To see or not to see
Introduction
Can't you see?
In the gospel of Mark there is a whole section devoted to
Jesus, the light of the world, who overcomes the darkness of blindness. It
begins in the eighth chapter with the cure of the blind man from Bethsaida (22‑25)
and ends in the tenth chapter with the cure of a blind man from Jericho (46‑52).
Sandwiched in between is a whole
section on spiritual blindness.
//Peter refuses to believe that the
Messiah must suffer, and Jesus scolds him, saying, "Peter, can't you see?
The one who wants to follow me must forget self and take up the cross" (Mk
8:31‑33). //Then the Twelve are
arguing about who is the greatest? Jesus puts them straight, saying, "My
friends, can't you see? Whoever wants to be my disciple must be the servant of
all" (Mk 9:33‑37). //Then he says to the sons of Zebedee who are seeking positions of
honor in his kingdom: "James and
John, can't you see? Whoever aspires to greatness must be the servant of all”
(Mk 10: 43).
The section on spiritual blindness ends with the cure of a physically blind man
from Jericho, named Bartimaeus. Like Peter and the Twelve and the sons of Zebedee,
he too can't see. But with this difference: he sees that he doesn't see:
"Rabboni, Teacher, I want to see!"
When we see that we don't see, we aren't really blind at all; that’s
20/20 vision. To Bartimaeus Jesus replies: "Blessed are you, for you see
that you don't see." Then upon this man with spiritual insight into his own personal blindness, Jesus bestows physical sight. And in
gratitude the man follows him down the road (Mk 10:46‑58).
Spiritual Blindness in politics:
It
is always difficult to talk about spiritual realities, and spiritual blindness
is one of them, but we try anyway. We might say that spiritual blindness is choosing
to not see. (Not seeing in itself is not spiritual blindness; it’s choosing
to not see is.) And when the matter at hand is rather obvious, and we still
choose to not see, then that indeed is a good case of spiritual blindness.
Take
the present political atmosphere of electing a president. Healthcare is one of
the raging issues. If we choose to not
see that there are 40-45 million hard-working American citizens out there who
are uninsured or underinsured; //if we choose not to see that hospital beds are
empty not because there aren't enough sick people around but because there
aren't enough insured people around; //if we choose not to see that the
exorbitant price of prescription drugs forces some people to choose between
food and heat on the one hand and medicine on the other; //if we choose not to
see that a catastrophic health-expense can wipe out everything a person has
worked for in his or her life; //if we choose to not see that the whole
atmosphere of the healing profession from doctors' offices to hospitals is so
often more about paper (insurance paper) than about people,
--in
a word, if we choose not to see all that, then we’ve got a good case of spiritual blindness on
our hands. It is such blindness which
wrote that obscene sign frequently seen
in a former national healthcare debate:
“Don’t mess with the best.”
“Whose best? “Your best but not mine.” The sign says, or
rather betrays the fact that we live by
one minute sound-bytes or two-line slogans. It reveals that we are shallow and simplistic in matter profound
and complicated. It exposes our way of dealing with issues by not dealing with them at all but
by dismissing them with a catchy line or two.
Spiritual blindness in
religion
Spiritual
blindness is choosing to not see. And when the matter at hand is rather
obvious, and we still choose to not see, then that indeed is a good case of
spiritual blindness. Even our Mother, the Church (like the rest of us human
beings out of whom she is made) even she sometimes chooses 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 our periodic fuel shortages). And it is obvious too that there is really a rich field of candidates
out there waiting to be harvested for the priesthood. And just as it is
obviously a waste not to reap the
harvest, so is it obviously a waste not to reap the harvesters.
The
"problem with the problem" that we have of ordaining married people
or even women to ministry is that it really isn't much of a problem at all, or
at least it shouldn’t be. Many theologians believe that there is nothing on earth nor in heaven that stands in the way.
But for the present moment the Church, for one reason or the other, which
perhaps only psychiatrists can explain to us,
chooses not to see.
It is this choosing not to see in religious
matters that wrote for us the bumper-sticker which socks it to us: “God said it; I believe it; that
settles it!The sticker says, “I’ve
got God and all religious matters down
pat, so don’t both me with the facts. “That
settles It!” This isn’t a bid for or against the ordination of married people or of women. This is about something much more important:
this is a bid for choosing to see in the place of choosing to not see,
whether that be in politics or in the
Church or in the sanctuary of our own homes.
Spiritual blindness in the
home
Yes, especially in the sanctuary of our own
homes where the greatest and the most important part of our lives are lived,
and where we meet the really real issues of life that need to be dealt with.
You
see, what’s so bad about our “Don’t
mess with the best” sign (which we parade in the political arena) is that we bring the sign, with its spiritual
blindness, home with us, and there parade it too. There too we deal with each
other in quite basically the same way:
we warn even family members not to “mess with our best.”
“God
said it, I believe it; that settles it.” What’s
so bad about that bumper-sticker of ours, which “socks it to ‘em” on religious
turf, is that we bring it home with us,
drive it into the garage, carry it into
the house, and there “socks it to ‘em” on family turf as well. That sticker, which has God down pat, has
family members down pat too. The sticker which
is dead sure of religious matters is also dead sure of family
matters. “That settles it!” is
the rule of law for religious life; it
becomes now the rule of law for
family life as well. (You see, our
lives are seamless garments. There is a consistency in us – whether for good or for bad. What we are or how we are in politics and
religion is basically quite the same as who we are and what we are at home.
When you hear your spouse or your children cry out to you, “For God’s sake, can’t you see?,” that might just well be a
very profound cry and an ardent plea for
you to tear up your sign and rip
off your bumper-sticker, and choose at last to see.
Gospel
input?
It’s election time. No doubt about it, as we watch the media, what we see is what we
choose to see, and what we don’t see is what we choose not to see. It depends a lot upon the stand we take on
various issues: our stand on guns, our stand on abortion, our stand morality (zipper morality or
justice morality), our stand on taxes, our stand on school vouchers, our stand
on healthcare.
The critical question for us, the baptized, at this
important moment of presidential election, is this: What does our stand
on the Gospel put into the whole election equation? What does our
Catholic Christian faith put into the equation? Does it put in nothing because we
have no Gospel stand? Does it put in nothing because our Catholic Christian
faith is basically harmless and
irrelevant?
Or do
we have a Gospel stand, and does it put something into the election
equation? Does it perhaps call all Christian Republicans and Democrats to overcome their spiritual blindness (this
business of choosing to not see) at this
critical political moment? And
does it perhaps call all Christian Republicans and Democrats to bring spiritual
insight with themselves into the voting booth?
Tradition reserves the
classical story about blindness for the fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A (Jn 9:1‑41). It's the story of the man
born blind. The neighbors haul him to
the religious authorities (Pharisees) and their religion gets in the way: “This
man Jesus cured on the Sabbath, so he can’t be from God.” The authorities
drag him off to his parents whom they question. The parents tell them to go ask
their son: “He’s old enough to speak for himself.” The Pharisees pull the
son off to the side
and ask: "Now tell us once more what exactly happened? How come you can
see?" Exhausted he exclaims,
"My gosh, how come you can not
see?”
It’s a rambling
story of forty‑one verses that
builds up to an impatience that has us
crying out, "For God's sake, you Pharisees, how come you can't you see?”
It ends with this strange line from the mouth of
Jesus: "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 all those,
who
choose to not see
but are dead-sure of
everything,
that
they are blind.
And
I have come to give sight
to
those who see that that they don't see
but
want to see."
(Jn
9:39).