that is, it is fiction and it is set against a particular background. That said, it is a reminder that many of us tend to see the world in a certain way. We tend to be blinded by our experiences, by our cultures and our religious ideals. Whether we like it or not, most of us make judgements about other people. We create stereotypes that are difficult to break and make assumptions based on false or limited information. Sometimes our ideas change gradually as we get to know the person or group we have demonised. At other times we need something to shock us out of our complacency so that we can see the other for whom they are, not who we believe them to be.

Jesus is an expert at shocking people into a new way of seeing. He wants us to see things in new ways, not in the conventional, centuries old way of seeing things. He astonishes us by appearing to disregard the law, by healing on the Sabbath and by eating with tax collectors. His parables explode existing religious truths and force his hearers to reconsider their ideas about God and about other people. His teaching and behaviour are sometimes contradictory. In Luke, the story of the rich young man is followed by the account of Zaccheus. Jesus urges the rich young man to give away all his possessions then he commends Zaccheus who only gives away half of his possessions. It begs the question: What are we to do with our possessions? Jesus is not being fickle or obtuse, the contradiction and confusion have a purpose – they are designed to destablise our preconceptions, to make us dependent on God and to prevent us from believing that we can have all knowledge and all truth. If Jesus does not conform to the party line, and if his teaching is apparently then inconsistent it is impossible for anyone to claim that they fully understand or that they have a monopoly on truth.

The account of the healing of the blind man is a lesson about seeing – seeing differently. The Pharisees, who believe that they can see clearly are exposed as those who are blind whereas the blind man gradually comes to see who Jesus really is. The Pharisees who believe that they have nothing to learn are shown to be misguided and ignorant whereas the blind man who is aware how little he knows is proven to be the one who recognises the truth. The Pharisees are so locked into what they think they know that they are unable to change their preconceptions and expectations, whereas the blind man who recognises that he knows little is open to new ideas. He is aware that he has room to learn.

Throughout the story the Pharisees dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole – demonstrating how little they really know. The blind man not only receives his sight, but allows himself to be enlightened and his ideas to be challenged. The Pharisees who represent the religious leaders, judge Jesus on outdated credentials – he is a sinner, he does not observe the Sabbath, he does not observe the law (9:16), they do not know where he comes from. The blind man uses other – also legitimate – criterion to accept that Jesus comes from God. Just as his forebears believed Moses because of the signs he performed so the blind man sees and believes in the signs that Jesus does – making the blind to see (9:16). He understands intuitively that God listens to one who worships him and obeys his will (9:31). The Pharisees believe that they give glory to God by rejecting Jesus, yet it is the blind man who gives glory to God by worshiping Jesus.

John’s gospel is written for those who will come to faith – that is ourselves. As witnesses to the drama that is unfolding, we are challenged to think about ourselves and our ability to see; to ponder whether we identify with the blind man or the Pharisees and to consider how much we know about and whether we are willing to know more. We are challenged to remain open and expectant, to allow God to reveal God’s self in ways that are unanticipated and that break apart our previous ideas as to who and what God is. We are warned against holding rigidly to preconceptions and assumptions that lock us into only way of thinking and that therefore lock us out of the truth.

The problem with believing that we know it all is that it can blind us to what is actually in front of us. confidence in what we know means that we see things from one point of view – ours. If we believe that our perspective is the only one that has a claim to truth, we are forced to protect and defend it even when the facts contradict it. The Pharisees were unable recognise Jesus because they persisted in their way of seeing things, even when Jesus’ actions seemed to put the lie to it. The blind man was not bound to one interpretation, one view of the world. He was willing to learn and to use what he did know in a different way.

Let us not be so self-assured, so confident in our way of seeing that we are blind to the presence of God or that we fail to see Jesus even when he is right in front of us.

 

 

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