Born Blind

 

4^th Sunday of Lent

Cycle B – Scrutiny

 

Have you ever experienced total and complete darkness. It can be terrifying. A few years ago we went to the Black Hills of South Dakota and toured the Wind Cave. It is an amazing experience. The cave is one of the longest in the world, 150 miles long, and it goes down over 100 feet. It has a rare type of stalactite there that hangs really low, so at times you have to bend over to walk. There are strings of lights hanging in the caverns, so it’s easy to see the path, but 100 years ago, when it was first explored, the spelunkers used candles attached to tin hats. I can only imagine what would happen if the candles burnt out and they had to find their way back in complete darkness.

 

At one point we sat in a large cavern on wooden benches, and they turned out the lights. You literally couldn’t see your hand in front of your eyes, and the darkness was almost a physical being that engulfed you. Being that I have claustrophobia I almost panicked. I began to imagine what would happen if they didn’t go back on. It was a bit terrifying, even though I knew it was only temporary.

 

What would it be like to be born blind? What would life be like if we never had experienced light, with nothing to compare the darkness to? We equate darkness with evil. We call Satan the Prince of Darkness, and we fear the dark. Because we can see we feel uncomfortable in the dark. We fear the unknown, we fear what we cannot control. We’re afraid we’ll stumble and fall in the dark. Darkness is frightening for us only because we know the difference between light and darkness. If we were born blind, we would never have experienced light, so darkness would hold no fear for us. For one born blind, who has never experienced the light, stumbling and falling is a natural thing. Relying on the help of others is a requirement for survival.

 

This gospel begins with Jesus’ own disciples asking a question based upon a belief all Jews had at the time – that physical weakness and disease meant you or your family were steeped in sin. If you were a sinner God punished you with infirmity. If you were righteous, you were healthy, wealthy and wise. Everybody believed this: the Pharisees did, the disciples did, and the blind man himself did.

 

The blind man could not enter the temple. Everybody said he shouldn’t be there, and he himself thought he shouldn’t be there. He also thought he was unworthy to be in the presence of God, just because he was blind. He was reduced to begging at the door. The people who passed him every day saw him as unworthy, beneath them, worthless to God and man. And so, he saw himself as unworthy and worthless. How could he ever become worthy? How could he ever come in out of the darkness and be included among the seeing?

 

The saddest thing about the blind man is that he bought into his culture’s prejudices and allowed them to make him feel less about himself, to alienate himself from God and his community. Even today, we can allow outside influences to keep us from God. We can beat ourselves up so much that we actually stay away from God. How wretched you must feel to keep yourself from God. Have you ever not come to Mass because you felt unworthy? Or stayed away because you were not in the “right frame of mind” to receive the Eucharist; that you just didn’t think you could come to Mass with all those people there and try to pretend that everything was ok? Why just go through the motions?

 

Do you think that you shouldn’t come to Mass if you haven’t exactly been living a perfect Christian life lately? I mean, why add one more hypocrite to the mix? Do you think that you have to have it all together in order to worship the Lord? I’m not perfect, so I’ll stay away. Does Jesus really only call the righteous? If that were the case, there’d be no one here. It’s sort of like saying that I’m starving, so I really shouldn’t come to the banquet. The very thing you think you should avoid is the thing you really need. Sometimes we blind ourselves to what we’re really doing here.

 

It’s ironic that the best way to become worthy of the Eucharist is to experience the Eucharist. None of us can ever make ourselves worthy of being here. If blindness is equated with sinfulness, then we’re all born blind, aren’t we? Only God can make us worthy, just by willing it so. So, we have a choice, to beat ourselves up for not being worthy or to accept the grace of God that allows us to see. To exclude ourselves from the banquet or to humbly accept the invitation.

 

Today we hear a story that closely parallels those of our elect who are here with us this morning. Like the blind man, they’re on the outside looking in. Not really sure what they’re seeing. Jesus calls them forth. He makes them uncomfortable at times and calls them to the waters. They do not know the way, so others need to help them get there. When their eyes are opened, they still are not sure exactly who Jesus is, even when he is right in front of them. They come up against opposition. The entrenched prejudices of others try to derail their journey. Sometimes they are thrown out. Sometimes others try to keep them in their places. Finally, Jesus comes to them in the light, and they recognize him for who he is. They have become his disciples.

 

It’s funny, isn’t it, that the ones who thought they were worthy – the Pharisees – were the ones that Jesus said were blind. Their sin was their prejudice against people like the blind man, people they thought were sinners. They could not see their own shortcomings, and that we’re all blind in one way or another. And I am blind about many, many things. I am blind to the plight of the poor because I have never gone hungry in my life. I am blind to prejudice because I have never really experienced it personally. I am blind to the hurts suffered by other people because I am so focused on my own.

I guess in many ways we’re all Pharisees; we’re the good church going folks who think we have all the answers. We’re the ones who go along with the conventional wisdom of our day, blinded to how we are actually making things worse in our ignorance.

 

This morning we are celebrating the second scrutiny for our elect. We’re not here to scrutinize them. They’re here to scrutinize themselves. We all need to scrutinize ourselves. That scrutiny can be painful, but it must be undertaken with open eyes. Only then can we remove the blindness from our hearts. Blindness to our own sinfulness, and blindness to the needs of others, no matter how sinful they have been.

In many ways these elect see more than we do. They hunger for the light that we take so easily for granted, and they don’t have all the barnacles we good Pharisees have built up on our carcasses over time. But just as they have needed our help to see from time to time, we too can draw on their light as we all stumble together towards our Lord.

 

This story is really more a parable with a point, but it doesn’t really describe the blind man’s reaction to his first experience of light. Was it exhilarating, was it terrifying? He had never seen all the things he now could, people, trees, sunlight, buildings. He had only imagined what they would look like. And he never had the complete picture until now.

 

You may have heard the parable of the three blind men who come upon an elephant. They didn’t know what it was. One of them touched the tail and declared, “An elephant is a snake.” Another touched the trunk. “An elephant is like a hose.” The third touched the body and exclaimed, “An elephant is like a mountain!” Each only experienced a part of the reality of the elephant. Their vision was incomplete because they couldn’t see the big picture. They couldn’t see the completeness of the elephant. The blind man had a lot of unlearning to do. His life was really just beginning, and his world view had been completely and radically changed.

 

That’s what it means to be a disciple. St. Paul says, “For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know fully even as also I am fully known”. We don’t and can’t see the complete picture yet, but as we encounter Christ more and more in our lives our eyes are opened more and more, and we see him, and ourselves, more distinctly. I remember when the lights went back on in the Wind Cave, how happy and relieved I was to be able to see. When we witness the light of Christ we will be called to completely and radically change our world view. We will be transformed if we allow ourselves to see.