In reading this text I am always struck by how utterly unhappy everyone is over an event that should have everyone dancing in the streets and celebrating. A man born blind can now see – isn't that good news? Instead the healing sets off a stream of controversy – his neighbors confront him and drag him before the Pharisees … the Pharisees argue first with the man, then with his parents and finally have a showdown with Jesus who ends up accusing them of blindness. All things considered not the way we would have thought things would go. Again – isn't this great news??!! As the man says, and as the hymn sings: "I once was blind, but now I see."

Transformation … we've been focusing on ways in which Jesus meets us and extends transforming possibilities. We have looked at Lent as a chosen path of disorientation so that we can become newly oriented in the example of Jesus. We have shared the story of Nicodemus as he struggled with spiritual birth. And last week, we walked with the Samaritan woman and others who suffered from theological water stress – meaning their spirituality suffered from lack of contact with the life giving grace of God. Today in this final segment on transformation we confront how we will react to the transforming power of Jesus Christ.

Like I said, no one celebrates in the transformation that Jesus brought to the once blind man. Jesus is harsh with those who question and condemn, saying they are as blind as the man healed once was. It is a serious judgment. In Jesus' time light was thought of as a substance. When present in a person, it radiated out of their eyes. That was how sight was thought to be possible. It was something inside a person that flowed out and illuminated objects. Those who were blind had none of that substance – they had only darkness … and darkness was equated with evil. So, it followed that a blind person, a sick person, a handicapped person was full of darkness within, somehow caused by their sin, or the sin of their parents. In accusing the Pharisees, Jesus is equating them with the very people they have condemned as sinners. The Pharisees are full of whatever the dark substance is that keeps their eyes from seeing the transformation Jesus is offering.

And there is our question as we look at the text this morning – in witnessing the transforming power of Jesus, will we be blinded to the work of the spirit … or will we become participants in this transforming power. This text calls us to make that choice. A show of hands in this place … and we'd all be unanimous in agreeing that we wanted to be on the side of Jesus, bringing healing and hope. We want to be those filled with the light of the Spirit … a light that flows out of us all of the time and every time. We'd like to think we are those who would celebrate with the man born blind.

Yet, the work of transformation is tough. Any transformation means a re-ordering. In our text, no longer can the blind man be cast in the role of a beggar on the side of the street, noticed only when someone feels moved enough to throw a leftover scrap or a bit of change at him. He moves now into the mainstream of the social order, someone to be reckoned with. All the former relationships fall away, and new ones are created. Equality – in the love of God all are the same. We are all sinners, we are all saints … and it is time to start treating our brothers and sisters as such. There are no Pharisees with a special claim on the word of God, there are no people created to be beggars on the side of the road. That's the transforming power of God's love in Jesus Christ. Which side of that are we on?

If it were so easy, we wouldn't need stories such our morning text. I was reminded by Rev. Jack Stephenson of the Florida Annual Conference of how we tend to behave when we find ourselves in such stories. He reminded me of how crabs in a basket behave. I did a fair bit of crabbing off the Manasquan docks growing up. For the most part it was an excuse to sit and do nothing for the morning. But we actually did catch blue claw crabs now and then. When the first few crabs were thrown in the basket there was a lot of scurrying around the basket … you had to watch, for the crabs were likely to pull themselves up and out of the basket and head back for the water. But after a few more crabs were added, you no longer had to worry. Then, if a crab tried to pull itself out of the basket, the other crabs would grab it and pull it back down … escape was no longer possible. No one crab was going to best another. Hmmm … describes a lot of human behavior, doesn't it? Just like the Pharisees, we invest a lot in maintaining in order to keep things comfortable and familiar. When something comes along to threaten that sense of order we try to pull things back together. The Pharisees were unable to celebrate the new life given to the man in the text because it threatened their sense of order. The crabs in the basket, perhaps unknowingly, would rather end up in a boiling pot of water rather than allow even just one in their midst to escape back to life. Yes, the reality of transformation is tough!

Transformation or stagnation? The choice of life is before you … where will your heart be found? Will you participate in the saving grace of Jesus Christ in the world, or will you be a crab in the basket?

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