Sermon Text - (3/15/2026)

The Rev. Christian Jennert, Bridge Pastor

Sermon Lent 4 | Year A

March 15, 2026

1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

During my undergraduate studies, I was part of a campus ministry group that helped adults with physical and developmental challenges go to church on Sunday mornings. We called it the "Accompaniment Ministry." We would pick people up from their group homes, stroll with them to church, sometimes pushing wheelchairs, sometimes simply walking beside them.

One day those of us who were helpers were asked to do an exercise: to put ourselves in the place of those we accompanied. I was asked to pretend to be blind. I closed my eyes and tied a scarf around my head so I wouldn't cheat. A friend guided me across campus.

For me, as a seeing person, it was deeply unsettling. I had my friend lead me. I learned two simple things: to listen -- and to trust.

Years later, during a chaplaincy internship in Hannover, my grandmother began losing her vision from macular degeneration. Over time she became fully blind. A woman who had been fiercely independent now depended on others to help her find her way.

Over the years I have come to appreciate sight in a whole new way. And I have also come to realize that "seeing" is more complicated than we think. In today's Gospel, a man born blind becomes the center of attention and controversy. Jesus heals him -- not with a grand gesture, but with mud and water and a command: "Go wash." And he comes back able to see.

But John's story is not only about eyesight. It is about vision. Because as the story unfolds, it becomes clear: the only person who truly sees is the one who had been blind. The neighbors cannot see what has happened. The religious leaders cannot see grace at work. Even the man's parents cannot fully see what is unfolding in their own child.

Only the one who was blind begins to see -- slowly, courageously step by step.

John's Gospel invites us to ask not simply, Who is blind? but rather: Where are we unable -- or unwilling -- to see?

Sometimes our blindness is subtle. 

We fail to see the person in front of us. We fail to see suffering we would rather avoid. We fail to see grace because it arrives in unfamiliar forms. We fail to see God at work outside our expectations.

And sometines -- perhaps most often -- we fail to see ourselves clearly.

One of the striking moments in this story is when the disciples ask Jesus: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?" They want an explanation. A system. A cause. But Jesus refuses the question altogether. 

"It was not that this man sinned," he says, "but that God's works might be revealed in him." In other words, this is not about blame. This is about revelation. And that shifts everything. Because suddenly the man's life is not a problem to be solved but a life through which God's light can shine. And maybe that is where this story meets us most deeply. Because most of us know something about not seeing clearly -- about confusion, grief, fear, uncertainty.

And yet again and again, Christ meets us there. Not after we are whole. Not after we understand. But right in the middle of our not-knowing.

One think I love abut this story is that healing does not come all at once. 

At first the blind man says only, "The one called Jesus made mud. . ." Later the blind man says, "Jesus is a prophet." And finally the blind man says, "Teacher, I believe." Seeing unfolds slowly. Faith unfolds slowly. And that is good news for us. Because most of us do not see clearly all at once either. We learn to see gradually -- through trust, through experience, through grace.

That is why the hymn we will sing today feels so right: "There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole." The Gospel today does not promise instant clarity. It promises healing -- slow, steady, and tender. A healing that comes through trust. Through washing. Through walking forward not fully knowing the way.

And perhaps that is the invitation for us this Lent: not to see perfectly -- but simply to remain open. Open to God. Open to one another. Open to being changed.

In the end, Jesus says something startling: "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see." Which may be another way of saying, Blessed are those who know they need the light.

So this Lent, perhaps our prayer is simple:

O God, help us to see.

Help us to see you in one another.

Helps us to see what we have overlooked.

Help us to see with compassion and courage.

And when we cannot see clearly,

remind us there is still balm,

still healing, 

still light.

And the peace of God.  Amen