“‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ These words were said so kindly and without a hint of blame.” – Julian of Norwich
“My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness” 2 Corinthians 12:9
ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς, Οὔτε οὗτος ἥμαρτεν οὔτε οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ’ ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ.
Apekrithei Iesus, “Oute houtos hemarten oute hoi goneis auto ’all hina phanerothe ta erga tou Theo en auto
Jesus answered, “Neither this one sinned nor his parents, but so that made manifest the work of God in him.”
Jesus initially responds to the disciples’ question by saying, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”[1] According to Colin Kruse, “[Jesus’s response] presents an unattractive theodicy, implying that God allowed the man to be born blind so that many years later God’s power could be shown in the restoration of his sight.”[2] As a result, Colin Kruse highlights the fact that there is no punctuation in the Greek text and that translators add the phrase “he was born blind” to Jesus’s response. Kruse therefore suggests Jesus’s answer be rendered thus: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. In order that the works of God may be revealed in him it is necessary for us to work the works of him who sent me.” Although Kruse is correct about the lack of punctuation in the Greek and the addition of the phrase “he was born blind,” he fails to account for the Greek word ἀλλ, which functions as a conjunction within the sentence rather than a word at the beginning of a new sentence.
Unlike Kruse, Sandra Schneiders offers an interpretation that will help us see how the Johannine Jesus initially responds to human resentment, without attempting to omit Greek words from the text. According to Schneiders, the Johannine Jesus explains to the disciples and the readers that those ailments for which we seek someone to blame are actually opportunities for divine healing and invitations into a deeper relationship with Christ. “Our helpless situation,” Schneiders writes, “is the ‘place’ where God can reach us, the occasion for God’s saving action in our lives: ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned: he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him (9:3).”[3] The Johannine Jesus reveals to his disciples and to the readers what Christ revealed to Paul when Paul brought his own apparent resentment to God in prayer regarding a “thorn in his flesh.” Similarly, Christ responded to Paul by inviting him to see his ailment as an invitation to deeper intimacy with the divine: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). The Johannine Jesus invites the disciples and the readers to see potential sources of resentment as invitations to deeper intimacy with him.
With these words, Jesus also makes it abundantly clear that he and the God he represents are entirely uninterested in playing the blame game and finding possible scapegoats for human suffering. Jesus reveals here what he revealed to Julian of Norwich, a 14th century English anchoress who also asked God the question of suffering. God responded to her questions with revelations of divine love, from which she learned that there was “no whit of anger in God” and that “God is that goodness which cannot be angry, for God is nothing but goodness.”[4] Robert Llewelyn, author of With Pity Not with Blame: The Spirituality of Julian of Norwich and the Cloud of Unknowing for Today, explains, “[Julian] does not eliminate the idea of wrath altogether but teaches that it is on our side and not on God’s.”[5] Furthermore, Llewelyn writes, “God’s face of compassionate love is always turned towards us, and if what we see in God is wrath, that is because of a corruption within ourselves which we have projected onto God, for our tendency is always to make God in our own image.”[6] The spiritual blindness of which Jesus will speak later in this chapter is, I argue, a symbolic representation of this “corruption within ourselves.” Julian learns from the divine revelations that God looks upon humanity “with pity and not with blame.”[7] In John 9, Jesus responds to the disciples’ question of suffering and compulsion to blame with a pity that heals the physical ailment of blindness and, as we will see, invites us to acknowledge our spiritual blindness; that is, the “corruption within ourselves” which expects God to be like us: addicted to blame.
[1] Οὔτε οὗτος ἥμαρτεν οὔτε οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ.
[2] Colin G. Kruse, John: The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008) 220 -1.
[3] Schneiders, Written, 162.
[4] Edmund Colledge, OSA and James Walsh, LT 49, LT 46
[5] Robert Llewelyn, With Pity Not With Blame: The Spirituality of Julian of Norwich and the Cloud of Unknowing For Today (London: Darton Longman Todd, 2003), 19.
[6] Robert Llewelyn, With Pity Not With Blame, 20.
[7] LT 82
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 