Talk for the Fourth Sunday of Lent
April 3rd, 2011
Blindness

Recently a friend called me –he’s now teaching in Savannah— and he’s been dealing with some challenging problems as of late. He has a cancerous kidney, which will be removed in a few weeks, he just got leukemia, but is doing well with  treatment, and they say things "come in three’s", and in the midst of all this, he begins to lose his eyesight. So I responded with something like: ”Oh my God," and he responded with: "You’re right, I was devastated.” We talked about losing one’s eyesight –simply put –you are functionally immobilized. Helen Keller, whom you have all heard about, described her own experience of liberation. A childhood illness left her deaf and blind at 19 months – her next few years were filled with anger and frustrated outbursts.  Said Keller, ”I got used to the silence and the darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever  been different until she came — my teacher — who was to set my spirit free. Thus,  I came out of Egypt and stood before Sinai and a power divine touched my spirit and gave it life. From that sacred moment, I heard a voice which  said;  “Knowledge is love and light and vision.”

As you know Helen Keller never regained her sight, but she went on to experience the beauties and mysteries of life with such clarity that she was able to share what she called her ”soul’s sudden awakening.” In her blindness, she helped many to see; in her deafness, she has enabled many to hear.

That’s what today’s gospel is all about — not just to see physically, but to”see into”— to have insight — to see below the surface – to go beyond the appearances. Hence we come to the first reading from  1 Samuel 16:?" Fill your horn with oil, and be on your way. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have chosen my king from among his sons.” The Lord said to Samuel ”Do not judge from his appearance or from his  lofty stature –not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.” Our second reading from Paul; ”you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. The gospel John 9-keep in mind that the understanding at that time was that if something ‘bad happened to you’- then you must have sinned. So not only did the Lord restore his physical sight, but he gave a new vision — unlimited possibilities — eternal life.