“BELIEVE: worldview”

(Ps 23; Eph 5:8-14; Jn 9:1-41) JG White ~ 10:30 am, Sun, March 8, 2026, FBC Amherst

A poem by Rev. Steve Garnaas-Holmes (March 9, 2026).

In the ninth chapter of his gospel

John tells a hilarious story

full of slapstick comedy

and subtle and not-so-subtle irony—

a sort of Jesus and the Three Stooges—

that on Sunday thousands of preachers

will read with a perfectly straight face.

In the story people whose eyes work fine

ask a man who was blind

to describe what he saw.

He sees clearly, though they do not.

They contort themselves

and trip all over themselves

with comic awkwardness

to avoid seeing what they see.

Despite the storyteller’s straight face,

intoning this tale as if it’s

a recipe for fish stew,

we’re supposed to laugh out loud,

first at those goofy Pharisees

and then even more seriously

at ourselves, since the real joke is on us,

because we too keep putting bags on our heads

and stumbling over God’s grace,

avoiding seeing what we see.

We don’t want to see grace

where we don’t want to see it.

We don’t want to see God

in people we judge.

‘Till we open the eyes of our hearts

the angels will just keep laughing at us.

But Jesus will sit down on the curb

with those who have been rejected

for seeing what they see,

and day after day work with us

to open our eyes.

Let us keep seeking light for our lives, especially those of us who call ourselves Believers, Christians, Followers of Jesus. Today’s story of an unnamed man who sees, after a life of blindness, is quite a tale. I think it will illuminate a bit of our feelings about what we believe. To be a Christian is to believe certain things? Well, yes. This is usually part of it. And yet belief is more than about facts only. Let’s look at today’s scripture story. 

The man does not get named. Bit by bit we found out a very few things about him. So much of the talk is about his blindness – for many people who knew him this seems to sum it up. So often it is for anyone with an obvious disability. Not fair, is it?

For instance, after he is healed, is wandering around with sight, people just can’t be sure it is really him. “I am that man,” he says. He has to say it again and again, actually. What I am interested in is what this fellow says about Jesus, how he believes more and more as the day goes on. The man says, “Someone name Jesus made some mud…” and so on. I’m sure you’ve had something dramatic happen, word gets around, and then you have to keep explaining it to everyone you meet. The neighbourhood in Jerusalem asks, “Well, where is this miracle-worker?” 

“I don’t know,” says the healed man. 

What does this young man know about Jesus? As the story goes on, he says a bit more and a bit more, as if his knowledge of Jesus grows. It is his belief in Jesus that grows, we might say, his faith. 

When interrogated by the religious experts, the fellow says Jesus is a prophet. As the debates go on, he says, “Jesus could not do anything unless he came from God.” Finally, he gets to meet Jesus, now with his eyes seeing. The Saviour asks him what he believes, and the man says, “Lord, I put my faith in you!”  He goes from telling people he does not know this nor that about Jesus, to “Lord, I believe,” by the end of the day. 

We notice that all the talking with the healed man, and talk about him, happens while Jesus is absent. Wherever in the city He has gone. The young fellow says more and more about Jesus, whom he has barely talked with, or seen with his new vision. To become some sort of ‘believer’ can happen without a huge amount of experience.

To believe in Jesus, in God, in the Gospel, has a few facets to it. It is about facts - I believe this is real in the world: there is a God. The story of Jesus in the Bible tells us about our God. And so on. 

I realize that beliefs, religious and spiritual teachings, are of big interest to me. Though I am not very good at being a theologian, a Christian thinker. I don’t get all my beliefs organized or keep them together. I read lots of stuff, but don’t integrate it. How does God intervene in day to day life? What is getting guidance from the Spirit like? What is all the Bible stuff about ‘the end of the world’ pointing to? How does prayer work and what is it really for? My actual beliefs are all over the map, and sometimes changing. 

Some wise person said that we each have several layers of belief. There is what we say we believe about things. Then there is what we tell ourselves that we actually believe, but don’t say out loud. Then there is what we actually believe about God and ourselves and the world around us, down deep inside, that we don’t always realize. 

Belief is also more than all this. Belief is about confidence, having faith in. This believing is more personal, like the healed man was with Jesus by the end of his story.

So, I say I believe in my grandson, Dryden - when he plays hockey, when he works on his school work, when he is building some project for fun. Or I say, I believe in the Chignecto Naturalists’ Club, what they are doing to educate people about nature in the local area and beyond, what we do to maintain bird houses for swallows, and so on. I can get behind them. 

In like manner, my own belief in God, the God seen in Christ, has a personal element. An element of trust, of confidence in Spirit. Of knowing and being known. 

Your own training as a Christian may be much like mine, for some of you, anyway. Raised with teachings both that beliefs about God and the world are vital, and believing in God that is personal. I was supposed to believe the correct, true, Bible facts. I was also supposed to have a personal, interactive relationship with the Spirit of Jesus. Have faith.

Because we are pondering - and celebrating - believing today, we will have the chance to recite the Apostle’s Creed after the sermon. We believe this… we believe in that... There are facts here. There are feelings. There are challenges and gracious blessings in this statement of faith. For some of it, we may be like another man who met Jesus once, but said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

Progressive Christian thinker, Brian McLaren, told a story of a family in New Zealand who had a hard time finding a new ‘home church’ when they moved to a new city. So they did their own family worship at home for a time. One week, nine-year-old Lucy had offered to give the sermon. Here it is.

When I think about God I think about a person who would never murder or kill anyone. But when you think about it you wonder because wasn’t it God who swept the angel of death over Egypt? It makes you think, doesn’t it? Is God against it or is he not? I mean what had the boys done to die? It was the Pharaoh wasn’t it? Now do you realize how little we know about God? I hope this made you think, thanks for listening. 

(Brian McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration, 2016, pp. 110-111)

To believe, to be ‘a believer,’ is to think. But not just about theories. It is to think about our life, what happens, what people feel and experience, what really goes on. What our lives mean.

McLaren also tells this story. He says a rabbi friend of his told him: That’s something about you Christians that never made much sense to me as a Jew. She said, We don’t read stories in the Bible looking for beliefs. We read them for meaning. Most of us aren't literalists… We’re looking for meaning to guide us in the predicaments of life, to help us know who we are, why we’re here, and where we’re going, to help us be better people, so we can heal the world. (GSM, p. 25)

 Not everyone to be a Christian needs to be focused on ‘beliefs,’ the teachings, the ‘facts.’ A man born blind gets healing, and meets his Saviour. His few beliefs were not just some facts. Some of it was experience, and a simple, strong confidence in Jesus, who he did not get to spend much time with. 

Let me end with another true story that is also not just about disability. The beautiful Christian thinker and teacher, Henri Nouwen, gave up being a professor at Yale and Harvard, and moved to Toronto, to a L’Arche community for abled and disabled people. There he met Adam Arnett, a young resident of the community who was gripped by frequent seizures and could neither speak nor move without assistance. Nouwen assisted Adam with morning bathing, dressing, eating and preparing for the day. Nouwen was preparing to write a book about the Creed, the Apostle’s Creed. Instead, he wrote his final book about this man, Adam: God’s Beloved. In it he says:

"Here is the man who more than anyone connected me with my inner self, my community, and my God. Here is the man I was asked to care for, but who took me into his life and into his heart in such an incredibly deep way. Adam was my teacher, my friend, my guide...he was the one who more than any book or professor led me to the person of Jesus."

Adam could not speak, or walk, or feed himself. He didn’t get healed of his maladies. Did he have Christian beliefs? Maybe in a few facts, we suppose. Beliefs in facts did not matter. Adam was a child of God, and he blessed the great professor, Henri Nouwen. Thanks be to God.