Sent
to cure the blind
Isaias
prophesied that the Messiah would open the eyes of the blind (Is
61:1-2). When he came, Jesus, the light of the world, gave the gift of sight to
many who sat in darkness. At Bethsaida he opens the eyes of a blind man, who at
first sees people looking like trees walking around (Mk 8:22-25). At Jericho he
opens the eyes of the blind beggar,
Bartimaeus, who in gratitude follows Jesus down the road of life (Mk 10:46-52).
The classical story of blindness is traditionally
reserved for the fourth Sunday of Lent (Jn 9:1-41 – cycle a)). Its position
there implies that a good part of the sin that's in us, calling for Lenten repentance, is our blindness --
our spiritual blindness which is lodged not in our eyes but in our hearts and our heads. This story
is not so much about a man physically blind whom Jesus can cure; it’s
more about people spiritually blind whom Jesus cannot cure. -- Because it is a long story
which rambles on for forty-one verses, the Church offers the Sunday Assembly
a shortened version. But its
power lies in the lengthier reading which builds up to an impatience in
us that screams out, "For God's
sake, can't you people see?"
The neighbors know the man was born blind. They
know also that he can now see. But there is something in it all that they can’t
see. So they drag him off to the
religious authorities, the Pharisees. Now they are the last people in the world
who are ready to see. Their religion gets in the way: They exclaim, “Why, God wouldn’t
a guy like that the power to work a miracle; he cures on the Sabbath, mind you!" So they in turn drag the man off to his poor shabby parents. Now they,
indeed, do see -- at least something. “Yes,” they say,
“this is our son. Yes, he really was born blind. Yes, he really does now see.
But how this all came about we don’t know.
Ask him.” So again the religious authorities pull the poor man off to
the side for some more “truth-extraction”: “Tell us once more, how come you can
now see?" Exhausted the man exclaims, "My gosh, I've already told
you. This man Jesus put mud on my eyes, and now I can see.” You ask me, ‘How come I can see?’ I ask
you, ‘How come you cannot see?’”
Finally in exhaustion, he cries out, “For God’s sake, it’s so simple and so
obvious.”
When we can't see what’s simple and obvious, we are
blind, spiritually blind. We are spiritually blind as a nation when,
as a nation, we don’t see the obvious. E.g., it’s obvious that there are 40
to 45 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured; // obvious that the
exorbitant price of prescription drugs often forces people to choose between
food and heat on the one hand and medicine on the other; //obvious that a
catastrophic health expense can wipe out everything we’ve worked for in our
lives; //obvious that hospital beds are empty not because there
aren't enough sick people but because there aren't enough insured people; //
obvious that the whole atmosphere of
the healing profession, from doctors' offices to hospital bed, seems to be more
about paper (insurance paper) than about people. -- Now when we still can't
see that the system is in crisis, despite all the obviousness, then we are
blind, spiritually blind.
There is something obvious in the whole gun-control
issue that many choose not to see. And,
of course, there is also something obvious in
the whole abortion debate that many choose not to see.
We can be spiritually blind even as church. when, as church, we choose
not to
see the obvious. //It's
obvious, for example, that the shortage of priests is yearly becoming more
acute. //It's obvious too that burn-out is overcoming the few priests that are
left. //It's also obvious that the shortage is really man-made like the
present shortage at the gas pumps, and
that there is really a rich field of candidates out there (married or
unmarried, male or even female) waiting to be harvested for ministry. //It’s
also obvious that not to reap that rich harvest is indeed
waste. There is something simple and
obvious here, but for reasons that
perhaps only psychiatrists (and not theologians) can spell out for us, the
church, human as she is, chooses not to see at the present moment.
A good lenten question: When you go home after
mass today, ask yourself: Is there something obvious in my life which I am choosing not to see, and if so, why?
When we choose not to see the obvious, we are
spiritually blind. But there's a flip side to the coin: when we pretend to know
all and see all, especially in matters that are not very obvious at all but
are, in fact, rather complex, then we are also spiritually blind.
Spiritual insightfulness is attuned to the
complexity of reality. And respect for that complexity
always keeps us asking, ”Is there
something here I don’t see?” When we’re always asking that, then we’re not
spiritually blind but are indeed filled with sight, spiritual sight.
Archbishop Weakland once asked himself whether
there was something in the whole abortion debate which he didn't see. To find
out what that might be, he actually held sessions with pro-abortion people in
order to listen to them and hear them
out. That disturbed some fundamentalist Catholics who were disappointed at the
Archbishop for not presenting himself as
being “dead-sure” about everything.
Being “dead-sure” is deadly.
Extreme fundamentalists Christians are always dead-sure. Their favorite
bumper-sticker reads: "God said it; I believe it; that settles it."
Translation: "I don't want to
see."
Another good question for lent: The next time you
have a fight with your spouse or your kids or your parents, stop and ask
yourself, “Is there something I do not see?”
Spiritual
insightfulness:
(respect
for mystery)
We are spiritually blind
not only when we act like “know-it-all-ers” despite the complexity of life; we
are spiritually blind also when we have pat answers for profound realities. Spiritual sight
(or insightfulness), on the other hand,
is always attuned to mystery.
That’s a dimension in our human lives which every now and then cries out
to us, “There’s more here than meets the eye.” And respect for the dimension of
mystery always keeps reminding us that pat answers always fall short, and that
sometimes they are even false.
There are electronic preachers out there who have
God down pat. They know all God’s pet
peeves, all God’s petty likes and dislikes. They know what language God favors
and speaks: Latin. They know God’s favorite sin: not injustice but sex. They know God’s favorite past-time: not
gathering together the scattered children of God but excluding or bashing
somebody. They know God’s favorite sanctuary: not the synagogue, not the mosque
but the church. They know God’s favorite gender: why male, of course. They even
know whose prayers God hears and whose prayers God does not hear (A noted
leader of a very sizeable Christian denomination actually said on so-called Christian TV that God does
not hear the prayers of Jews because they don’t ask for things in the name of
Jesus!). Some of these guys out there even know where HIV comes from: from God
pouring out God’s anger and revenge upon degenerate sinners. --
When we know that much about God, when we know such minutiae (fine
details) about God, when we have God
that “down-pat,” we have destroyed the mystery of God. And when God loses mystery for us, God
becomes terribly boring.
Vatican II robbed us of the pat answers we used to
have for God and the church. For some this was a terrible disappointment. In
the place of our boring pat answers,
the Council offered us mystery.
And before mystery you fall silent and you quietly burn incense. And that’s far more fragrant
than pat answers.
A third question for lent: Take mystery home with
you toda, and as you look into the face
of your spouse or you kids or your parents, ask yourself, “Is there not more
here than meets the eye?” It’ll help you to respect the mystery that’s
in the other, and to put away the pat
answers you have for him or her. And that could help lead you down some
wonderful new paths.
The story, which rambles on for forty-one verses, ends with a strange
line from the mouth of Jesus. With that bottom-line he, who could cure the man
born blind, indicts those whose
blindness he could not cure. And at the same time he declares a facet of his
mission:
"I
have come into this world
so
that the blind should see,
and
those who see should become blind"
(Jn
9:39).
Translation:
I
have come to show those
who
are dead-sure
even of complicated matters,
or
who have pat answers
even
in the face of mystery
that
they are blind
to
those who see
that
they don't see.