Lent Week Four: From the Artist (Seeking: Who sinned?)

 

read John 9:8-41

from the artist | Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity (Insight, silk painting with digital drawing and collage)

In seven verses, the gospel writer tells us that a man born blind is given sight. But after that, the narrator devotes thirty-three verses to the details of disagreement that swell after the healing takes place. I used to find this second part of the story tedious and exhausting. In a world with constant conflict, I’m tired of listening to endless bickering.

However, this second half of the story makes me realize that this encounter is hardly about physical healing or literal blindness. It’s about how harmful theology can prevent us from seeing people—truly seeing them. It’s about how our narrow imagination can harden into accusation and blame. It’s about how we can be threatened by new ideas or shifts in someone’s identity. It’s about how our doctrine can lead to exile. Ultimately, it’s a story about our resistance to change. Can this be a cautionary tale for us?

In this image, hands expressing denial and exclusion press in on the man. In the background, I wrote a barrage of questions I imagine emerging from the crowd: Why did God heal you? What did you do to cause this? Who sinned? Alongside those questions, I wove in contemporary statements I’ve heard spoken in situations when we think a tidy rationale will comfort us: Everything happens for a reason. God only gives you as much as you can handle. Pray harder.

I wonder what this story would look like had better questions been asked. What if his neighbors had instead asked the blind man, “How do you feel?” What if the man had asked the crowd, “What are you afraid of?” What if the Pharisees had asked one another, “What if it’s time to change?”

Surrounded by remnants of narrow vision, the man has new insight. He looks beyond the words, beyond the crowd, beyond the accusations driving him out of town. Can we seek understanding without denigrating or objectifying humans in the process?

*reprinted with permission from A Sanctified Art