For Sunday Lent 4A
Collect
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
It is hard to read the story of the man born blind and not get mad. The authorities are being cruel. The man’s parents sell out their son. And it all seems willful and intentionally harsh. Like these people want to be right more than then want to figure out what is right.
This is also a story that can easily fit into the box of “healing stories” into which we toss the man oppressed by a legion of demons in Mark or the two blind men healed before Jesus enters Jerusalem in Matthew or the countless others we just assume are healed and everything just goes well for them.
This story cleverly plays with the pairing of physical and spiritual sight. It is clearly the main thrust of the story, suggesting that some who see things super clearly are just not going to be the ones who see God at work in the world. And this duality feels particularly deep, doesn’t it?
What is this spiritual blindness about though? I think the story can help us look into this part, too.
It is noticeable how driven the spiritual leaders are by the physical seeing (obviously at the expense of the spiritual seeing). Jesus undermines the absoluteness of the physical by not sticking around, by not walking the man who was born blind to the pools to wash off. It means that he can’t be seen in the act — we must trust that it has happened as he claims. In other words, it isn’t just a question of seeing and it isn’t just the duality of seeing physically and spiritually, but also a third factor of believing those who do see.
This story is as much about the insidious threat of rejecting the witness of one who can see as it is an invitation to be the one who can truly see.