A homily for the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Scrutinies), March 10, 2024
1 Sm 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a, Eph 5:8-14, Jn 9:1-41
Long before Airbnb, a colleague of mine and his son toured Iceland by staying in several of the guesthouses Icelandic families offered to tourists to make extra income. As I recall, they took the trip near the end of summer, and they asked their hosts how they coped with the dark days and nights of Arctic winters.
As opposed to what? the Icelanders replied. It’s what they know, they said.
For the man born blind, the darkness was what he knew.
When Jesus gave him sight, the world he knew was gone. This sight thing was a gift and a challenge. The man was now living in a totally different world. What a radical change.
As if anything Jesus did — and still does — weren’t radical.
Today’s Gospel passage spends a lot of time and a lot of words examining the nature of sin: who sinned, what the sin was, when the sin was, whom it affected, what were its consequences. St. John does a fine job of dissecting that as he chronicles Jesus’s encounter with the religious leaders. So let’s let the Gospel speak for itself.
Instead, let’s look at how this man’s life was flipped on its head.
He’d never used his eyes to see before. Vision was something he’d never known. He navigated the streets and buildings and shores with his four other senses. His sense of direction, his mental road map was built without light. So now, after washing in Siloam, his merely getting from Point A to Point B set him back to childhood.
Unless, of course, Jesus also instilled in him a lifetime’s worth of sense memory. The Gospel isn’t clear on that. And if Jesus didn’t, then the man had a lot of catching up to do.
The man born blind (hmm, I think it looks better as The Man Born Blind) was described as a beggar, relying on the kindness of strangers (and friends) for his basic survival. That, too, was over. He needed a job.
But he had not apprenticed anywhere, as far as we know. If he had, he wouldn’t have had to panhandle. And without an apprenticeship, he was unskilled. We know what kind of menial and filthy jobs unskilled laborers ended up in.
He would have been under-educated, if he were educated at all. In those days, people with disabilities were treated as freaks, as less than human. And with the notion of his blindness being the result of someone’s major sin, he would have been an embarrassment to his family and his community.
Unworthy.
You know, the more we look at it, the more it seems this gift of sight wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The Man Born Blind didn’t have a great life, but he had a niche, a comfort zone, a life he knew and understood. If TMBB didn’t have a good thing going, he had a good enough thing going.
Why couldn’t Jesus have just left him alone?
Why doesn’t Jesus just leave us alone?
Because, as St. Paul reminded the Ephesians — and us — there is much that Jesus wants us to see. And Jesus opens our eyes and shines his light so we can.
Like kittens and puppies and some other critters, we all are born blind. Unlike their physical blindness that comes from biological immaturity, our figurative blindness comes from our spiritual and emotional immaturity.
Their eyes and ears open a week or two after birth as their nervous systems mature and instinct revs up.
Our eyes and ears open as we maturely recognize the love that surrounds us. As we thank God Who Is Love And Who Loves for our lives, our families and caregivers and influencers, and all of Creation. As we thank God for Christ’s light to guide us and shake up our lives and spur us to action. As we thank God for the Spirit’s grace to sustain us and empower us, and for the Spirit’s wisdom to recognize our roles among all our sisters and brothers.
St. Paul’s letter today shines a light on the light of truth that The Word Made Flesh spoke in St. John’s Gospel. Christ’s light does not, cannot blind us.
No.
Christ’s light is a beacon to lead us, with our eyes wide open, to leave our comfortable niches and act vigorously in our unique ways for the betterment of all humankind and God’s Creation.
And, by doing so, to begin to see the face of our loving God and fortify our relationship with the Almighty.
What a radical eye-opener.
