Text: Luke 18:31—19:10

My focus this morning is going to be on the two stories where Jesus engages with people along his journey. They are both of the stories about restoration of sight – not for the blind man – or Zacchaeus but for the crowd of witnesses who are following along. And potentially also about having the eyes of the listeners and disciples like us opened as well. We’ll see, so to speak!

What could I possibly be talking about? Obviously the blind man is literally the one who is both blind and has sight restored. He is literally given no other name than “the blind man.” (Although in Marks’ version of the story his name is Bartimaeus, so I’m going to call him that sometimes.) In fact, though, in a very important way, the blind man is the only one who can see!

Brandon Grady is a Pastor of a Church of the Brethren Pastor in Glenville PA is totally blind. He’s obviously familiar with the ways that blindness and sight are used in the bible. He says about this:

The eye in all ways is the lamp of the body. But for me, it’s the eye of the spirit, the eye that allows me to see beyond what the world sees in many aspects…I have found my eyes continually open, even as a totally blind person in the ministry. The greatest blessing I’ve been given so far is God’s gift of no vision.

Like Brandon, Bartimaeus has a kind of sight that the sighted people around him do not. When he learns that Jesus is near, he calls out, “Jesus, Son of David.” He sees Jesus and with this spiritual insight, calls out connection to Messiah-ship. 

Even as the crowd – blind to the aspect of Jesus’ identity – blocks him and scolds him. He is faithful and persistent. Then he is rewarded by Jesus’ approach and question and ultimate the literal restoration of his sight. 

But not only that. But giving the man his sight, Jesus restores him to the community around him. 

In the story of Zacchaeus, it is also the crowd that has a blind spot. They grumble and complain when Jesus chooses to invite himself over to Zacchaeus’ house for a meal. They cannot see him as worthy of Jesus’ attention. They think that because he is rich and a chief tax collector, he is the enemy.

But here’s the thing about Zacchaeus: First of all, he is supposedly a rich guy who one might think appearances are pretty important, and yet he does the very undignified and child-like thing of running along ahead and climbing a tree. 

I can clearly remember climbing the tree in my grandparents back yard because I had a great view of everyone but no one could see me. Zacchaeus wasn’t trying to get Jesus – or anyone’s – attention. But if he did, you could expect that they would wonder what the heck a grown man of his stature was doing up there.

And second, it is very possible to read this text not as if Zacchaeus has had some kind of revelation because of meeting Jesus, but because he has all along being practicing generous giving and making amends when he is at fault.

He and Jesus stop – in earshot of the grumbling crowd – and he says, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.” 

“I give,” he says. Present tense. Like, I “I give an offering to Evergreen monthly directly from my bank account.” 

Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this household because he too is a son of Abraham. The Human One came to seek and save the lost.” And with those words, Jesus restores sight to the crowd and Zacchaeus to his community. He is a child of Abraham just as they are. They no longer need to see him as an enemy but as one of their own.

Both Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus are faithful and righteous and it is the crowd who is blind and stumbling around, needing these men and Jesus to remind them of what wholeness looks like.

Like the crowd, we need – or I need, at least – people with perspectives other than my own to open my eyes in this way. To open my eyes to ways of restoration. I like to quote my former colleague Jonathan Neufeld, who would say, “Where you sit determines what you see.” Or in this instance, what you perceive.

Because I don’t have a disability like blindness, I cannot see or perceive what that is like. I can’t even truly understand it fully as a metaphor. It was truly a gift of the Spirit this week to have received the Anabaptist Disabilities Network newsletter, which was about blindness and low-sight, including the quote from Pastor Brandon Grady that I highlighted earlier.

Pastor Brandon talks about blindness as a gift! He says, 

The greatest blessing I’ve been given so far is God’s gift of no vision. It allows me to form lasting relationships, appreciate the depth of music, and relish even the ordinary moments of working and ministering heart-to-heart with individuals in a wonderful variety of environments and unique circumstances.

He goes on to talk about the clarity he sometimes comes to in ministry, which he believes because he is blind. In this he is like Bartemaeus. Although unlike him, Brandon doesn’t experience his blindness as barrier to community. As he expressed, it potentially allows depth of relationship. 

In another article in the ADN newsletter, a young woman who is a teenaged member of her congregation, Eleanor Habecker, talks to an interviewer about her experience of blindness in community. Like Pastor Brandon, she never experiences her blindness as a barrier to connecting.

Her congregations sees her a valued member of their community. I was particular impressed with the way Eleanor talked about belonging in her youth group. She remembers her pastor asking her, “Do you think that ‘I once was blind but now I see,’ is literal or if it’s about having really good accommodations. 

This question and the way that Eleanor is able to experience her faith community fully. There is a kind of wholeness that made possible not because she has become sighted but because the community has created ways for her to be included. In fact she says more than once in the interview that she doesn’t think she would like to have her sight fully restored, that it would be too overwhelming and difficult to adapt.

The ways that creating accommodations and openings for people of all abilities to be in full community reminded me of a 99% Invisible podcast episode from a number of years ago. I went back and listened to it this week to remember all the details. It’s about the history of curb cuts and what’s now called the cub cut effect.

Those of us who don’t need a little ramp from the sidewalk down to the street don’t think too much about it – either when we walk across the gentle slop or when we have to step down because there isn’t one. 

Well I learned how truly difficult it is to not have them when I walked with an SMC motorized wheelchair user from one of our covid-era outdoor worship services (were meeting in various parks around the city) to find his bus stop. We were in a residential neighborhood in north seattle and for much of the time we were walking in the street because the only way for Kent to get onto the sidewalk was on drive-ways. 

But the thing about curb cuts is that it isn’t only wheelchair users that benefit. Way back in the 40s after the first world war, in Kalamazoo Michigan, which had especially high curbs in its downtown because of tendencies to flood created curb ramps for the benefit of injured soldiers. 

And afterward, the town commissioned a small study. I’m quoting the reporter, who said:

…it said the curb ramps not only helped people in wheelchairs, and people who used crutches, but women – and it did say women – pushing strollers. And delivery men with their deliveries, and bicyclists. And then it kind of ended with something like, it was creating freedom of movement for everybody.

Freedom of movement for everybody! 

And what has proven true over and over again is that when an accommodation is made for a specific need (like Kent in his wheelchair) it allows for greater freedom and inclusion for many others as well. The reporter gives the example of closed captioning on TV letting you follow a ball game in a noisy bar, or using the automatic door opener when your arms are full of packages.

I have often thought about this in the context of church: when we have gluten and alcohol free elements in communion so that everyone can participate in the same loaf and cup – one body of Christ. 

For me, this is what Jesus’ ministry is an invitation toward. This kind of inclusion and restoration reflects the wholeness of the reign of God more than literal sight. It’s the ability to see our way to welcome, to see our way to understanding that every person has a place at Jesus’ table and in God’s family. May it be so. 

References:

• “True Eyes!” by Brandon Grady
• “Optic Nerves and Church Community,” an interview with Eleanor Habecker
• 99% Invisible: “Curb Cuts”

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