A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 19, 2023
1 Sm 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a, Eph 5:8-14, Jn 9:1-41
Every place I’ve ever lived had shelves full of books, sometimes to the point of making the floorboards creak or sag.
When my Uncle Richard lived with us, my dad bought him a set of paperbacks that Time-Life considered to be the essential modern literature. I remember one being the “Ox-Box Incident,” which even to this day I have yet to read. The other essentials? Long forgotten. Shame on me.
When I was a pre-teen long ago, the Acme market sold hardcover classics for 25 cents apiece if you bought the week’s milk and eggs and hamburger meat as well. The books were bound in red-and-gray fake leather, looking like the law books you see in every commercial for an injury lawyer. The pages were already yellowing by the time we took them home; the pages themselves were uneven; and the typography was flawed but nonetheless readable. I devoured them: Mark Twain, James Fenimore Cooper, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. After Mom had spent 10 bucks in total, our bookshelf looked like Jacoby and Meyers’.
Quite impressive, to judge by the books’ covers and spines.
These days, there are a lot of books on my shelves in every room of the house waiting for my eyeballs, many of them with covers that invite or excite me, and a few whose covers are turn-offs. And that’s sad.
Because if I had originally judged the 25-cent classics by their boring industrial-strength covers some 60 years ago, I’d never have known the truth about The Little Mermaid and sea foam or magic cudgels in a bag, let alone what a cudgel is.
Truth lies within the pages of every story, and every person God created or will create has a story, is a story, a story worth writing chapter by chapter and a story worth sharing with all our sisters and brothers.
A story that cannot and must not be judged by its cover, that is, a person’s outward appearance. Body type. Physical abilities. Mental abilities. Skin and hair and eye color. Clothing. Hygiene.
Personality.
The prophets could see beyond the outward characteristics of people. Samuel saw past the superficial qualities of Jesse’s sons to find God’s true anointed one. Samuel did not judge the new king by his ruddy, youthful cover.
Prophets see the truth and they speak it, even today. We’re blessed to have the words and insights of the prophets of old, and when we ponder them, we realize that truth is timeless, that facts and circumstances may evolve but truth transcends.
Jesus sees beyond the outward to discover the depths of human hearts … or their shallowness. By recognizing in the life of the man born blind a story that had many more chapters yet to be written, Jesus enabled him to rise past the prejudices that turned him into a beggar, and instead become a productive member of society, a valued member of the community.
The man born blind was judged by his cover, and Jesus was having none of that. His sins? Sins of the parents? Not factors at all. Not relevant to the heart of the matter.
Still not relevant, Jesus says to us.
How often do we make snap judgments? How often do we make assumptions when we see someone who looks different or acts differently or says something we don’t or can’t agree with? How often are our words or actions driven by nonsense we were told rather than truth we learned ourselves, with the help of valuable and faith-filled teachers?
How often do we shut out people we’ve decided are The Other, and then close our minds and hearts and downright shun them?
I’m as guilty as anybody … often for the most trivial or inconsequential reasons. All of the dopey reasons I mentioned before.
And when we turn away from someone, think about what we both have lost. We from them. Them from us.
Fresh insights. New jokes to tell. New skills to learn or talents to appreciate. Someone to like our fashion and hairstyle, or suggest an upgrade.
Someone to pick us up when we stumble. Someone to thank us when we lift them.
Someone with whom to share the long and winding road we call life.
Every one of us is blind if we cannot see past the cover. Every one of us misses out on the truth that lies within the pages of every other person’s story. Every one of us is deprived of the Christ, the divine spark, the Love That Comes From God and the Love That Is God, which lives in everyone.
In everyone. In everyone’s life story. In everyone’s life.
Let’s not be fooled by the covers, especially the ones that may at first be turn-offs. There’s knowledge within.
Now, I have to dust off some books and clean my reading glasses.
