Whose fault is it?

 This week's verses are John 9:1-3:

As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

  In these verses, Jesus' disciples ask Jesus why there is suffering in the world. They see a man in poor circumstances and immediately look for an explanation. Whose fault is it? Did the blind man sin to deserve that plight, or did he suffer from a curse that was put on his parents because of some sin of theirs?

People want explanations for the suffering in their lives. We want to find some way to explain why others suffer so that we can reassure ourselves that it won't happen to us. We want to feel like we are better people than them somehow, that we don't deserve a disability, or a sickness, or catastrophe, but they somehow do.

We want to know whose fault it is that some people are rich and others poor. We want to know why some people die young while others live several decades past retirement. We want to know why some children are born in the middle of a war or famine, while others live a comfortable life of privilege with helicopter parents who not only protect them from death or injury but even from life itself. 

It's a similar question to the ones the disciples ask Jesus elsewhere, when they ask him why some people were murdered by the government in the temple or were crushed to death in a building that collapsed. Surely it must be somebody's fault. Surely there must be some explanation that we can turn to and be consoled that it won't happen to us or to those we love.

If Jesus had studied his theology, he would have given the disciples the usual story about how all suffering comes from sin being in the world, from original sin born in the garden of Eden. If he was especially modern, he might also have introduced some prosperity mythology about how God's will is for us to all be rich and handsome and wealthy and well, so that we can tithe big and never have to skip church, and that people who aren't that way are so because of their weak faith. But Jesus didn't say any of those things.

Instead he tells them that the blind man was blind in order for the works of God to be visible in him. His blindness is not the result of sin, but a conscious part of God's plan for the world. That's not to say that sin does not sometimes bring a curse on us, but that it is not always the case that suffering equals punishment. Sometimes suffering is just suffering. Other times it is a prelude to supernatural blessing.

But put yourself in the place of the blind man. You've suffered insults and disability your whole life. You are poor and your need for care makes your family poor too. People think you and your family are bad people and that your suffering is deserved. Sometimes they want to add to the punishment. Sometimes they take advantage of you. Does your view of God include the possibility that all of that could be intentional, that he could have made you that way on purpose, not out of malice or vindictiveness, but as a necessary part of his plan?

Imagine your doctor was also a priest, and when he examined you, he gave you a diagnosis that said you would suffer some horrible medical condition for twenty years but that God would be glorified through it. Would you be OK with that? Would your existing theology support that diagnosis? One of the things that evidenced Mary's righteousness was that when the angel came to her and told her what she would suffer as part of God's plan, she enthusiastically embraced it.

So when you take inventory of your life and see things that are not as you would like them to be, and you can't find an explanation as to why you would have to suffer, consider the possibility that they could be so that God's works may be displayed in you.