You’ll
pardon the pun, I hope, if I say that today’s scriptures are
eye-openers. They are. They get us to look below the surface, to get
beyond appearances. Things are not always what they seem to be, and
points of view long and tenaciously clung to can be dead wrong and often
are.
In the
reading from the First Book of Samuel, God sends the prophet Samuel on a
search for a new king to succeed Saul. He sends him to Bethlehem, to the
house of Jesse who has a veritable stable of sons – eight of them, in
fact. When Jesse presents his oldest son, tall of stature and
impressive, Samuel thinks to himself, ‘this must be the one,’ but God
tells him no: “Do not judge by appearance, or from his lofty stature,”
he tells him, because I have rejected him. For not as man sees does God
see…man sees the appearance but God looks into the heart.”
Samuel
reviews the whole line-up of Jesse’s sons but it’s clear to him that
none of them is God’s choice for king. So, he asks if there is another
one. And, there is. There is the one out tending the sheep, the youngest
- David - the one who would never have made any head hunter’s list. And
unlikely David turns out to be God’s choice. Call that eye-opener number
one: don’t trust appearances: things are not always as they seem. God
sees differently than we do.
The
David story sets the stage for the story of the man born blind, another
story where appearances are misleading. When Jesus sees this man who was
blind from birth, his disciples ask him why such a thing ever happened.
Were his sins to blame, or his parents’? The first question is, of
course, absurd (how could he have sinned before he was born!); the
second is based on a false premise, a false religious premise that even
enjoys currency today: namely, that illness or physical defect are God’s
punishment for sin. This is the very sort of thinking Jesus came to do
away with, the sort of thinking that turns God into a petty, punitive
tyrant. Jesus came to reveal a very different God altogether: a God of
mystery, yes, and, as Pope Francis likes to remind us, the God whose
very name is mercy. So, Jesus answers his disciples’ question about
whose sin was involved by saying, “Neither! “This has happened,” he
says, “so that the works of God may be made visible in and through him.”
So
that’s the first thing: this is a story about how God works. God doesn’t
work like we do. Simple as that. But the story has another dimension
too. We’re in John’s gospel, remember, the gospel of signs and symbols,
and so, not surprisingly, blindness becomes a metaphor here: a metaphor
for obtuseness – for refusing to see – and seeing becomes a metaphor,
too, a metaphor for understanding. A word about both.
In the
story, you would expect the Pharisees to be the ones who see, who
understand. They are the teachers, after all. They know the Law and all
the sacred Traditions. But, unfortunately, as can happen with religious
leaders, they are so trapped by the tradition, so locked up in it -
straight-jacketed by it and close-minded - that they are unable to learn
anything new. In a word, they know it all, or think they do, and their
understanding of the Law and tradition assures them that the blind man
has been steeped in sin from his birth. Why else would he be blind? And
they know more: they know that Jesus has to be a sinner. Why?
Well, because he blatantly broke God’s Law by working on the Sabbath.
And what was his work? It was the effort he put forth to mix his saliva
with clay and smear it on the blind man’s eyes. That was work, believe
it or not, a clear violation of the Sabbath! That’s all the
Pharisees needed to prove that Jesus was a sinner. He broke the Law. He
couldn’t possibly be from God. Case closed. So much for those who
supposedly see!
And as
for the one who doesn’t see – the man born blind – he ends up, of
course, being the one who not only sees with these eyes but the one who
understands. He not only gains physical sight, he also comes to see – to
understand – what only the eyes of faith can see and understand. And
notice how he comes to faith. It’s something we should all be able to
relate to - certainly our friends with us this morning who are preparing
for baptism. The blind man comes to faith not all at once, not like the
way he gained his physical sight; no, he comes to faith only gradually,
step-by-step. Notice how, early in the story, he refers to Jesus simply
as “the man called Jesus.” That’s a bit distant and detached,
isn’t it? Later he calls Jesus “the prophet,” and that’s coming
closer. Later still, Jesus is “the man from God.” Even closer. And then,
at the very end of the story he calls Jesus “Lord” and worships him in a
dazzling act of faith.
It’s
that way with us, my friends. Faith for us is a process – more a
pilgrimage than a possession: a pilgrimage towards God with many
questions along the way - doubts, too, as well as discoveries - dark and
foggy days, and then some days that are clear and bright when everything
seems to make sense.
Dear
friends, today’s readings are meant to open closed minds. They are meant
to awaken us to how different God’s ways are from our ways. And they are
meant to give us comfort in knowing that the way of faith is a journey
towards the Light but not always a journey in the light.
May
the Christ we now encounter in the Eucharist open closed minds and bring
a ray of light to eyes that are blind!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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