March 30^th 2014. FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT

Gospel: John 9:1-41

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL John 9:1-41

As Jesus said went along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, for him to have been born blind?' 'Neither he nor his parents sinned,' Jesus answered 'he was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

'As long as the day lasts
I must carry out the work of the one who sent me;
the night will soon be here when no one can work.
As long as I am in the world
I am the light of the world.'

Having said this, he spat on the ground, made a paste with the spittle, put this over the eyes of the blind man and said to him, 'Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam (a name that means 'sent'). So the blind man went off and washed himself, and came away with his sight restored.

His neighbours and people who earlier had seen him begging said, 'Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?' Some said, 'Yes, it is the same one'. Others said, 'No, he only looks like him'. The man himself said, 'I am the man'. So they said to him, 'Then how do your eyes come to be open?' 'The man called Jesus' he answered 'made a paste, daubed my eyes with it and said to me, "Go and wash at Siloam"; so I went, and when I washed I could see.' They asked, 'Where is he?' 'I don't know' he answered.

They brought the man who had been blind to the Pharisees. It had been a Sabbath day when Jesus made the paste and opened the man's eyes, so when the Pharisees asked him how he had come to see, he said, 'He put a paste on my eyes, and I washed, and I can see'. Then some of the Pharisees said, 'This man cannot be from God: he does not keep the Sabbath'. Others said, 'How could a sinner produce signs like this?' And there was disagreement among them.

So they spoke to the blind man again, 'What have you to say about him yourself, now that he has opened your eyes?' 'He is a prophet' replied the man. However, the Jews would not believe that the man had been blind and had gained his sight, without first sending for his parents and asking them, 'Is this man really your son who you say was born blind? If so, how is it that he is now able to see?' His parents answered, 'We know he is our son and we know he was born blind, but we don't know how it is that he can see now, or who opened his eyes. He is old enough: let him speak for himself.' His parents spoke like this out of fear of the Jews, who had already agreed to expel from the synagogue anyone who should acknowledge Jesus as the Christ. This was why his parents said, 'He is old enough; ask him'.

So the Jews again sent for the man and said to him, 'Give glory to God! For our part, we know that this man is a sinner.' The man answered, 'I don't know if he is a sinner; I only know that I was blind and now I can see'. They said to him, 'What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?' He replied, 'I have told you once and you wouldn't listen. Why do you want to hear it all again? Do you want to become his disciples too?' At this they hurled abuse at him: 'You can be his disciple,' they said 'we are disciples of Moses: we know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this man, we don't know where he comes from'. The man replied, 'Now here is an astonishing thing! He has opened my eyes, and you don't know where he comes from! We know that God doesn't listen to sinners, but God does listen to men who are devout and do his will. Ever since the world began it is unheard of for anyone to open the eyes of a man who was born blind; if this man were not from God, he couldn't do a thing.' 'Are you trying to teach us,' they replied 'and you a sinner through and through, since you were born!' And they drove him away.

Jesus heard they had driven him away, and when he found him he said to him, 'Do you believe in the Son of Man?' 'Sir,' the man replied 'tell me who he is so that I may believe in him.' Jesus said, 'You are looking at him; he is speaking to you'. The man said, 'Lord, I believe', and worshipped him. Jesus said:

'It is for judgement that I have come into this world,
so that those without sight may see and those with sight turn blind'.

Hearing this, some Pharisees who were present said to him,
'We are not blind, surely?'
 Jesus replied:

'Blind? If you were, you would not be guilty,
but since you say, "We see", your guilt remains.’

 The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The first reading tells of the anointing of David. The prophet Samuel is presented with Jesse’s older sons. They are tall, strong and handsome, and Samuel is convinced that the chosen one of the Lord must be among them. But the Lord tells Samuel not to judge according to appearances, but to look at the heart. He directs Samuel to anoint David, the youngest and most insignificant of the sons. In the Gospel we hear how Jesus heals a blind man using saliva and clay. God’s word (the saliva) is capable of transforming the dust that we are made of into something pure and noble. In response to this wonderful healing, the religious leaders condemn Jesus for “working” on the Sabbath.  In the same way, each of us tries to restrict the action of God in our lives. God must not cross certain barriers or upset certain social conventions. He must not upset us or demand too much from us. He must not cause us to look silly in the eyes of others. In the end, the previously blind man is cast out of the synagogue for being faithful to the man who healed him. Are we ready to be cast out by our peer-group in order to follow Jesus? Are we ready to renounce the acceptance and expectations of others to embrace the action of God in our lives? Can we reject our own narrow ways of looking at things and start seeing the world in the light of the Lord?

The first reading tells us to look to the heart, not to external appearances

The first reading is the celebrated story of the anointing of David. The prophet Samuel takes his jar of oil and goes to the house of Jesse to anoint the future King of Israel. Jesse presents his finest sons to Samuel, not bothering to call David, who is the youngest and least significant of his family. Samuel sees Eliab, the tallest and most handsome of the sons, and believes that the chosen one of the Lord must be before him. But the Lord tells Samuel not to be persuaded by a person’s outward appearance, for “God does not see as man sees.” We look at the exterior but the Lord looks at the heart. Samuel is told by the Lord to anoint the one who is less impressive in appearance but whose heart is right.

God’s word transforms and redeems the dust from which we are made

The Gospel on Sunday has a similar theme. To receive the light of Christ we must shed our own ways of categorizing things. In an interesting ritual, Jesus anoints the man’s eyes with a mixture of clay and spittle. The saliva represents the word of Christ whilst the clay represents the dust from which man is made. When the dust of our existence encounters the word of the Lord, then the most painful parts of our lives can be consecrated. These areas of our existence can be redeemed, purified and raised up.

The Gospel illustrates how we try to restrict the action of God to our own conventions and categories. If something good happens that does not conform to our rules then we dismiss it altogether

The man in the Gospel story recovers his vision, but he soon discovers that this fact in itself does not satisfy human requirements for what is considered to be an action of God. He is immediately subjected to a sort of trial by the Jewish leaders. The healing took place on a Saturday, but making a paste of clay on the Sabbath was forbidden by the Law! This legalism is a frequent feature of human life. We try to encapsulate our relationship with God inside human categories. The way in which we relate to God becomes formalised and regularized in certain ways. Any relation with God that does not conform to these stipulations is considered wrong or inappropriate. Jesus liberates us but then we enslave ourselves moments later by formulating rules according to which our future dealings with Jesus must conform! These impoverished rules replace the wondrous work of the Lord in our lives with actions that are merely of our own making. The purely gratuitous, redeeming, and merciful work of the Lord is reduced to something of a mechanical, legalistic kind.

We all feel constrained by the acceptance and expectations of others. This causes us to walk in the shadows of our own creation instead of walking in the light of the Lord

We refuse to walk in the light of the Lord, preferring to walk in the more controllable light of our own creation. The religious leaders are confronted with a certain miracle, but all they can see is that this miracle doesn’t conform to their regulations of what can or cannot be done on the Sabbath. The parents of the blind man are called to testify. Incredibly, they betray their own son for fear of being frowned on by the religious status quo. Their son has just been healed but their only fear is that they will be excluded from the synagogue if they hail the marvellous nature of his transformation. The behaviour of these parents seems absurd, but in fact we behave like this on a regular basis. We become fixated with certain issues and fail to see the true light. The blind man in this story sees the true light because he comes to recognize Christ. He is willing to be thrown out of the synagogue in order to be faithful to the man who has saved him. A relationship with the Messiah is more important than any kind of acceptance in human terms. We are not always aware of the pressure we feel to conform to the expectations of others. We all have our own “synagogues” to which we desperately want to belong.

Walking in the true light involves having a relationship with Jesus. The light of Jesus is opposed to our light, to our conventions and categories, to our way of viewing the world. This Lent let each of us renounce our own schemes and embrace God’s way in our lives!

For as long as we are fixated with how presentable our lives are before others, we risk losing possession of the true light. The true light involves having a relationship with God. This is worth everything and is the only basis of having an authentic relationship with others. Too often we walk in the shadows of mediocrity and do not open ourselves to the marvellous wonders of grace. The blind man in the story is born with a grave disability, with something that has been closed off, a light that he cannot possess. The true light is diametrically opposed to his schemes, is altogether different from his usual way of apprehending things, the conventions that he holds dear. Will you and I be able to abandon our conventional schemes in order to be able to welcome the surprises that God has in store for us? This is the challenge that faces us every day. We simply must reject our way of looking at things and begin to see things from God’s perspective. The choice is stark: remain attached to our ways or embrace the work of God in our lives. Lent is the period for abandoning our light and beginning to walk in his light; for looking at the things that he looks at, and ceasing to be fixated with the things that we customarily wallow in; a time to turn away from appearances to see what is in the heart.