March 19, 2023

1 Samuel 16:7-13, John 9:1-7

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Who sinned? The man, who was born blind? Or his parents, whose sin was to be passed along to their son? Jesus rejects that line of questioning, but these questions do not come out of nowhere. It was believed in Biblical times that the sins of the past could potentially result in negative consequences for those who come afterwards. It is mentioned in the passage that introduces the Ten Commandments.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me…”

So, this is not a strange question from the disciples, but a strange answer from Jesus. Jesus states that this man’s suffering was not because of any sin of the man or his parents, but it was a moment to show the works of God through the ministry of Jesus. One might wonder as to the fairness of this man being used as an object lesson, but here we are.

Instead, let us focus on the shift on thinking. A move away from this historic understanding of physical infirmity as a form of punishment from God. We are not blind or sick because of God’s wrath. We are not born one way or another, rich or poor, high or low, because of God’s displeasure. Because the idea that God punished anyone for what someone else has done, is a truly upsetting declaration to make within the scriptures.

But describing something as upsetting does not mean that it is not true on some level. Our discomfort is not a measure of reality. Jesus was trying to disconnect the people’s association of suffering with sin; the suffering of the current generation because of the sins of the past one. And that was an effort to move away from the notion that it was God who was punishing people across the generations because of sin.

That is a common thread in the teachings of Jesus, and it was a relatively new idea within the thinking of Judaism of that time. God does not seek your burnt offerings but acts of loving kindness. What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. This was a change in the way one was supposed to consider God and the events in our lives. And it is worth noting that change suggests a different way of understanding of sin and the nature of suffering in this life.

And yet that does not mean that people do not suffer. People obviously suffer. The source of that suffering should not be attributed to God as a response to the sins of the past. But what then is the source of suffering? Must people suffer? Where does this suffering begin and when might it ever end?

Let us consider the ways in which people suffer. Sometimes it is large scale suffering like after the recent earthquakes in Turkey. Sometimes it is more personal level suffering, like a being in a car accident or a receiving a difficult medical diagnosis. And sometimes we suffer because of the decisions of other human beings. Through wars, through greed, and even through inattention. When a train recently derailed in Ohio filled with toxic chemicals, it was a collision of human failures and human suffering.

When we think about the types of suffering we face, much of it might seem beyond our control or understanding. And I would agree with an assessment that much of what we suffer is beyond our control. But in many cases, we can come to understand what has happened and why it has happened. Why someone has, or why we have, ended up suffering.

We know why earthquakes happen. The ground underneath us seems generally sure and stable, but in places around the world it is less sure and less stable. In Turkey for example there was a similarly devastating earthquake in 1999. Almost 20,000 people died then. However, over 50,000 died this past February. Clearly this area is prone to dangerous earthquakes. And the government spent years planning for it, such as by imposing strong building codes to protect new buildings after 1999.

So why then did so many people die in the 2023 quake? First, this was the strongest earthquake in this area for nearly a century. But second, those strong building codes were largely ignored. All that careful planning was never implemented. Builders were routinely forgiven when they failed to meet the new and stricter code. Why? Because it was expensive to do so. And it made more sense to seek forgiveness than permission. As a result, buildings that should have been built to the higher standards were not up to the task.

And for some reason, it took the government an unexpectedly long time to respond to the earthquakes, which is a strange thing in a nation prone to them. Why the delay? Traditionally, the military would have been sent in to help, but that did not happen right away. Was it inaction? Or was it something else?

Was it perhaps owing to political hostility between the military and the government. A government that did not want to give the military an opportunity to look good in the public’s eyes a few months before a general election. It is important to note that the military has been a major political force in the modern history of the country. And it is not entirely supportive of the current leaders.

The earthquake was the initial source of the suffering, clearly. But how then do we assess the human influences upon that suffering? That which made it greater than it should have been? That which prolonged it beyond what was necessary?

The failure to enforce building laws led to many buildings collapsing. The failure to respond quickly to the crisis led to an unknowable amount of additional suffering. The nature of the earth underneath us all caused some of that suffering. But the nature of humanity sadly seems to have made that suffering even worse.

What about disease? We are shaking off the last vestiges of a three-year pandemic. Many people were sickened and many died. Think about how different countries responded to this global situation. Some took strong action, some were more permissive, and others did little or nothing.

For example, New Zealand had a very strict Covid policy. They shut down the country’s borders to visitors for many months. And still, they had over 2,000,000 cases and 2,500 deaths overall. As a point of reference, their population is about 5,000,000. That is an illness rate of 40 percent, but a death rate of .05 percent. Let us ignore for the likelihood of multiple infections by the same people, for ease of mathematics.

Compare that with the United States which had over 100,000,000 confirmed cases and over a million deaths. Our population is about 330,000,000. That means our rate of infection was lower than New Zealand, which is good. But our death rate was six times that of New Zealand. Which is bad. Why the significant difference given the higher the rate of infection? Let us also ignore for the moment the possibility that the U.S. numbers are under-reported, which is quite possible.

New Zealand’s citizens receive free or subsidized healthcare. And the United States, well, I think it is fair to describe our healthcare system as complicated. Complicated and expensive. So complicated and so expensive that in a country that should legally have 100% of its people covered by health insurance, 10% have no coverage at all and many more struggle with quite limited coverage because that is all they can afford.

Admittedly, there was no way for the United States government to have known that in the winter of 2020 there would have been a world-wide pandemic. But that very same government had predicted the possibility of such an outbreak and had developed policies to help alleviate such a situation. Policies that were left unused for quite some time. Policies that got tied up with economic and political priorities.

And even when there was a clear realization that something dangerous was going on, the public health responses were still mixed. In some cases, they were slow, in others nonexistent. That shifted over time, and from time to time. It was like a wild social experiment, with some states doing everything they could and some other states practically ignoring what was happening.

I realize that another sermon about the pandemic is likely not on everyone’s short list of wished for things this week. But I was reading recently that memories of the pandemic might quickly begin to fade. How could we ever forget what we went through?

Because it was a terrible time, we are likely to begin to forget parts of what happened. Not that it happened, but pieces of it. The tedious days spent inside. The distractions that we undertook even as we worried about what was happening. The extended anxiety and the generalized worry. When such a sense of suffering is not tied to an event but spread over a long period of time, it will not stick with us in the same detail as a more time limited event.

Think back to the worst of it, when many people felt unanchored from their normal routines. Losing track of time. Forgetting the day of the week, the day of the month. Forgetting which week or which month it was.

Recently, I was trying to explain to someone how long I had been volunteering at a certain nonprofit. I thought I knew the dates, but then I realized that I had been about to edit out three years. Three years in which it was hard to remember what I did the day before, let alone what had been going on a year or so ago. It is in the nature of the human mind to forget things. It is natural. It is normal.

I realize that forgetting things is a great fear of many people as they grow older, that their memory might in some way become unreliable. And I am not sure if it is comforting to point out that human memories are generally unreliable at all ages. We remember quite selectively. Why? Because our minds remember what might make it easier to survive, not just everything we happen to experience. We edit out much of the noise, much of the day-to-day stuff that looks and feels like any other day.

And then there is what our bodies strives to hold onto, for better or worse. We learn life lessons better from negative experiences rather than positive moments. That makes sense–the hot stove teaches best. Sadly, it seems that suffering rather than happiness has the most influence on us as time goes by. Why the difference? You live longer if you remember that the red berries made you sick. That the sabertoothed tiger hangs out by the river.

We are in a certain sense the product of suffering. Suffering has taught us and it has guided our evolution. And thousands of years of such genetic learning can manifest in our modern lives in unexpected ways.

During the Second World War, the Netherlands were under German occupation. In 1944, the Dutch government in exile had directed people in the country to observe a general strike and otherwise to hamper the faltering German war efforts. In retaliation, the Germans blockade the western part of the country, the most populous part. This led to widespread famine.

After the war, scientists studied the Dutch population because it was a then unique example of the effects of famine on an industrialized country. They found that there were many enduring effects of the famine. And this included effects upon the children and grandchildren of those effected.

The theory was that the negative effects on children born during or shortly after the famine further affected the next generation because of changes to the mothers’ genetic material. Starvation therefore harmed three generations. One notable victim of this tragedy was Audrey Hepburn, the actress, who grew up in the Netherlands. She survived famine as a child but suffered lifelong health effects.

In our passage this morning, Jesus taught that the sins of the parents did not cause the blindness of the man. But what about the suffering of the parents or grandparents? What about that?

Suffering is not limited to the person who experienced it. It can harm them physically, such as in the Netherlands, and effect future generations. And it can harm someone psychologically or emotionally. It can also greatly influence the lives of those around the person who has suffered. In a sense then, the suffering of prior generations can affect those that come after. Whether that could be described as “sin” depends upon how that suffering changes a person, one way or another.

When I was reading for today, I came across a poem based upon our reading. It reflects a different way of understanding what happened when Jesus healed the blind man. It is entitled:

Spit and Dust, by Charles Strietelmeier

Spit in the face,
dust on the head—
we dread
such tokens of disgrace
and our mortality.
But when love blends
the two, the clay
in your hands
is why
we live. Mud in the eye
is how we see.

Jesus turned to the blind man as an act of love. He said, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”

What does that mean? When Jesus is gone, such healing will no longer be possible? Possibly. But it does not end there. The mention of the works of “him who sent me” is a call for the disciples to take care of others because that is what God wants. It is a clear description by Jesus of his mission and purpose and that of those who might follow him. The works of “him who sent me” are the works of those who choose to follow.

When I think about all the ways human beings suffer, some of it can be attributed to the world around us. Earthquakes and storms, disease and pestilence. But the nature and scope of suffering in the world is understandable even though it is not under our control.

When we consider suffering, we can attribute it to forces beyond our control and leave it at that. Or we can step back and consider how we might prepare ourselves for it. To weather the storm and clean up after it is over. To build for the inevitable earthquakes and hurricanes to prevent some or even most of the possible damage. And to plan for pandemics. We might not know what disease it will be, but we certainly can guess whether it will be. Because we have known about epidemics since human history began. In a certain sense, this is why human history began.

Human beings banded together thousands of years ago so we could better prepare ourselves for disasters, for disease, for hunger. Out in the world, we were alone. We were alone in a dangerous world that did not care about our survival. And then we tried to band together and it was better. We came together in villages and clans, in kingdoms and empires, in nations large and small.

The original purpose of us being together is to protect each other. Not to protect our private piles of stuff. Not to protect abstract ideas or even articles of faith. The reason we came to exist together in society was to protect one another. To feed and to clothe one another. To care for and to shelter one another. Over the centuries we have transformed that basic sense of survival into other high flown ideas, like national pride and religious fervor. But when we forget that we banded together long ago to help alleviate each other’s suffering, we are missing the point of everything. It may seem like an enormous task to feed and clothe everyone, to care for and shelter everyone but that was the original task we set for society.

And it is no excuse to proclaim that the job is too big. It is no excuse to say we should take care of our own before we can attempt to care for others. Because, to be honest, we are not doing such a great job with those people around us, let alone the people around the world. And yet that is why we came to be a people and a nation. What does this mean? It means we need to do better.

And we in particular need to do better. Yes, us here. The reason we need to do better is that we all decided to follow someone like Jesus. We gathered together in this place for that purpose. To consider the words of holy scripture. To remember the works of Jesus and the disciples. And to follow. To follow those examples. That is one crucial reason we are here: to respond to those who are suffering around us.

As I mentioned, the suffering of the present can linger far into the future. Across the lives of children and grandchildren, across the lives of a people and a nation. Suffering is at the heart of the human condition. But the relief of suffering is at the heart of humanity. The heart of who we are called upon the be.

Again, that is why we are here. That is why someone like you all is bothering to listen to me ramble on. We exist as a people gathered who wish to follow Jesus. And Jesus wanted us to care for others. To address their suffering, not ignore it. Not compound it. Not place it aside because we have economic or political opinions in need of flexing. Because there is nothing in the Bible that permits us to ignore the suffering of others. Nothing that allows us to take a pass when others are in need.

There are of course excuses that people make. Excuses to avoid looking at terrible things. Excuses to avoid taking on what seem like insurmountable challenges. The suffering in the world is terrible. But we are called to look at it and to do what we can to make others healthy and whole once again. We do not need to fix everything. But we need to fix what we can when we can. As the Reverend Edward Everett Hale once said: “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

Let us ago forth and consider the something that we can do. Amen.