Believing Is Seeing

March 2, 2008     Lent 4 A

1 Samuel 16:1-13             Psalm 23

Ephesians 5:8-14         St. John 9:1-41

Throughout the Fourth Gospel we find a range of statements in which Jesus makes solemn pronouncements about his identity and mission. They are the great "I am" sayings, which are not found in Matthew, Mark, or Luke.

In the eighth chapter of John, for example, Jesus reveals that "I am he" from above, who does what the Father wishes. More startling he says, "Before Abraham was, I am"?an echo of the words uttered by the God of Moses.

This transcendent implication of the "I am" is further complemented by what can only be called a litany of salvation names.

The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel portrays himself as the vine without which we would be groundless and barren. He is also the bread of life. He is the good shepherd. He is the gate. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

But what is particularly interesting in the context of the gospel story of the "man born blind" is Jesus' announcement, "I am the light of the world," which is found in both the eighth and ninth chapters.

The healed man was in physical darkness from birth. The sight Jesus gave him not only allowed him to see the world, but to embrace his healer in faith.

But getting to that point is difficult: he is unrecognized by friends, challenged by authorities, unsupported by parents, expelled from the synagogue. Yet with each obstacle his vision of faith is sharpened and his resolve is strengthened.

More damaging than the man's organic lack of vision was the spiritual blindness of his neighbors and the Pharisees. They had eyes but could not see the truth. Some of them could not even accept that the cure was real, even though the man said, "I'm the one all right."

The Pharisees first reject the grace of healing under the pretext that it was done on the Sabbath. Surely good cannot come from that. Then they entertain the possibility that the poor fellow was never really blind. Even the testimony of the parents cannot convince.

The Pharisees insist that the man deny the very gift of the sight he has been given and renounce the giver. But since he assures them that Christ must be from God, they expel him from their premises.  "You are steeped in sin from your birth, and you are giving us lectures?"

When Jesus seeks out the man and receives his profession of faith, he utters the paradox that the sightless see and those who think they see are really in the darkness of sin.

In our First Reading we hear of a Rite of Election of a new king for Israel. What happened to the old king, Saul? The chapter right before this one from which our reading is taken tells the whole story. Samuel is told by the Lord to deliver Saul his "walking papers."

Saul was given a mission of wiping out an enemy and he kind of did it. Saul took "war booty" for himself and this was not in his marching orders. So Samuel delivers the news and of course, Saul argues about it to no purpose.

Samuel then gets the word from the Lord to take some anointing oil and go to the house of Jesse of Bethlehem to select one of his sons to be the new king.

There is a bit of a fashion show. Jesse presents first his son, Eliab, but Samuel hears the Lord saying, "Not him." Samuel is warned not to judge by outward appearances, because God does not judge the easier, external, way, but more deeply, what is in the heart. Seven sons fail the "Israel Idle" contest.

Samuel asks about whether there are any other sons. So we hear how God judges, calls and blesses the most unlikely. God seems to have a different way of seeing.

Seeing is the theme of today's Gospel as well. This is such a symbolic story so characteristic of John's writing. The tension is between and among various groups. There is "clay" and the pool of cleansing by the name of "Sent." The curing takes place on the Sabbath, which brings the Pharisees on to the stage. The man's parents are challenged about whether this man is their son. There is the "temple" and the newly-sighted getting thrown out. The major symbol of course is the man's receiving his sight through washing the clay from his eyes.

We know that in the selection of David as king, the Lord told Samuel not to judge by mere appearances or by any other human standard, for God sees differently than mere humans. Paul calls his Ephesians children of a "light" that produces every kind of goodness, justice, and truth. Christ himself embodies the promise of the psalm: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?"

The story of the blind man does, however, ring a bell for anyone who has ever read "The Allegory of the Cave" in Plato's Republic. There we find a story of all humanity chained in a darkened cave throughout life.

These captives can see nothing but flickering images on a wall?shadows, appearances, illusions?which they take for reality. One prisoner, liberated from the chains, makes the arduous crawl upward to the world of the shining sun.

When he returns to the cave with his tales of the new-found source of light and the life and warmth it gives, the prisoners think him crazy. They simply deny his experience. It just can't be. The chains and the amusing images on the wall are reality. Thus his conversion is ridiculed; his invitation is resisted.

This is how the Greek Plato describes the intellectual assent of the soul to truth. To contemplate divine life is to find freedom; but it is also to encounter opposition from "the evil state of man, misbehaving in a ridiculous manner, arguing over shadows and images."

Clearly there are parallels between the Platonic allegory of the cave and the story of the man born blind. Each figure is given new sight. Each is rejected by the inhabitants of the old world. And even the so-called wise authorities would rather cling to their chains and discuss the shadows than embark on the journey of faith.

As opposed to Plato, however, for whom the sun was the absolute form of good, the light the blind man of the gospels saw revealed not merely an unchanging and perfect world of ideas, but the face of the Son of God.

The blind man's story is the story of every Christian: we grope for faith in the midst of adversities; and Jesus comes to find us.

While the ancient world certainly knew blindness as a real physical condition, they seemed to consider it no worse than ignorance or a stubborn refusal to understand.

Luke writes of Jesus: "on many that were blind he bestowed sight"  (7:21) but he reports only one specific healing of a physically blind person (18:35-43)!

On the other hand, Luke-Acts reports many instances of people who refused to "see or understand" and people who chose to "see or understand" There thus seems to be greater interest in metaphorical than physical blindness.

In John's report of the man who was blind from birth, both motifs are played out strongly. It is futile to argue about the man's physical condition. He and his parents said he had been physically blind; others doubted or denied it.

The fluctuation between physical and metaphorical blindness is common in the gospel traditions. Jesus' point here, as always, is that physical blindness would be understandable and preferable to the willful metaphorical blindness of those who refuse to believe in him.

The words of the old hymn "Amazing Grace" remind all of us who know that, once blind, we now see:

When we've been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We've no less days to sing God's praise

Than when we first begun.

Believing in God is seeing, not with our eyes, but with our hearts.