Allow me another look at the quote from yesterday. Again from James Alison.
We can go further with this Johannine approach to sin. There are indications present in chapter 9 that more is intended in this story than a merely casual description of a particular incident regarding sin. The question of the sin as being related to the origins of humankind is hinted at in Jesus' use of clay in his restoration, or fulfillment, of creation, as well as in the insistence that the man was blind from birth. The relation of this story to something original is understood by the former blind man himself, who reckons that never has such a healing taken place. In the light of John's irony this means much more than that a particularly spectacular miracle has taken place, such as has never taken place before. It also suggests that there has been present a blindness from the beginning of the world that only now is being cured for the first time. Furthermore, when Jesus speaks , at the end, about judgment it is clear that he is not concerned with a particular local incident, but about a discernment relating to the whole world. Here we have a highly subtle teaching about the whole world being blind from birth, from the beginning, and about Jesus, the light of the world coming to bring sight to the world, being rejected precisely by those who, though blind, claimed to be able to see. All humans are blind, but where this blindness is compounded by active participation in the mechanisms of exclusion pretending to sight, this blindness is culpable.
Today I'm drawn to the last sentence. Though it is not easy to hear - quite like it is not easy to hear that we are all 'sinful' - it is necessary to acknowledge our blindness before we are left with no one who is able to see. Blindness is one thing, but when our blindness is ignored and we claim to have the kind of vision that allows us to exclude others the world begins to be led by the really blind ones. The ones who do not see the gracious presence of God's healing Reign (in which no one is put out by those who see themselves as 'in') will never see that Reign as long as the mechanism of exclusion is the status quo of the world. Therefore, we hear stories in which the whole of creation as we have come to see it - is changed in such a way that it looks miraculous. Maybe when we finally accept the possibility of our own blindness we too - each of us - will be handed new vision.
Connection: Are we afraid to admit that we are all blind - that our way of seeing is quite possibly a blindness we cannot comprehend because we live in our own made-up world in which our sight is perfect. And yet, we need not fear being blind. We have a God who promises to bring us light and with that light the hope that the day at hand will be full of the brilliance of God's gracious Reign.
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