Fourth Sunday in Lent
By the Rev. Alanna Sullivan
Associate Minister and Director of Administration
The Memorial Church of Harvard University
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, March 15, 2026)
Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts and minds be acceptable in your sight, oh God, our Rock and Redeemer. Amen.
Our gospel lesson for today begins with the all too familiar question. Whose fault is it? What went wrong here? What did I or anyone else do to deserve this? Why me? And although we might not equate disability with sin as the disciples do here, we still have that same impulse to try to make sense of why things happen. He had a heart attack because he didn't exercise enough. She has lung cancer because she smoked for years. Rather than seeing the fullness of the person in front of us, we treat them as object lessons and attempt to make sense of the world around us.
In our story, the disciples treat the blind man not as a human, but as a proof text or an example. Notice how quickly their tension is diverted from the need at hand, the man himself. And they quickly move to a theological or philosophical argument. And we do that same maneuver. I would say that we are particularly good at this at Harvard. In the face of human need, many of us prefer to use that need to shore up our own belief system or our own political agenda. We see a person in need, and we systematize. How can my belief system or morality system account for this?
The maneuver is almost inevitable for most of us, and we have belief systems for good reasons. But if we forget the actual person standing right in front of us, then our belief system or moral system is useless, no matter what our persuasion is. And Jesus promptly extinguishes that notion that the man is blind because he or his parents have sinned. And this is a complete disorientation of the social and religious order of the day. Perhaps Jesus uses frank, almost callous, language to shock the disciples to get their attention. And Jesus goes on, "He was born blind so that God's work might be revealed in him."
I have to admit, I wince when I read this. Is Jesus claiming that God caused this man to be born with an impairment for the purpose of using him as a prop? Is his blindness merely a means to show that Jesus is of God? If so, why does God choose to cure some people and not others? We often have a way of taking the healing stories to be about God's effort to restore. But of course, in our lived experience, not everyone gets healed on account of their faith. And what's more, not everyone sees their disability as needing healing. Disability justice advocates rightfully point out that if someone is born with a disability, it is not something that necessarily needs to change or to be healed.
One's impairment can be integral to one's sense of self and a sense of who God made them. I'm reminded of a story elsewhere in the gospels. When Jesus asks another blind man, Bartimaeus, "What do you want me to do for you?" And Bartimaeus replies, "Rabbi, I want to see." Now we might assume that this is the obvious answer. But is it? What if he instead said, "I want to be loved by my family. I want to be reconciled with my community." If Jesus asked each of us, "What do you want me to do for you?" We cannot assume that we so easily know the answers for those around us or even inside ourselves.
And as Matt often invites us to do, let's return to the ancient Greek text. The phrase that's translated as "he was born blind" does not actually appear in the original Greek at all. So an alternative way to translate Jesus's answer is, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned. In order that God's works might be revealed in him, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work." When read this way, we see that Jesus moves away from the need to know the reason for the man's impairment. Whether it is the man's or his parent's or God's, it's simply a fact. The man was born blind.
Jesus instead turns the attention of the disciples away from the past to more fully witness and see the pertinent person standing in front of them. The task at hand is not to assign blame or to explain why it happened. Jesus is asking them rather to consider if they're going to work for and with God, or are they going to work for themselves and against God? And Jesus definitively declares he sides with God. And then Jesus spits on the ground, mixing His saliva with caked mud. He smears the paste on the man's eyes. And just like that, the man sees.
Well, actually not just like that. It takes two applications of the earthy salve. Now we do not know for sure if the man wanted to see or if he wanted a different life. Up until this point, he has not spoken. He has not asked Jesus to be cured. However, we might learn more in how he responds to those around him. When the man returns from washing the mud out of his eyes, no one knows what to make of it or how to respond. Some of his neighbors have so identified this man with his impairment, they cannot recognize him. "Is that the blind beggar or is it someone else?"
And the man simply responds, "Ego eimi." "I am." He is both. He refuses the binary. He is the person who used to sit and beg, and he is something more all at once. The author of John has the man use "Ego eimi," the same phrase that Jesus uses again and again in this gospel, over 20 times in fact, to claim divine authority. Right before this story, Jesus claims, "I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world." And soon afterwards, He will say, "I am the good shepherd." By using the same words, the author of John underscores that the man who is seeing it's not only about his physical sight, but also recognizing Jesus as the Messiah.
Everyone in this story seems disoriented and confused about exactly what is happening. Everyone, except the man who has been blind and now he sees clearly, not just with his new eyes, but he also understands the situation more clearly. His perspective has been reoriented. He says, "The one thing I know is though I was blind, now I see." With newfound confidence and perspective, the man is able to recognize what no one else can. Jesus is the Messiah. Sometimes, for us to be reoriented in our lives, we need to be disoriented first. Even the spit of all things is not what it first appears. Yes, spit.
In Greek, the word for beggar is “ptochos.” It's an onomatopoeic word, that is, it's a word that sounds what it means. But what does it sound like to you? Well, ptochos derived from the root word ptuo, which means to spit on. So, in the ancient world, a beggar was quite literally someone who was spat on. Beggars were treated this way because it was assumed that they had sinned. Somehow, they deserved the position they were in. Jesus, however, heals the blind man by spitting on the ground and by making a salve. It's a trans substantiation of spit of sorts.
Jesus takes spit and expression of contempt and makes it a source of healing. And in doing so, he turns convention upside down. But out of that disorientation comes a chance for us to reorient our lives towards healing and the restoration of community. And this, of course, is not the only instance when Jesus disrupts the status quo by taking something that is reviled or discarded and challenges us to reimagine it as something healing or life giving. During His ministry, Jesus regularly kept company among prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus proclaimed so that the last will be first and the first will be last, and that the meek shall inherit the earth.
It is the least and lost who Jesus places at the seats of greatest honor. In this single passage, the common understanding of the way that the world works is turned upside down and inside out. The story begins with a general orientation of how the community is structured and ordered. Social conventions and labels prescribe the roles that people play and the kinds of interactions that they have. This, however, completely changes when a blind man can see, and people's understanding of the world becomes disoriented. Jesus cares for the beggar of all people. Jesus of all people is a healer, and spit becomes a sign and a means of healing.
In a state of disorientation, some people fall apart and others flourish. When one lets go of the assumptions of how the world works and how things should be, one can begin to imagine how we can live in a world beyond the confines of our social prescriptions. One can reorient oneself to find new ways to build relationships with God and with one another. With this new vision, the beggar is seen as a child of God worthy of compassion and Jesus is seen more than a teacher, but as a healer. Indeed, as God's appointed one with the power to heal and reconcile.
This model of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation is not just applicable to Jesus' ministry. It's something we experience in our own lives. We live comfortably with people and conditions as they are. It's assumed that this is just the way things are. So many of us have become trained to treat difference, whether it is disability, or gender identity, or race, or immigration status, we treat difference with scrutiny and suspicion instead of curiosity and compassion. And conventions reinforce these understandings, which, if unchecked, can be extremely powerful.
Disorientation is that disruption or erosion of our understanding of the way things are with an element of shock or surprise. It jolts us to begin to wonder, is everything really as I assumed all along? Does it necessarily need to be? Are there other possibilities? And reorientation is an opportunity to more permanently adjust our thinking and ways of being. Sometimes, to be even more closely aligned with God's purposes.
Now, the road to change and transformation is not well-groomed or tidy, but it is dirty and messy. Jesus had to perform the healing act twice before the man could permanently see. And doesn't that sound all too familiar? In our effort to change our lives, so often we trip and fall. And it can be especially true when we try to live into new ways of being that are not prescribed. And if we are fully committed to this project, every orientation and transformation, we cannot assume anything.