Homily for the 4th Sunday of Lent, A

(The Homily begins at the 6:00 minute mark) Where we see sin, Jesus sees something else: Creation is not finished. Reaching down into the dust of the earth from which Adam was created, Jesus continues the Father’s work.

I have Mass on Sunday, March 15 at St. Andrew in Rochester @ 5:00 pm

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Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. 

As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither he nor his parents sinned. It is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. We have to do the works of the one who sent me while in his day. night is coming when no one can work while I am in the world I am the light of the world." When he had said this he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva and smeared the clay on his eyes and said to him "Go wash in the pool of siloam - which means sent. So he went and washed and came back able to see. 

His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, "Isn't this the one who used to sit and beg?" Some said, "It is." But others said, "No, he just looks like him." He said, "I am." So they said to him, "How were your eyes opened?" He replied, "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." And they said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I don't know." 

They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. Now, Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a Sabbath. So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see. He said to them, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see." So some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath." But others said, "How can a sinful man do such signs?" And there was a division among them. So they said to the blind man again, "What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?" He said, "He is a prophet."

Now the Jewish authorities did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight, until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight. They asked them, "Is this your son who you say was born blind? How does he now see?" His parents answered and said, "We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him. He is of age. He can speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, for the authorities had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue. For this reason, his parents said, "he is of age, question him." 

So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, "Give God the praise. We know that this man is a sinner." He replied, "if he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind, and now I see." So they said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?" They ridiculed him and said, "You are that man's disciples. We are the disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from." The man answered and said to them, "This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, But if one is devout and does God's will, God listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything." They answered and said to him, "You were born totally in sin and you are trying to teach us." Then they threw him out. 

When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered and said, "Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" Jesus said to him, "You have seen him. The one speaking with you is he." He said, "I do believe, Lord". And he worshipped him. Then Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind." Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not also blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you are saying, "we see," so your sin remains." 

The Gospel of the Lord. 

Jesus saw a man blind from birth. Jesus saw him. Did you notice how many others did not see him? The disciples did not see a blind man, they saw a sinner. They spoke about him, but they did not speak to him. When the man who had been born blind went home, the neighbors at first did not see him. They spoke about him among themselves. The Pharisees talk about him as if he is an object of conversation, but not a subject. The man's first words , "I am."  echo the divine name revealed to Moses when he must lead his people into freedom. Think of all the people in our society who struggle to be heard and seen. Sometimes the hardest places in life are the places where we are simply overlooked. 

When Samuel was sent to anoint Jesse's son as the new king of Israel, he was sure he knew exactly what the new king would look like. One by one, each one came before him, and one by one, God said, "not this one." Who was missing? What was he not seeing? Meanwhile, David is not even in the room. He's in the fields, tending the sheep, far from the moment where decisions are being made. but God sees what others do not. "They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." As the fox tells the little prince, "it's only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye." 

In the next chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." The Christian community applies the words of Psalm 23 to Jesus, our true shepherd. In the psalm, David begins by talking about the shepherd. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want... In verdant pastures he gives me repose... Beside restful waters he leads me." In the next verse, something extraordinary happens. David abruptly changes pronouns. He's no longer speaking about God, but to God. "Even though I walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil, for you are at my side." The words, "you are at my side," are at the very center of the psalm. In the original Hebrew, the psalm is 55 words. There are 26 words before, "you are at my side," and 26 words after. Perhaps the poet was boldly declaring that God being at our side is at the very center of our lives. 

In the beginning of John's Gospel, St. John testifies that Jesus is the light that "shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." On the day of our baptism, we received a lighted candle as a sign that we had been enlightened by Christ. As St. Paul reminds us, "brothers and sisters, you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light." At the beginning of God's creating, darkness covered the face of the deep. And then God said, "let there be light... And God saw that it was good." Although we imagine light and darkness as separate, in God there is no separation. As the psalmist writes, "even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you." 

In his book, The Gift of Asher Lev, Chaim Potak writes, "My father said that the seeing of God is not like the seeing of humans. We see only between the blinks of our eyes. We do not know what the world is like during the blinks. We see the world in pieces, in fragments. But the master of the universe sees the world whole, unbroken. And that world is good."

 Jesus' work is to move people beyond pieces and fragments, counting and measuring, because our measuring is always too small. Where we see sin, Jesus sees something else. Creation is not finished. Reaching down into the dust of the earth from which Adam was created, Jesus continues the Father's work. God is not resting, not taking the Sabbath off. God is working while it is still day. 

This task of acting as God's agent, This task of acting as God's agent and bringing creation to completion is ours, too. Jesus' first words to the disciples are, "We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is still day." We help each other to attain the fullness of life. 

The story lays a trap. We dare not point a finger at the Pharisees or the disciples, or indeed those Christians who differ from us down the street. The work of the one who sent Jesus is to gather all who are scattered. God's plan of salvation works not by excluding anyone, but by including everyone who wants to be included. 

And then we too can sing of this Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound.