The natural world is beautiful. So are many of the people who inhabit our world – their love and creativity and care for others is often amazing.
We soak in the beauty of the world through our senses, especially through our sight. Unfortunately, our physical sight can be impacted by various conditions and also by the ageing process. One of the most common – and curable – of these conditions is cataracts that slowly but surely dim our sight. In affluent countries like Australia we can undergo simple surgery to remove cataracts and have our sight restored.
But there are other forms of blindness that are not so easily cured. There is a saying that there are none so blind as those who will not see. This condition is called prejudice and most of us suffer from it in one form or another. We learn it from our parents or peer group.
In this week’s Scripture reading from John 9 we see a very old prejudice at work. Jesus sees a blind man and his disciples want to know whose sin caused him to be blind, his own or his parents. This prejudice of equating suffering with sin features in several religions and cultures – whether seen as karma or an understanding of God where bad deeds are punished.
Jesus will not buy in to the prejudice and instead heals the man, on the Sabbath day. What ensues is fairly predictable as both Jesus and the man are harangued for breaking the ‘no work on the Sabbath’ laws. While the blind man slowly grows in faith and insight regarding Jesus, his opponents reveal more and more of their prejudice and blindness regarding Jesus.
It’s easy for us to criticise Jesus’ opponents for their prejudice. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we too carry prejudices. It might be our attitude towards indigenous people, or asylum seekers, or gay people, or the unemployed or those who don’t take climate change seriously. Jesus calls himself the light of the world and, if we are willing, will open our eyes so that we can see things from God’s perspective. To benefit from the insight Jesus offers, however, we first have to be willing to admit that we have a problem.