Blind

I'm getting in touch with my inner pharisee.

I've been ranting all week to anyone who will listen about how bad I hate it when people use morality as religion. I've been upset with the gossip that gets spread as if it's a prayer request or even a genuine concern. I've been angered when I've seen legalism win out over grace, causing people to feel "less than".

And then I went to church.

Dave is preaching on John 9, where the blind man gets healed when Jesus makes mud pies with dirt+spit and spreads it on the man's eyes. He talked about how the Pharisees got really p.o.'ed and started questioning the parents of this man and the man himself, just daring this little family to talk about Jesus as if he's Someone special. The guy's folks ditch him. They turn away in fear and say, "He's a grown man. Go ask him." The Pharisees use man-made Sabbath laws to make Jesus look bad. It's ridiculous. Well, now I'm even more fired up. Those stupid Pharisees. But the more Dave talks, the more I realize that my pent-up resentment towards modern-day legalism and morality-talk is big trouble. It's me looking at my fellow humans and saying, "I get it. I get grace and you don't. You're all a bunch of jerks." And guess who's acting superior now?

It's hard. How can my sin of feeling good about "getting it" be as bad as their sins of awful self-righteousness and legalistic judgement? Well, it just is, that's how. When I receive the gift of sight it's very easy to fall into the belief that I earned the gift or that God favors me because I'm cute. I start feeling sorry for all the church-going schmucks who think they get the big picture, but don't. And now I'm beginning to wonder if God regrets blessing me with any such knowledge or understanding. If I'm just going to use this gold to make someone else feel bad, then what's the point? If I'm just going to use it to make myself feel good, then what's the point?

Simple truth: My sin is just as much sin as the next guy's. Just when I think I can wrap my brain around that I start feeling good...because I can wrap my brain around that. And then I've got pride.

John 9:39-41 And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind." Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, "We are not blind too, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains."

So is it the admission of sin that frees me from my blindness? Is it when I can finally say, "I'm so full of sh__", that Jesus heals me? I think that's what He's saying. So I will, day after day, claim that I'm more righteous than the legalists. Then God (in his graciousness, and because I asked for it) will point out that I am blind in a very bad, needy, un-cute way. And I will learn to love because He loves me. And I will pity my inner pharisee and I will love the ones who surround me. Not because it's the seeing thing to do, but because it's the blind thing to do.