Called out of Darkness

"You're possessed!"

"Your father is the devil!"

The extended confrontation between Jesus and the Judeans in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles (see "Undermining the Power of the Law," May 1993) ends with the sharpest possible mutual hostility. As the Judeans pick up stones to kill him, Jesus slips away. His "hour" has not yet come; there is still daylight in which to work (John 9:4).

With these explosive sparks still flying, we come to the story that has been used at least since the third century as the model of Christian discipleship for new converts: the healing of the one born blind in John 9. Within this episode lies the Johannine community's view of its relationship with those who have preferred "the glory of humankind" to the "glory of God" (12:43). To understand the radical social and political implications of this powerful story, we must pay close attention to the signals the text provides right at the beginning.

The story starts with the description of a scene familiar to the synoptic gospels, but which, upon close reading, reveals crucial Johannine twists. Still in the Jerusalem temple precincts where the pool of Siloam is located (9:7), Jesus finds a blind person and heals him.

What is the disciples' state of mind at this point in the narrative? The Tabernacles argument completely overturned the Jewish disciples' understanding of God and religion. For the Johannine community living some 60 years after Jesus' death, chapters five through eight formed a partial explanation of their unexpected experience in being rejected by the post-temple synagogue community when they proclaimed Jesus as a "son of God," meaning a "true Israelite" (compare 1:47) faithful to God's covenant with the people.

The Johannine Christians had thought that the Jewish community was God's people, descended from Abraham and Moses. But Jesus reveals that mere physical descent--or the mere fact of baptism in our day--does not assure that one is a "child of God." Rather, how one lives--as murderers and liars or as self-sacrificing witnesses and lovers--determines whether one is a is a child of the devil or a member of "the people."

THE FOURTH GOSPEL NOW offers another explanation for the refusal of the Judeans to accept Jesus or his successors, the Johannine community: They are blind from birth and refuse to accept God's offer to be healed (9:1, 9:41, 12:39-43). The section of the text that begins in chapter nine ends with a citation from Isaiah 6:9-10 about blind eyes and hard hearts preventing the light of faith from penetrating the darkness. Thus, we should look at the episode in chapter nine as the presentation of both an explanation for the Johannine experience of rejection at the hands of the synagogue, as well as a revelation of the possibility of true discipleship.

As we saw in the story of the Samaritan woman and will see again in the portrayal of the "beloved disciple" from chapter 13 on, the status of anonymity is a Johannine device suggesting discipleship. One should suspect as chapter nine begins that the person's attitude and behavior contain elements of the Johannine sense of what it means to follow Jesus.

The subject of Jesus' healing in this story is not only anonymous, but universal. Whereas the introduction of Nicodemus in chapter three used the Greek phrase for "a person," chapter nine's introduction contains no article delimiting "person." What Jesus encounters while he is passing along in the temple vicinity is humanity blind from birth. Both Pharisaic Judaism and Johannine Christianity consist of persons whose beginning is in darkness.

The disciples ask a question which, on its face, seems absurd but in the context of Tabernacles and the universality of this encounter, flows from the discussion in chapters seven and eight: "Rabbi, who sinned, this one or the parents so that there was blindness from birth?" (9:2). At the literal level, one must ask how the disciples imagine that a person could have sinned before birth to have caused their own blindness!

But if we understand the disciples' inquiry in the Tabernacles context, their question becomes: If those whom we thought were our kinspeople (the Judeans/Pharisees) are descended from the devil, are they responsible for their own sinfulness? Closer to home: Are those within the Christian community (for example, the apostolic Christians) who refuse to accept the truth as we see it also children of the devil, and, if so, are they responsible for their behavior? Expanding the question to the universal context it suggests: Are we bound to the blindness of our ancestors and hence not responsible for our participation in sinful religious and political structures, or do we have the ability to break the cycle of blindness and learn to see?

Jesus' answer reflects the basic theme of Johannine discipleship and mission. Blindness does not exist to cast blame or to moralize about victims, but to provide an opportunity to manifest God's glory (9:3). "We must work the works of the One who sent me while it is day" (9:4). Life is about responding to situations of blindness with concrete action, and not only Jesus but those who identify with him are called to that work.

Jesus' act of healing is simple, yet profoundly symbolic. He takes clay from the earth--the material from which God created humankind "in the beginning"--and his own saliva--symbolic of the "living water" that flows from Jesus, which is in turn symbolic of the Spirit (7:38-39). The he sends the blind one to wash in the pool of Siloam, the place in which the Tabernacles celebration has poured water in honor of God's presence in the temple. The "miracle" thus consists of three elements: clay, living water/Spirit, and washing. Blind people learn to see by allowing themselves to become new creations in Jesus, and by responding to the act of creation by joining the Johannine community, symbolized by the act of washing (as in the footwashing episode, 13:1-20).

Implicit in this act of creation and obedience is the continuing Tabernacles theme of Jesus' replacement of the temple system with his own God-given authority. For example, Isaiah mentions "clay" in this context:

And now, O Lord, you are our Father, and we are clay, all of us the work of your hands. Be not very angry with us, and remember not our sins forever, but now look on us, for we are all your people. The city of your holiness has become desolate, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a curse. The house, our sanctuary,...has been burnt with fire, and all our glorious things have gone to ruin (Isaiah 64:8-11).

It would not be surprising if the healed person's witness reminds the Pharisees of this passage, underscoring the dangerously subversive nature of Jesus' act.

The remainder of the chapter forms a darkly comic trial atmosphere, wherein objections are raised from all corners of "the world" to the possibility of blindness being healed. Throughout, the seeing person's act of witnessing to the fact of rebirth leads to greater insight, while the Pharisees' act of unbelieving interrogation leads them deeper into blindness.

IN THE CENTRAL PORTION of the passage, a surprising encounter takes place. It should not startle readers at this point to find Jesus' disciple in confrontation with the ruling authorities, the keepers of the dominant ideology. What is surprising is the interaction between the Pharisees and the person's parents in John 9:18-23, which forms the chiasmic center of the story.

The parents--mentioned four times in six verses--are a unit; never is either the father or mother referred to individually. It is an unusual designation for a highly patriarchal culture, used in John only in this chapter. Matthew and Mark each use it once: "Children shall rise up against parents" (Mark 13:12; Matthew 10:21). Luke, in the same apocalyptic context, reverses the betrayal: "You will be handed over by parents" (Luke 21:16). John's scene appears to act out Luke's version of the saying. At the same time, the mention of "parents" reminds readers of the first parents, Adam and Eve, to whom Paul attributed the sin that Jesus' self-sacrifice would remove (Romans 5:12).

This in turn brings up the question with which John 9 began: Who sinned, this one or the parents? What is acted out in John 9:18-23 is the "original sin" of parental betrayal of their children, not out of malice, but of fear of society's disapproval (9:22-23).

The parents could not see the truth of God's nature as loving creator and, therefore, handed over their child to the law. It was indeed their sin in uncritically accepting the "world's" perspective which caused the child's blindness, but which can be overcome by openness to God's offer of new sight. In the Johannine ideology, social structures change not by conversion of the parents, but by the willingness of children (even grown children!) to see how things really are.

It may be easy for some to judge the parents harshly, ridiculing their fears. But those of us who live in the "liberal," pluralistic United States must imagine what it would be like to live in a place where disagreement with the official ideology leads first to social ostracism, then to persecution and death. The fear of rejection and death is the central demon that the Johannine Jesus seeks to cast out. Its presence is found not simply in caricatured portrayals like the parents in chapter nine, but in the picture of beloved disciples such as Martha and Mary in chapter 11.

This fear is found in the blindness story not only in the parents but also within those who, at least in part, recognize the truth of Jesus' message. After the healed one has been convicted of "sin" and sentenced to expulsion from the Judean community, he is found by Jesus on the outside. Jesus then speaks words of judgment overheard by "the Pharisees who were with him." Their question, "We are not blind, are we?" receives this response from Jesus: "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But as you say, 'We see,' your sin remains" (9:41).

It is not all Pharisees who stand under this judgment, but those who are "with him." That is, Pharisees who are "only" Pharisees are blind, but have no sin. But these Pharisees are with Jesus; they say "we see." Their sin, then, is in trying to have their cake and eat it, too. They want both the pride and prestige of Pharisaic authority ("the glory of humanity") and acceptance by Jesus. But to truly see would be to give up being Pharisees altogether and to give their exclusive allegiance to Jesus and the Johannine community, like the formerly blind one. Worldly power and discipleship are mutually exclusive categories in the fourth gospel.

FROM DISABILITY TO DEATH, the gospel moves on to the story of the raising of Lazarus. John 11, when seen from a social and political perspective, is not so much about the "miracle" of bodily resurrection as about the continuity of God's faithfulness beyond the wall of death. The theme is set by the disciples' incredulous question: "Rabbi, the Judeans were just seeking to stone you and you are going there again?" (11:8). Jesus' response is virtually identical to his response to their question about sin in chapter nine: If there is light, one should walk (meaning "work"); night is coming when the absence of light prevents walking (11:9-10).

The challenge to Martha, who wishes merely for the bodily return of her brother but dares not ask for it directly, is to accept that even if death comes, believers are not separated from God (11:25-26). While the Judean mourners are busy about the ritual requirements of the law that are "agnostic" on the afterlife, Jesus' act of shepherding (compare 5:28-29 and 10:27) reveals the limits of death's power to destroy the community. The cynicism and disbelief of the crowd of Judeans is evident in their question, "Was not the one who was able to open the eyes of the blind one able to prevent this one from dying?" (11:37).

It is hard for Martha, one whom Jesus loves (11:5), to resist this cynicism. Her own response, graphically expressing the stench of death, shows how hard it was--and still is--for Christians to really believe that the threat of death is a mere smoke screen to be walked through in faith.

The depth of Jesus' emotions in this story expresses how difficult it is to empower Christians to this ultimate act of trust in God. When Lazarus emerges from the tomb (temporarily), he is wrapped with a soudario, a binding cloth (11:44). When Jesus' empty tomb is discovered by Peter and the beloved disciple, the soudarion remains behind (20:7).

Discipleship will inevitably lead to dire consequences--betrayal by parents and neighbors, ostracism by the religious authorities, even death. But none of these difficult and painful fates can diminish the care with which God holds each precious child of the new creation.

Wes Howard-Brook was program director of the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center in Seattle, Washington, when this article appeared.

This is the fourth article in a series on the gospel of John. Parts one, two and three of this series appeared in the January, February/March, and May 1993 issues of Sojourners.