Homily Lent 4 A: From blindness to sight, ignorance to insight, unbelief to belief

Homily for 4th Sunday of Lent Year A 2017 

1 Samuel 16:1b,6-7,10-13a; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

Introduction 

Just like last Sunday we have listened to a long gospel!  Both used elements of ordinary life as metaphors to each us about the spiritual life.  Last Sunday Jesus was the living water that quenches our thirst for God.  Today Jesus is the light that illuminates the world, especially by sight to the blind. 

There is a popular notion that blind people have better hearing than sighted people, because the sense of hearing compensates for the loss of sight.  But many scientists suggest another reason for the superior hearing.  Blind people hear better, because they pay more attention to sounds, their primary means of relating with the world around them. 

Scripture and Tradition 

The blind man in today's passage also comes off as spiritually superior to the fully sighted people.  The man, who, at the outset is blind, by the end of the story is not only seeing with his physical eyes, but will also see with the eyes of reason and with the eyes of faith.  On the other hand, the sighted people such as his neighbours, even his parents, but especially the Pharisees and the Jews of Jerusalem, who start out seeing very well, at the end of the story are blind to reason and to faith. 

Notice that the man was not just blind, but born blind.  He had never seen beautiful flowers, or seen his parents, and the beauty of the world.  When Jesus heals his blindness, he is allowing the man to see these things for the first time.  It is this physical healing that the man describes to his neighbours saying: "The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' So I went there and washed and was able to see." 

But physical sight is only the first step of his journey.  His encounter with Jesus also seems to have opened the eyes of his mind, so that he can also see with the eyes of reason.  He is able to hold his own when the Pharisees, trained lawyers, come up with irrefutable arguments denying that Jesus could not have healed him. 

• First they said of Jesus: "This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath. . . . What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?"  His simple response was: "He is a prophet." 
• They then suggest that Jesus is a sinner and so could not have possibly given sight back to a blind man.  Again the formerly blind man is ready with a comeback: "If he is a sinner, I do not know.  One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see."  In other words, he suggests that they let Jesus' actions speak for themselves and reveal the wonders of God.  In fact, that is what Jesus himself had said when first introduced to the blind man.  Jesus had indicated that the man's blindness was not caused by his own sin or that of his parents.  But his healing was "so that the works of God might be made visible through him." 
• And then when the Pharisees keep asking him the same question, he is frustrated and says: "I told you already and you did not listen.  Why do you want to hear it again?" And then he mocks them a little: "Do you want to become his disciples, too?"  And later he adds: “If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.” 
• Even the man's parents are of no help the Pharisees as witnesses.  When asked about how their son can now see, they wash their hands of the whole thing saying: "Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself." 

Besides the healing of his physical eyes and his eyes of the mind, the third set of eyes that needs healing is his eyes of faith.  This new found sight of the faith is best seen when the man later on happens to meet Jesus.  Jesus then introduces himself again as the Son of Man, asking him: "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"  This time the healed man simply says: “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped Jesus.  And so from blindness the man has finally come to receive sight of the eyes, insight of the mind and sight of faith. 

Unfortunately for the Pharisees and the others, they have made the reverse journey, travelling from sight to blindness.  For it is to them that Jesus says: “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.”  The Pharisees, not only fail to see with the eyes of the mind, they also fail to see with the eyes of faith. 

Christian Application 

Now in our fourth week of Lent, this gospel passage reminds us that we are like the man born blind.  But we can choose the path he took from blindness to sight, or choose the reverse path taken by the Pharisees from seeing to blindness. 

Fortunately the blindness into which we were born like him, that is, our original sin, has been taken away by baptism.  But there is plenty of other blindness that we contract along the way.  That blindness too needs healing.  Any time we leave behind a life of sin, we are being healed of our blindness like the blind man.  In fact, any time we come out of the confessional, we should sing that verse from Amazing Grace which borrows the words of the blind man saying, "I once was lost, but now I am found, was blind but now I see."   

But blinded in sin is one thing; refusing the healing of Jesus like the Pharisees did is another much worse thing.  They refused to allow him open their eyes to the great works of God in their midst.  They ignored the evidence of their physical senses, the healing of the blind man; they ignored the evidence of their reason, the teaching of Jesus; they ignored the evidence of their faith, Jesus claim to be the Son of God. 

We too choose their path when we refuse to allow Jesus to heal our minds and our hearts as well, to see him through reason and faith.  At the root of this refusal often lies prejudice. 

• Prejudice blinds our eyes, because it stops us from getting to know people and who they really are.  When we see people through the lens of preconceived ideas, we fail to know them truly, much like the Pharisees failed to know Jesus because he did not fit the mould of who the Messiah must be like. 
• Prejudice also blinds our reasoning, since reason tells us that not all people are the same, not even people who belong to the same group.  The Pharisees considered the man a sinner, simply because he was blind, because that is what their prejudices told them. 
• But the worst form of prejudice is when it affects our faith.  When prejudice stops us from seeing others as Jesus would see them, then it is not just a sin against experience and reason, but a sin against faith in God.   

Conclusion 

And the end of the gospel, presuming themselves holy and sinless the Pharisees ask Jesus: “Surely we are not also blind, are we?”  May these words never cross our lips or be entertained in our hearts and minds. 

What should pass our lips should be the words of Bartimaeus, another blind man in the gospel, who cried out to the Lord: “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me. . . . please let me see" (Lk. 18:38, 41).  One way we can do this is to take advantage of the time for confession provided by all parishes of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, for the remaining Wednesdays of Lent, from 5pm to 6.30pm.  Let us go to pool of Siloam to be washed.