Lent IV

The Fourth Sunday of Lent

1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

We speak of race in terms of black and white, politics in terms of red and blue, gender in terms of male and female, and religion in terms of practicing and non-practicing. It makes life easy to maneuver through and understand.

But is this the reality of the human experience? We humans are much messier than that, are we not? What is missing in contemporary life is the recognition that life is nuanced. It may be why we no longer can speak, listen and dialogue with each other anymore.

The reality is there are no politically blue or red states. There are various shades of purple states. If we consider it, what we call races are simply various gradations of brown. Is not the push-back and hate against LGBTQ people because they are coming forward stating that their experience is broader, different, more nuanced than just heterosexual orientation or binary gender?

In the same way the spiritual life is not as cut and dry as practicing and non-practicing. Parents and grandparents lament that their children, brought up with Christian values, forms of prayer and ritual and worship no longer practice or claim Catholicism. The lament is understandable but might it be that the spiritual life is more nuanced than we care to admit? Or might we being imposing an expectation on our children and grandchildren that, if we were honest with ourselves, we did not or are noting experiencing in our spiritual lives?

Consider the Gospel of the man born blind. It places before us the wonderful, and might I say, necessary nuance and gradual growth that is the spiritual life in Jesus Christ.

The man never approaches Jesus and asks to be healed as happens so often in the Gospels. Jesus approaches the man and without introduction initiates the encounter and heals him. Our God always initiates the spiritual encounter and journey.

Consider that the man’s first experience of Jesus is touch as he smears mud on his eyes. What must have that been like for this man? Did he struggle a bit wondering what was going on? Did he begin pushing Jesus’ hands away before acquiescing? He had to wonder who this person was. The spiritual life is not easy. We need never forget the wrestling match between Jacob and the angel, or was it God or was it Jacob himself? Have you ever struggled with God; pushed back? It is the experience of Jacob and a man born blind.

The man’s second experience of Jesus is hearing him: “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” We have to wonder, why the man obeyed. Was it just to get the mud off his eyes? Was there something about the direction, “Go, wash…” that spoke to his soul? For Christians, the Word of God is deeply important and necessary in the spiritual life. Saint Jerome insisted: “Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ.” Thus the Second Vatican Council taught that when the scriptures are proclaimed in the Liturgy, it is Jesus speaking to us in the present. The Word is the very presence of Christ. What spoke to your soul today and at every liturgy?

It is only after he washed his face and was healed that the man saw Jesus, his third experience, though he does not know who Jesus is.

Touching, hearing and seeing are ways in which Jesus initiates the spiritual encounter with us. By the time his neighbors ask the man to tell his story he has come to know that the man who healed him was called Jesus. It is the initial and most rudimentary knowledge we come to have of each other. But our name does not tell someone anything about us. The spiritual life, if we respond, draws us in and continues to deepen our experience of Jesus beyond his name.

Later the man when asked to characterize Jesus calls him a prophet. The questions of the Pharisees and their declarations that Jesus is not from God and is a sinner cause the healed man to reflect on his experience of Jesus. The seeing man has moved from knowing Jesus’ name to being a person called by God who offers healing like the prophets Elijah and Elisha. In the spiritual life, questions and doubts are not to be feared because they are often the catalyst for reflection leading us to understanding and a deeper encounter with God.

As the story progresses the man finds himself alone as his parents abandon him and he faces a second interrogation by the Pharisees. Does the man’s story begin to sound familiar? Does not Jesus find himself alone and interrogated by the Sanhedrin, Herod and Pilate?

As we deepen in the spiritual life we will find our lives conforming more to that of Jesus which must include his Passion and Death. It is here that the man recognizes the truth that Jesus must be from God. The seeing man is more than a person whom Jesus healed, he is now a disciple. And what happens to disciples? For telling the truth, the seeing man is abandoned by his community, and family and is thrown out. The person who identifies with Jesus and witnesses to the truth and the saving grace experienced in their lives through Jesus will be rejected.

The crowning experience of the spiritual life is intimacy; a profoundly deep encounter with Jesus Christ. But notice again, it is Jesus who initiates, seeking out the healed man until he finds him. It is an intimate moment that reminds me of the encounter between Jesus and Mary Magdalene the morning of the resurrection and the sidebar conversation with Peter declaring his love for Jesus. The spiritual life is crowned by: “I do believe, Lord” as the seeing man worships Jesus as God.

Throughout the spiritual journey can the man who moves from blindness to sight, from a surface encounter to an intimate friendship, from reflection to declaration of faith, simply be characterized as either practicing or non-practicing. Is the spiritual life, is life in general, that simplistic? As understandable as the feeling of many parents and grandparents, pastors and parishioners are toward our children, might we first ask a question of ourselves.

Where are you and I in the spiritual life between only knowing the name of Jesus and an intimate friendship with Jesus? Is our spiritual life as clear cut as we expect others to be or are we as nuanced as a man who once was blind?