The 4th Sunday of Lent - Blindness and Sight

The sermon this Sunday was done in dialog with one of the St. Nicholas’ parishioners.  The following reflects some of the points we talked about.

As we listen to the story of Jesus healing the man born with blindness from the Gospel of John, there are several contexts we need to think about in order to understand the story.

First, John said Jesus had been teaching in the temple and so infuriated the religious authorities that they were planning to stone him.  He hid himself and left the temple in order to avoid these authorities.  Now he is just walking along with his disciples; he is not seeking conflict or looking to impress others.  However, when his disciples express concern about whose sinfulness caused the man’s blindness, Jesus decides to act.  He wants the disciples to see that God’s love does not look at sin, but about what is needed to make people whole and well.

Next, we can see the issues that concern the gospel writer and the community for whom he wrote.  At the time this gospel was written, there was much conflict between the religious authorities and those who were following Jesus’ teaching.  It was possible to be kicked out of the synagogue for claiming to follow Jesus’ way.  The issues of who was being faithful to God’s Law, who was going to be included, and who was going to be excluded clearly came to the surface in John’s telling of this story.  These questions still concern us today in our churches—often making us look to others as rigid and uncaring as the religious authorities appear here.  Institutional power looks ugly when it is practicing exclusion.

Then, we are hearing this story in the season of Lent.  During this season we are called to examine our shortcoming as a community, as well as individuals.  What are our shortcomings as Episcopalians?  What are our shortcomings in this community of St. Nicholas’?  We should be praying to discern how we have fallen short of God’s call to us as a community?

And then we should take action to remedy this. 

Finally, we are hearing this story one day before the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   How have we been blind to the harm that injustice based on categories of race and ethnicity has done?   How can our eyes become open?   Perhaps through the power of the Holy Spirit we can become willing to see in new ways.  Our willingness and the power of the Spirit may lead us with John Newton, a former captain of a slave ship who became an Anglican priest, to proclaim:  “Amazing grace . . . ‘Twas blind, but now I see.”