Abstract
Although these verses from Matthew 23 are usually regarded as being difficult because of their negative attitude towards Jewish leaders, there is another difficulty which is hardly ever noticed: they reinforce an ancient prejudice against blind people.
These verses, linked together by the theme of blindness, form a subset of woes within the attack in Matthew’s Gospel against the scribes and Pharisees.
1
There are seven woes (vv. 13–29) and blindness is referred to three times in the third woe (vv. 16–22), and once each in the fourth and fifth woes (vv. 23–26). ‘Woe to you, blind guides!’ (v. 16) ‘You blind fools!’ (v. 17) ‘You blind men!’ (v. 19) ‘You blind guides!’ (v. 24) ‘Blind Pharisee!’ (v. 26)
Why is the passage painful? ‘Because of the unfortunate caricature of first-century Pharisaism to which the material has contributed … ’ 3 Readers are warned against using this passage to build up negative images of ancient Judaism and especially to be sensitive to the anti-Semitic prejudice which has all too often invoked these verses.
No commentator, as far as I am aware, 4 has drawn attention to the negative image of blindness contained in these verses. 5 Even those few that are conscious of the implications for anti-Semitism show no awareness of the similar impact upon blindness. The commentators treat the metaphor in a purely matter-of-fact way, often themselves using it with no sign of critical distance. Ulrich Luz, for example, remarks that the blind Pharisee referred to in verse 26 still had the option of cleansing the inside of the cup and therefore this Pharisee was ‘not yet so hopelessly blind that there was no longer the possibility of repentance’. 6 It is agreed that Matthew’s use of blindness in the woes is an expansion of 15.14, ‘Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.’ I have not found a commentator who draws attention to the fact that this saying, apparently a popular proverb, is a sneer at the problems of blind mobility, and is in any case false to the experience of blind people, who can quite easily lead one another on a familiar route. Most of the older works on Matthew are completely unaware of the problematic nature of the verses either for interfaith relations or for attitudes towards disability. 7
In conversation it has been pointed out to me that while the references to scribes and Pharisees are intended to be taken literally, blindness is clearly used here in a metaphorical sense. This observation, although doubtless correct, is unhelpful. In the first place, it is the stupidity, incompetence and folly of the Pharisees that is being described. To use the metaphor of blindness with such negative meanings is to collude in the long history of prejudice against blind people, who are probably no more foolish and stupid than their sighted companions. Secondly, metaphors such as this come from the sighted world and are used to marginalize and diminish the world of blind people.
Moreover, the way the metaphor of blindness is used suggests a degree of careful observation of the way blind people may behave. It is true that we blind diners are often confused about what we are eating, although even a very foolish blind person would no doubt become aware of trying to devour a camel. The comment about cleaning the outside of a cup but not the inside is more shrewd and not so funny. It is certainly difficult for a blind person to tell when a cup is clean. You have to feel the inside of the coffee mug to tell if there are still coffee stains and by then you have to wash it anyway! These images are not chosen in an arbitrary manner but are consistent with the choice of blindness to express contempt and disgust. 8
Unfortunately, churches are seldom notable for the sensitivity of their members towards disabled people. This lack of sensitivity is reinforced by the negative biblical stereotypes, many of which have found their way into our hymnbooks, our prayers and our sermons. We are quite happy to sing the final line of the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’: ‘ … / Was blind but now I see’. If we were invited to sing, ‘Was black but now I’m white’, we would be shocked, but the reason for this is no more than the fact that our culture has become sensitized to racial prejudice but is less aware of prejudice against disabled people.
No doubt modern readers of the Bible are becoming aware of passages that exalt men over women, straight people over gay and those with sight over those without sight. If we seek to create communities where all are welcome and all are accepted we must acknowledge the mixed messages of the Bible. I discuss these problems in my book The Tactile Heart: Blindness and Faith (SCM Press, 2013), just as in my Touching the Rock (SPCK Classics edition, 2013) I confess to experiencing the Bible’s healing power. 9 If there is a constructive use which preachers today can make of the Matthaean blind woes, it can only be to use the passage as a wake-up call to alert readers of the Bible and those who seek to live the Christian way to the fact that all too often their faith is not so much an answer to the prejudice suffered by disabled people but is part of the problem. Like St Paul, I may be speaking as a fool (2 Cor. 11.16), but please do not use my blind condition as a term of abuse.
