Echo Chambers
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Mary: [00:00:00] Hi, this is Mary from the Rebuilding Faith Online Community. I joined the community because I have followed Jeremy when he was a teaching pastor, then continuing on when he was lead pastor in Portland. The best part of my experience in the community has been being able to ask questions that are asked of me that I don't have an answer for, and being able to get different perspectives.
jeremy_1_10-12-2025_160129: Welcome to another episode of Rebuilding Faith.
These are 10 minute Bible messages for people with questions and doubts. And guess what? This is episode 40 feels like a big milestone. Thank you for being a part of it with us. This is 40 episodes in to the Gospel of John.
Last week we saw Jesus heal a blind man. And today we're gonna see part one of the fallout to that story. Yes, there are multiple parts of fallout we're gonna look at as we see the reactions to when Jesus heals someone and the ways in which [00:01:00] he does it, that just ruffles everyone's feathers. So today we begin our reaction in John chapter nine, verse eight.
His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar. This is the man asked each other, isn't this the man who used to sit and beg? Some said he was and others said, no, he, he just looks like him. But the beggar kept saying, yes, I am the same. See, this is what happens when we other people, they are talking about this man as if he's not there, that he has just become this fixture on the side of the road that they used to see, but now they're so used to him being there that they don't acknowledge him.
They're not even listening to him. This is a reminder that there are no voiceless people. We often think that there are people without a voice. We need to speak for 'em. But it's more accurate to say that there's no one that's voiceless. There are [00:02:00] just voices we choose not to listen to. And now our social media platforms are making this even intensified, right?
There are voices that we are kept from hearing, voices that we are sent instead, and it's become even more difficult to listen to all of the people around us. I've watched this play out just on a more personal note with the City of Portland recently. If you've watched how the news has handled this, the administration right now is making the argument that Portland is out of control.
That is this raging city of violence and chaos. In fact, one of the actual phrases from the government was this is radical left's reign of terror. About Portland, about what's going on in Portland now because I lived there. I follow a bunch of people who live in Portland and are showing the reality and are showing this is what it's actually like.
And a number of them have commented that they're not [00:03:00] even able to tag Portland anymore on social media apps like TikTok, because evidently these algorithms are not wanting you to see what Portland is really like if you don't already have a connection to it. And I've watched this recently, again, I don't know if you've seen these, but there are people in inflatable suits standing up to ice agents.
What became known online is the Portland Frog has recently been spotted on a near daily basis sticking out like a sore thumb during clashes between federal agents and anti-ice protestors. The goofy looking frog has since been facing off with police and even getting pepper sprayed in the air vent of his costume in one viral clip.
The viral protestor has garnered so much attention that others in Portland have begun to wear their own inflatable costumes, even with a few clones. It is a strategy to cut the narratives of the Trump administration, which says we are extremely violent. No, we are protesting, but [00:04:00] with humor. The Portland frog said, according to French outlet, Lamond,
jeremy_1_10-12-2025_160129: And this reminds me when I lived there in, in 2020, I remember when a lot of the rioting started to happen. People would call me and would say, are you okay? And I legitimately didn't know what they were talking about because it wasn't a real story compared to the way life was. And this is often how our news is today, how our reality is today.
We are fed a narrative. We're led to believe that's the way it is. And yet, if we don't listen to all of the voices, we may never know the real story. So they're trying to dig in to this man who's was blind and now he's healed, trying to figure out what's the real story. Verse 10, they asked, who healed you?
What happened? Well, he told them the man they called Jesus made mud and spread it over my eyes, and he told me, go to the pool of slo and wash yourself. So I went and I washed. And now I can see, well, where is he now? They [00:05:00] asked. I don't know, he replied. So there's a little bit of comedy here. The way John is telling the story.
Evidently, Jesus is gone. By the time the come, the guy comes back from the pool of SLO and he can see Jesus is not there anymore. And I love this element of how Jesus often healed people that you could heal, be healed by Jesus and not even fully understand who Jesus was. It wasn't a reward. His healings weren't rewards.
For believing all the right things about him. It reminds me of what my friend Kevin Sweeney has written. He says, you can have a direct experience of God without having the right beliefs about God or even believing in God. Now, that might sound like a little edgy, but that's literally what we find in the gospels that Jesus healed people.
And time and again, they don't even know who he is. And we see that at this point the man doesn't even know what Jesus [00:06:00] looks like. He's never seen him, so he, although he can see now, he doesn't know what Jesus looks like. We spend so much of our time trying to arrive at certainty around our doctrines, and we often miss the invitation to actually experience Jesus.
And then we'll get to the third part of our passage today, verse 13. And they took the man who had been blind to the Pharisees because it was on the Sabbath that Jesus had made the mud and healed him. The Pharisees asked the man all about it, so he told him, he put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see some of the Pharisees said this man, Jesus is not from God for he is working on the Sabbath.
Others said, but how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs? So there was a deep division of opinion among them. And the Pharisees, again, questioned the man who had been blind and demanded, what's your opinion about this man who healed [00:07:00] you? And the man replied, I, I think he must be a prophet.
Now, leave it up to the religious people to make a scene about Jesus healing someone. Does this qualify as work on the Sabbath? Yes or no? Is he allowed to do this? And again, meanwhile, the man's like, I don't really know who he is. Maybe he's a prophet, like he's just guessing at this point. I don't know.
This guy's got some power. He was able to change my life. So when I see a story like this, the question I think we should ask ourselves, are there voices you need to listen to right now? Like when we see this man and the way he is treated, it's a reminder for us that there are these people all around us.
So are there voices you need to listen to right now, but perhaps you're not seeing them now? There can be a variety of reasons why you're not seeing them, but one of the reasons I have found in today's technology is that we [00:08:00] are fed a certain angle, a certain narrative, and oftentimes you get locked into one side of the story, and that's the only version of the story you hear from that point on.
One of the best tools that I have found recently, it has been so helpful for me, and I've recommended this to a number of people, is a resource called Ground News. You can find this online at Ground News, and this is a way of getting news that shows you how it's being reported by all different news outlets.
And so it's gonna show you how many on the left are reporting this, how many on the right are reporting it. They'll weigh it, they'll compare the different narratives, how factual, all these different articles. And so it's showing you things that you may not see otherwise. In fact, they have, a part of it is, it's called the Blind Spot report, where they're gonna show you articles that depending on where you land on the aisle, you may be unaware of.
And I have found this to be so helpful. We need more resources like this to help us [00:09:00] realize what is actually happening around us. Now I think there are lots of blind beggars sitting on the side of the road and they have become fixtures to our eyes. We have forgotten how to see them, but Jesus always sees them.
Wanna remind you, we saw this last week, here's how this whole story began with this phrase in John nine one. As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man. That's it. That's the prompt for this entire chapter, for this entire story. As he was walking along, Jesus saw Amen. The question for you and I is will we be able to see him too?
I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith. I.
