You can't help but wonder how this man and his parents felt about being the object of a theological dispute. Here's a man who's been blind from birth. And what was the response of Jesus' disciples? They start a theoretical discussion: Who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind?

I put myself in this man's place about a five weeks ago. I began feeling a cold coming on the Friday before the annual meeting. It was bad: headache, nasal pressure, watery eyes, sore throat. But there was lots to do. The Veggie Tales Family Night was that night; I went and ate supper, but couldn't make it through the movie. I couldn't rest on Saturday, either, because the Youth were doing Lunch on Us at Miller Avenue. So, though I went right to bed when I got back from over there, I wasn't feeling much better on the morning of the annual meeting. And, of course, with a meal and meeting after worship, it was a long time until I could get some rest. As, I sat in my office, having rewritten my sermon the 5th or 6th time, I remembered a conversation I'd had some years ago.

I was with some other pastors. Someone asked, How ya doin, Steve? I said I had a cold, and they got into a big discussion about the origins of colds: I heard that if you don't take enough vitamin C you're a candidate for a sore throat. Another said, Always wash your hands as soon as you're finished greeting people after worship. The third shook his head, People just don't take care of themselves anymore. I saw you when you cam in. You should be wearing a hat in weather like this.

On and on they went, as I felt more and more disgusted. I hadn't been looking for sympathy, just said, how I was doin, but what I got was a debate on how I'd failed to take care of myself and was to blame for my cold! If I felt that way about a debate over my cold, think how this poor blind man felt about the disciples' discussion! You're blind? Well, let's debate the moral origins of blindness.

Sometimes I think of these disciples when I watch people respond to those in need.

Why are the poor, poor? Well, there must be something wrong with them! They must be immoral, lazy, or of limited ability. What else could it be? I mean look at me, I've made it just fine. If I can, why can't they? People look at poverty, and all they see is the failure of the poor, some lack in them. The great failure of the poor, they think, is that they aren't like those who are not poor.

Why do they think like that? Well, on reason is a set of assumptions about how the world works that says that the deserving are rewarded, and the undeserving aren't; so if you're in a tough spot, you must have messed up somehow. The other is that such thinking protects them, protects tehm from any impulse toward compassion, or care, or doing anything to help. Why bother with people who are only going to mess up again? They deserve the mess they're in.

Now, there's a variation on that thinking. It still assumes that those in need, are in need because of some failing in them. But not that they're quite so irredeemable. It says, "I'll help you. I'll do things for you that show my success and superiority; I'll do things for you in the hope that you'll want to be more like me, will try real hard, and succeed at it.

But if we look at those in need and see only their failure, whether we stay with that condemnation, or add the hope of their "learning better," we still miss seeing much that's important. We miss seeing the truth about their need, how they can get beyond it, why we ought to help them, and what we ought to do to offer that help. We miss seeing all that because our assumptions about what's real, how the world works, and why things are the way they are, blind us to seeing that the poor may be poor, and those who suffer may suffer, not because of anything they did or didn't do. They're poor or they suffer because opportunities are not equal, life is not fair - it dealt them a bad hand .

We also fail to see that to dismiss those in need as failures who aren't worth any effort to help, or as failures whose only hope is to become more like us, is wrong. They aren't failures but people of worth, as they are right now! Given all that's been stacked against them, no matter how much they might've been like us, they'd still be in need. As an old song says, There but for fortune go you or I.

To deal with poverty and human suffering, some things need to change besides those in need. Those who aren't in need need to change. They need to change their hearts. They need to get to work, not changing those who suffer, but changing the world. That would be us; that's what we need to do.

The change that needs to happen in our hearts begins with seeing what we and those in need share — we are all children of God. We also need to see the benefits, the perks, the privileges we've received along the way, that have helped us be where we are, that it's those things and not our superiority that account for the difference. That change of heart isn't easy. It's humbling; it means losing our right to feel superior to those who have less or suffer more. But more than that, it's challenging, even threatening, because it means seeing that justice calls us to restructure things, to give up the perks and privileges which benefit us, so that everyone has a fairer chance. Few are ready to see that.

Today's passage is about such seeing, who see and who doesn't, who's willing to see and who isn't.

It begins with Jesus seeing the man born blind. He sees the blind man differently than the disciples. They see a situtation for which someone must be to blame. He sees a human being in need, to whom he's called to minister. And he does. From his real seeing comes healing for the man's blindness.

The story goes on. The Pharisees can't believe that the man who now sees could really be the one who'd been blind before. They presume to see, but they don't. Their assumptions about what's possible and what isn't, about how God works, about what kind of people God helps (good ones) and what kind of people God doesn't (bad ones — which the man must've been or he wouldn't have been blind), are all challenged by Jesus. He says, in effect, that they're the blind ones. Their assumptions are keeping them from seeing the truth about the man — that his blindness is no one's fault, and from seeing the truth about themselves - their responsibility is to respond to him not with judgment but compassion while he's blind, not with scepticism but rejoicing once he's healed.

But you know, we're so ready to judge. It's easy to see why. For one thing, when do, we don't have to look at ourselves. And it's so easy, especially with another race, age group, or lifestyle. Identify them, identify how they're different, put a label on them, assign blame, and you're done - absolved of any need for care or compassion, any need to listen to or learn from them, any need to look at ourselves, any need to, heaven forbid, change! Judgment is a handy way to excuse ourselves from caring about the suffering of others by blaming it on them.

But as easy, comfortable, convenient as judgment may be, and as great a protection as it may be from having our smug assumptions about our own rightness challenge, it's also keeping us from seeing the truth, the truth we need to be humbled enough to see, the truth that we may need help, every bit as much as those we see as in need. The truth that those we've only been able to see as needing help from us, needing to be taught by us, are the very ones who may be able to help us, help teach us something. We need help? We need to learn something? And from such people? What an idea!

Hard to hear. Sure made the Pharisees mad when they began to sense that this man who'd been blind from birth, who they assumed suffered from that condition because either he or his parents had sinned, was now presuming to tell them about God's power. How dare he!

So, they gave him a hard time. But Jesus heard about it, and went to his defense. I suspect he'd like to do that now, when we feel superior to those who suffer, when we assume that the only way they can overcome it is by becoming like us. Unfortunately, he's not here to physically do that. All he's got is people with the sensitivity, humility, and compassion, to challenge such arrogant assumptions.

We need to help each other get past the smug assumptions that come so easy in our comfortable positions in relationship to the rest of the world. We need need help to see how stuck we can be in a kind of arrogant, callous blindness, a blindness that not only does injustice to others, but hurts us.

Yes, hurts us! As long as we live with this blindness, we can't see the truth! - not only about those we judge and blame — but about ourselves. The truth about our fales perceptions of our- selves, that what we have is not because of our superiority, goodness, our skill, our hard work. That hurts us!

It hurts us by keeping us from being open to receive what those we so readily label as needy failures can give. They may be every bit as good, skilled, and hard-working as us, and have things to teach, but because life's not fair, their goodness, skill, and hard-work haven't brought them the rewards they've brought us. But in our narrow, arrogant blindness we can't see that. No wonder Jesus told those giving the man who he'd healed a hard time that they were the real blind ones.

Too often, so are we. If we're trying to help those in need in the hope of making them more like us, we're blind. We're missing the riches that they in their poverty may have found in faith, family, or community, or in not being so materialistic, or judgmental. We're missing how much we might have to learn from them. There's nothing more important to learn than that you have things to learn.

One of the things we've had to learn on the mission trip to Ponca Creek is to operate on "Indian Time." Now if we thought what they needed was to become more like us in our schedule-driven, calendared lives, I guess we could say, "If you want this Bible School, have your kids ready by 9:00." We've not done that. It's best for the relationship. It also taught us about ourselves, and how what helps keeps us busy and or makes us money, isn't what we should value for life.

That's one of the reasons it's always hard for me to come back. Yes, there's great need, brokeness, and pain, but there's also great humanity and strength. Last year, for the first time, they fed us a meal; it was wonderful. They were up early cooking, and prepared so much, with such care. They wanted and needed to be able to give, in a physical way, what they'd been doing spiritually for years.

Part of being human is being able to give, needing to give. The worst thing we do in our arrogant, judgmental, "become like me attitudes," is take that precious part of their humanity away from those we see as "in need." How much we miss, how poor we remain, when we fail to see that we are, too.