The Gospel of John tell us about a man born blind who encounters the healing touch of Jesus. His disciples, in a rather insensitive way, ask Jesus if he considered either this man or his parents to have sinned for him to be cursed so. Jesus, in his wisdom, responds to them, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.”
Where setting tells us the background information necessary to understand our stories, plot details the journey we take in the story itself, often as a result of whatever hand we were dealt in the beginning. Setting tends to be sedentary, plot is dynamic and malleable - where we start with God is rarely where God will leave us. For us as followers of Jesus, the plot of our lives begins to rally around the work does in us as we are met, blessed, and transformed into someone new.
Jesus’ miraculous healing of this man sends shockwaves through his local community, the setting for his story. They have a hard time believing it is the same person, because for them he was so defined by his original state. Eventually the man is brought before the Pharisees for inquisition. These religious leaders are threatened by the work of Jesus who keeps upending a social order that works in their best interest, precisely because it keeps everyone stationary in their stories. They try to draw out of the man something they can use to accuse Jesus of blasphemy, even twisting the purpose of the Law to suit their needs rather than allowing it to reveal the heart of the Father. The man’s response to their accusations is so beautiful, so succinct: “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
Sometimes we confuse the plot and the setting of our stories. When we do so, we tend to think what defines us at the beginning defines us forever. Our cultural reference points, our family of origin, our faith heritage; these can easily become curses that hold us back in spiritual growth if we don’t open them all to God for God’s healing touch. It doesn’t help when those around us continue to insist we are determined by our setting and therefore cannot grow.
This unnamed man in John 9 gives us perhaps the most succinct description of what happens when God enters into our stories and brings the hope of change: “I was once one way, but now I’m another”. His own religious leaders refuse to accept his testimony, and they throw him out. But he finds Jesus and pledges allegiance to the new reality of God bursting forth in the world. The unexpected plot line of his new story compelled him to seek what else might be possible.
Part of the healing work God does in our lives is to carefully parse through the elements of our origins, teaching us to let go of what no longer serves us or the Kingdom, while magnifying those qualities that best reflect the character of God and become our best contributions to the advancement of the Kingdom. The plot of our lives goes deeper than the surface appearance of things; it speaks to a general spirit or attitude that might pervade our stories before we really encounter the God Who turns curses into blessings. The more closely we can name this spirit, the more preciously we can name the specific character of the spirit of God that enters in and brings us to new life. Once you were one way, but because of God’s work in your life, you are becoming something more.
There are many things I can bless in my origins. There are really beautiful cultural reference points from my Irish heritage that have become a blessing to others as I invite them to see things from a different angle. There are ways in which I was raised in my family of origin that set me up for understanding the world around me. And there are beliefs and practices from my spiritual heritage that still save me to this day. But in each of these touch points for my setting, there are also things that I had to allow the Spirit to lead me away from.
The deepest transformation in our lives is one that follows the “I was blind but now I see” pattern. Beneath all the cultural and familial markers runs a thread of orientation to life, a constant theme that was reinforced by voices not our own. These themes tend to sound like rejection or abandonment, loneliness or being overlooked, and so on. As we name these conflicts in our stories, we can also start to see the specific way in which God rescued us and brought healing. If we were perpetually overlooked, perhaps it was the kindness of God that noticed us and called us out of the sea of anonymity. If we struggled with rejection, perhaps it was the acceptance of God to call us God’s own. Whatever it might be, this major theme becomes powerful in how it sets us up to understand the special authority we have been granted to speak from a compassionate place, to meet the stories of those who may be in a similar position to us.
Reflection:
As you look over the darker themes of your life’s setting, what are one or two internalized messages you lived out of before you met God?
What specific attribute of the character of God has been most precious to you as you have opened your story to God’s healing touch?
Write down these two themes in a format of “I once was _______ but now I’m ______”. Consider this the main plot line of your story.