Listening With Your Eyes

 

1 Samuel 16:1-13

John 9:1-41

 

            Cross country meets at Luther College were run through the middle of the campus. They wound past the science hall, circled around the library, and finished up in front of one of the women’s dorms. There were often quite a few spectators, but you were never sure if they actually came to watch the meet, or if they just happened to be passing through on their way to the field house or the union.

            That’s why I wasn’t all that surprised when I saw this blind student among the spectators during one race. I figured he was probably just on his way to somewhere else and stopped to find out what all the commotion was about.

            But then I kept seeing him at meets, and so I knew he was there intentionally. The question that came to mind was, “Why? Why come to a cross country meet if you can’t see anything.” Well, maybe he was there to offer support to the team or some individual. But I never heard him yell anything. Every time I saw him at a meet, I wondered what he was getting out of it.

            After one meet, a few of us were sitting at a cafeteria table near this guy, and we struck up a conversation about the race. Our top runner talked about the neck-and-neck sprint to the finish line with another team’s ace runner.

            The blind fellow nodded and said, “Yeah, I saw that.”

            I’m sure our jaws dropped a few inches. We stared at each other in bewilderment. He saw that? What did he mean? How could he have seen it? He couldn’t see anything.

 

            The word “see” has several meanings in our language. One of them pertains to the sense of vision—environmental information obtained through the eyes. Another definition, though, is to comprehend, to understand, as in “I see what you mean.”

 

            We discovered that the blind spectator went to cross country meets because he liked to experience them. He saw the meet through his ears, and it turned out that he had a better idea of what was going on then many of those with optical vision.

 

            Today’s Scripture passages deal with seeing through the ears. In the reading from Samuel, the prophet is sent out to choose a new king for Israel. He understands that he is to anoint one of the sons of Jesse. Samuel is nervous about the assignment, but God says, “Don’t worry, I’ll show you what to do; you shall anoint the one whom I name to you.”

 

            Did you notice in that statement how God is going to show Samuel? We usually think of showing as a visual thing. Not this time. It’s coming through the ears—“you shall anoint the one I name to you.”

 

            Samuel either doesn’t catch that distinction or he forgets about it. He sees Eliab and immediately thinks, “Wow, this guy is impressive. Tall, well-built, good-looking, carries himself well. I see what you’re talking about, God. You showed me a king, all right. Let’s crown the guy now.”

 

            God says, “Samuel, what did I tell you? Do not judge by what you see. I know you are impressed by external appearances. But that is not a smart way to judge quality. That’s like a fish that goes after the shiny, spinning lure. Seems like a great decision at the time but it doesn’t end well.

            “Outward appearances do not tell the whole story, Samuel. Go by what is in the heart. Listen to me. Don’t be so quick to judge based on what you see. Pay attention to a voice of one who can see past the surface.”

 

            So Samuel rejects Eliab as a candidate. He does the same with six more impressive-looking sons of Jesse. Instead of trusting his eyes, Samuel listens to God. None of them pass the test.

 

            There is one more son, the youngest, so poorly regarded that no one even thought to bring him in for the audition. It’s curious that the story makes a point of commenting on the handsome appearance of this son, named David. After all, the whole point of the story is that outward appearances are deceptive.

 

            But maybe that is part of the message. This is not an ugly duckling story where the more unsightly the character, the more beautiful they are in reality. If appearances don’t matter, then they don’t matter. So he’s good looking--whether he looks good or not is irrelevant. The point is that Samuel learns not to judge by what he sees but by listening to God.

 

            Flash forward now to this fascinating story in John, a story that is all about seeing. Jesus and the disciples encounter a blind man. The disciples try to use him as an object lesson for a tricky theological point. “Why did God make him blind?” they ask Jesus. “Obviously, he was punished for a reason. It is because he sinned or his parents sinned?”

            It’s the old bad things happen because people deserve them nonsense. It’s a silly question. This man was born blind. How could it be punishment for something he did, when it happened before he ever did anything? And if the parents did something requiring punishment, how come they can see while this innocent fellow is blind?

 

            Jesus dismisses their question and then takes compassion on the blind man. In the course of healing him, he shows them what spiritual blindness is all about.

 

            Here is a guy who cannot see. How is Jesus going to show him the truth? Through the ears. After he puts a mud pack on the man’s eyes, he says, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam.”

 

            Healing comes, salvation comes, as it always does, by hearing the voice of Jesus. The blind man, who is never named in this story, listens to the voice. He goes to wash in the pool and comes back able to see. Because he listened, he is able to see.

 

            From that point on in this story, we get a wide variety of reactions. These reactions are not based on what anybody sees, but entirely on what they are listening to.  What people end up seeing in this story depends entirely on what they hear.

 

            I remember seeing a sort of cruel experiment when I was in high school. Six of my classmates were chosen to sit on this panel. They were to look at a series of pictures and make a judgment about what they saw in those pictures. For example, one card would show three trees of slightly varying size. The differences were not obvious, but still they were usually detectable. The panelists were to decide which of the trees was in fact the largest.

 

            The twist to this exercise was that the first person in the panel was secretly told to give the wrong answer for every third picture. In other words, she would announce that tree #1 was the largest even if it appeared to her that tree #2 was actually larger.

            The next four people on the panel were told to agree with whatever choice the first person on the panel made. The only one who was not in on the secret was the last person on the panel.

 

            As I remember, the first time that the panel made an incorrect choice, the last person on the panel gave a dissenting opinion. But it never happened again. All through the rest of the exercise, panel member #6 agreed with whatever the rest of the group decided even though it was sometimes obvious to us observers that they were all wrong.

 

            This was not exceptional. We were told that it happens virtually every time this experiment is run. It is an object lesson in peer pressure. The experiment shows that what we see is strongly influenced by what we hear. Voices that we hear can literally change what we see.

 

            That explains crowd mentality at sporting events, why your team is always getting robbed by those terrible officials. What we see depends strongly on what we hear. The voice that wants our team to win speaks so powerfully that it affects what we see.

             

            The story of the blind man is a mind-blowing word play on the concept of seeing. There’s a lot of talk about what people see as the truth true, but what people see depends entirely on what voices they are listening to.

 

            The events of the story are not in dispute. All parties agree as to what happened. The man was blind. Jesus made a paste, put it on his eyes, and told him to wash in the pool of Siloam. The man did; he received his sight. Those are the facts of the story.

            But what do the characters in this story see? What do they understand?

 

            The blind man is the one who sees clearly. He sees that he has been given a wonderful gift of healing. He sees an occasion for joyful celebration. He sees one who gave him this gift as the Lord and giver of life. 

 

            The spectators see the same thing, but then start to listen to voices of doubt. Pretty soon they aren’t quite sure what they saw. So they bring the man who had formerly been blind to the Pharisees to explain what happened.

 

            What do the Pharisees see? Do they see this wonderful gift of healing? No, they are listening to voices of envy and hatred and suspicion. Those voices tell them that what they see is nothing wonderful. It’s not even a good thing. It’s a violation of law. Jesus should have been resting on the Sabbath, not performing medical procedures. The fact that he ignored the Sabbath is proof that Jesus in an evil person.

 

            Because they are listening to the wrong voices, the Pharisees see Jesus as nothing but a law breaker who cannot possibly be from God.

 

            The blind man’s parents are brought in for questioning. Whose voice are they listening too? They listen to the voice of intimidation. They are scared that if they cross the authorities they will be booted out of the temple. So they say, “Yeah, we can confirm that he was blind and now he sees, but we don’t know what that means. We don’t know what we saw. Go ask him.”

 

            The Pharisees haul the formerly blind man in for questioning again, and try to bully him by announcing, “We know this man is a sinner.” In other words, “we see that Jesus is a sinner. Surely you can see that, too?”

            The once blind man hears them, but theirs is not the voice he listens to. “I don’t see that at all. I heard a voice, I listened to it. Because I did, I can see. Clearly that is a voice worth listening to.”

 

            It is as honest and straightforward a declaration as you will ever find. Yet the Pharisees aren’t buying it. “You were born entirely in sin, and you think you can see more than we?” they say, and they throw him out of the Temple.

 

            Jesus then meets the once-blind man and says to him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

            “I don’t know,” says the blind man. “I don’t see him. Who is he?”

            Jesus says, “You have seen him. He’s speaking to you.”

            The blind man listens to Jesus, and because he does, he can see clearly who Jesus is.

           

            Finally, Jesus laments the stubbornness of the Pharisees who won’t listen. “Your problem is not that you lack the ability to see,” he says. “You can’t see the truth because you won’t listen.”

 

            The interplay with this see and hear image continues in the next chapter. Jesus uses the image of the Good Shepherd. “I call my own sheep by name,” he says. “And the sheep follow me because they know my voice.” Who you are, what you do, what you see, and what you know in this world all depend on whose voice you listen to. Listening to the voice of Jesus will dramatically change what you see in this world.

 

             Ken Medema was a music therapist working mostly with teenagers in Michigan in the 1970s. Many of his patients were desperate, lonely, hurting people. In trying to work with these young people, Medema realized that they needed far more help than he could provide. They needed God’s help. Medema became active in church, and while praying with a roomful of troubled teens, he saw a way to help.

            He saw the words to a song, and he began to sing. They joined in. Medema published that song in 1973. It’s the short, simple song that we sing during Lent as part of our prayers: Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying.

            Like the blind man at the Siloam pool, Medema saw the power of Christ through his ears. He had to, because Medema, too, was born blind.

 

            What you see in this world depends on who you are listening to.  

As we pray our prayers today, and sing the words of a blind man, I hope you can see with your ears the power and the love of Jesus Christ.