Brief synopsis of the readings: From the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament we read of the selection of King David. The Lord instructed the prophet Samuel to seek Jesse of Bethlehem as the next king will come from one of his sons. Jesse gathered his sons but the Lord told Samuel that none of these sons were the Lord’s choice. When asked, Jesse said that he had one other son, David, who was tending sheep. David was brought to them and Samuel anointed him “and from that day on, the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David.” John’s Gospel described a man blind from birth. Jesus’ disciples asked whose sin caused the blindness, him or his parents. Jesus replied that the blindness was not the result of sin but so that God’s glory could be revealed. Jesus then spit on the ground, made clay from the saliva and smeared it on the man’s eyes. Jesus then told the man to wash in the Pool of Siloam; when the man did this he was healed of his blindness. The man’s neighbors were amazed and brought the man to the Pharisees who asked what happened. When the man told them Jesus healed him the Pharisees responded that Jesus could not have been from God because he healed on the Sabbath. The man then replied that Jesus was a prophet. But they did not believe him and sent for the man’s parents. The parents, fearful of the Pharisees, admitted that this was their son and he had been born blind but had no other information. The man was again questioned: “You are this man’s [Jesus’] disciple; we are disciples of Moses!” The man said that Jesus must be from God because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to heal blindness. Enraged, the Pharisees “threw him out.” When Jesus learned of this he found the man and asked if the man believed in the Son of Man and then told him that he (Jesus) is the Son of Man and has come to the world so that those who are blind may see. Nearby Pharisees demanded to know if they were being accused of blindness. Jesus responded: “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.”

At various points in our life we’re told that our faith requires us to believe what we are told. This makes sense when we are dealing with small children but adult faith is more complex. Faith comes from what we’ve been told and what we have come to understand and what has been revealed to us. This challenges us, and it should, because what we’ve come to understand and what was revealed to us can contradict what we’ve been told. Sometimes what “everyone knows” isn’t true.

In 1633 Galileo famously claimed the earth wasn’t the center of the universe and indeed revolved around the sun. This was a problem because “everyone knew,” based on the First Book of Chronicles 16:30 that the earth did not move and Galileo was shouted down by the Pope and other theologians. The Church didn’t fully admit its mistake until 1992.

Similarly at the time of Jesus “everyone knew” that suffering resulted from sin. Blindness, infertility, and other maladies were sent by God as punishment. At the beginning of the Gospel Jesus’ disciples asked whose sin caused this man’s blindness: him or his parents. This is laughable as the man was born blind and had no opportunity to sin. It’s also hard to imagine that God would blind a newborn to punish his parents.

And yet, when the Pharisees were confronted, they doubled down. First they claimed Jesus couldn’t be “of God” because he healed the man on the Sabbath. Then they denied the man had been born blind. Then they expelled him from the synagogue. They did everything except admit they needed to change their thinking.

Because while the previously blind man, his parents, and Jesus’ disciples struggled to understand what was happening the Pharisees struggled to ensure that they all maintained the faith of children and didn’t pay attention to anything else. The Pharisees feared for their status and that mattered more to them than what Jesus was trying to teach. They were, simply put, stuck.

But we are a faith that challenges what we know on our path to better understand each other, and understand God. Medical advances in the last few centuries have opened up for us the reality that disease often comes from a physical source and we’ve made tremendous strides in curing illness; most people no longer believe disease is caused by God as punishment for sin.

But this also means that expertise has shifted from religious leaders to scientists and not all religious leaders have taken this well. Even today large swaths of our population has been ordered to disbelieve evolution and hold to the outdated view that our world is only 6000 years old and the Grand Canyon was carved out by the Noah’s Ark flood.

As disciples we are gifted with our traditions and ancient wisdom. But we are given the intelligence and imagination to constantly see our world anew. We have learned that skin color is no indication of intelligence and sexual orientation is not the result of abuse or a series of poor decisions. And we’ve learned that another’s misfortune does not call us to blame the victim but to express compassion. We fund scientists who seek a cure for cancer and hospice care for those we can’t cure.

I believe this calls all of us to be prophets. A prophet is one who receives and passes on a message from God. We all recognize recent prophets like Dr. Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa but God’s love and choice of us allows us travel that same path. Neither the man born blind nor his parents sought all that attention and they certainly did not wish to challenge the Pharisees.

But they spoke their truth, even through quivering voices. The blind man wasn’t healed by the spit or the clay but God’s healing. Like last week’s woman at the well Jesus made the man and his parents visible. They were no longer people punished for some unknown sin but people who could recognize and proclaim healing.

Each day we get closer to Easter. Each day we are given the opportunity to make others visible and challenge those who refuse to see. Each day we are are blessed to support those people and organizations who find healing and move beyond those things “everyone knows.”

These are hard times but our journey has never had easy times. God loves us too much to let us settle for complacency. Stay tuned: the best is yet to come.