4 Lent A March
26, 2017
1 Sam. 16:1-13 Ps.
23
Eph. 5:1-14 John
9:1-38
The Gospel of John is built around the contrast of the physical world and the spiritual world, the outer world and the inner world. The inner world is the world of words, soul, thought, volition, dreams, desire and spirit and we have to have our inner world changed if we want to affect our agency or how we act and speak in the outer world. We need to know our inner world as the kingdom of God if we are going work to make God's will done on earth in the outer world like it is done in the inner world which can be effective place of the kingdom of God.
So what are the physical situations and rites of passage in human life? Birth, sight, drinking, eating, walking, dying, believing and human vocation.
Jesus told Nicodemus he had to be born again in another way. Jesus told the woman at the well to drink another kind of water. Jesus told the man born lame that he could walk again. Jesus told the blind man that he could see again. Jesus told his disciples about Eucharistic bread being the living bread and food of life. Jesus told the sisters of the dead man Lazarus that he would live again. Jesus told the doubting Thomas, who once had believed that he could believe again. Jesus told the once called Peter who denied and failed him, he could be forgiven and called again to ministry.
The Gospel of John is all about how we can learn to live from this parallel existence in the Kingdom of God by being born of water and the Spirit. Birth and new birth. Blindness and sight. Light and darkness. Crippled or mobilized. Thirsty and quenched. Hungry and fed. Death and Resurrection. Doubt and Faith. Failure and Forgiveness. These are the contrasts found in the teaching of the Gospel of John.
The illustration used in our appointed Gospel for today is the giving of sight to the blind man. The blind man had to receive his physical ability to see. Physical sight was only the first seeing; the eyes of faith to understand Jesus as the Christ was the second seeing for him.
There is a model in this story which is descriptive of the community which was responsible for writing the Gospel of John. What was a significant dilemma within their community? One of the dilemma was this: Why did not everybody come to see Jesus as God's special Messiah? If people have the physical ability to see, then why could they not see that Jesus was God's special Messiah?
And the answer is that seeing Jesus in a qualitative way is not just about having physical proximity to Jesus or having information about him.
There were religious people during the time of the writing of John's Gospel who knew about Jesus but they were blind about the significance of Jesus which was the basis for the church.
Seeing Jesus and knowing him as a life changing Messiah was not everyone's experience. An inner condition of the heart was needed to be aware of how Christ could change their lives. There is something very cruel about the conditions of freedom. Like why can't everyone be in love? Doesn't it seem cruel that everyone can't be in life-changing love with Christ? The preachers of the early church found it hard to believe that everyone did not find Jesus Christ to be irresistibly winsome. How could anyone resist this irresistible Jesus Christ? Why aren't other as madly in love with him as we are? And why are they actively opposing us who have found Christ to be the light of our lives?
This Gospel stories encodes the reality about those who comes to belief and those who do not. In everything that we do in life, how we see and believe is determined by the inner condition of our lives. We see from within. The Gospel of John is all about the inner life of the Word and the Spirit. If the words of our inner life can be rearranged into certain lenses, then we will be able to see through those word constructs and see Christ in a way that inspire us.
There is the ambiguity of freedom in our lives. Those who don't believe in Christ feel sorry for us that we believe in Christ. Those who believe in Christ feel sorry for those who don't believe in Christ. And what is the difference? The difference is about the conditions inside of us. The difference resides in how we are constituted by the words that have come to make up the scripts of our lives.
What is the up side of this very ambiguous freedom of who believes and who does not believe? The up side of freedom is time. Time means we have a future. And the future means that we can always come to the vision of new belief and new belief in Christ.
The blind man who was healed by Jesus had to learn to see again. He had physical sight but he came to also have spiritual sight in knowing who Jesus was.
I think that positive message in the Gospel of John can be summed up in one of the most important adverbs in the human language. What is that adverb? "Again." Why is the adverb "again" important? "Again" refers to basic human repetition. Human behaviors can be summed up by this adverb. In life, we continually do things over and over again. Repetitions may seem to being doing the same thing, but because they are later in time, they are different. "Again" means life can be either the routine of a boring and losing habit or state of ignorance, or doing something again can be the possible expression of something new and insightful and life changing.
The Gospel of John is all about the possibility of a better future of doing things again, only with better seeing. As the blind man was able to see again and see Christ as a new hopeful model for living, his seeing again was a better way of seeing.
The Gospel of John is also about the danger of the continuous repeating our losing habits of seeing the world in ignorance without insight and understanding.
Today, you and I are invited by Jesus Christ to the positive notion of the word, "again." We cannot help but do, see, know, think and speak again. So the question is this? How are you and I going to see, know, think and do "again?" Are we going to perform everything again with a better excellence than we have been doing before now?
Who are we going to use as the models to inform the standards of excellence in seeing and doing? Let us ask ourselves who are the heroes of our lives now to whom we submit as models for our lives, our thinking and our actions. Do the models of our lives line up with Jesus the Messiah?
The Risen Christ invites us to see again today. We do not want our seeing to be a blindness to the Risen Christ. We ask for the Risen Christ to open our eyes to see him and his excellence which will help us perform the words and deeds of our lives in an enlightened "again."
If you and I cannot avoid repetition of the adverb "again," how will we perform the next repetitions in our lives in word and deed? Will we be informed by seeing the excellence of the Risen Christ? Or will we repeat the words and deeds of our lives in unenlightened blindness to the excellence of Jesus Christ. May God grant us enlighten vision again as we receive the life of the Risen Christ. Amen.
So what are the physical situations and rites of passage in human life? Birth, sight, drinking, eating, walking, dying, believing and human vocation.
Jesus told Nicodemus he had to be born again in another way. Jesus told the woman at the well to drink another kind of water. Jesus told the man born lame that he could walk again. Jesus told the blind man that he could see again. Jesus told his disciples about Eucharistic bread being the living bread and food of life. Jesus told the sisters of the dead man Lazarus that he would live again. Jesus told the doubting Thomas, who once had believed that he could believe again. Jesus told the once called Peter who denied and failed him, he could be forgiven and called again to ministry.
The Gospel of John is all about how we can learn to live from this parallel existence in the Kingdom of God by being born of water and the Spirit. Birth and new birth. Blindness and sight. Light and darkness. Crippled or mobilized. Thirsty and quenched. Hungry and fed. Death and Resurrection. Doubt and Faith. Failure and Forgiveness. These are the contrasts found in the teaching of the Gospel of John.
The illustration used in our appointed Gospel for today is the giving of sight to the blind man. The blind man had to receive his physical ability to see. Physical sight was only the first seeing; the eyes of faith to understand Jesus as the Christ was the second seeing for him.
There is a model in this story which is descriptive of the community which was responsible for writing the Gospel of John. What was a significant dilemma within their community? One of the dilemma was this: Why did not everybody come to see Jesus as God's special Messiah? If people have the physical ability to see, then why could they not see that Jesus was God's special Messiah?
And the answer is that seeing Jesus in a qualitative way is not just about having physical proximity to Jesus or having information about him.
There were religious people during the time of the writing of John's Gospel who knew about Jesus but they were blind about the significance of Jesus which was the basis for the church.
Seeing Jesus and knowing him as a life changing Messiah was not everyone's experience. An inner condition of the heart was needed to be aware of how Christ could change their lives. There is something very cruel about the conditions of freedom. Like why can't everyone be in love? Doesn't it seem cruel that everyone can't be in life-changing love with Christ? The preachers of the early church found it hard to believe that everyone did not find Jesus Christ to be irresistibly winsome. How could anyone resist this irresistible Jesus Christ? Why aren't other as madly in love with him as we are? And why are they actively opposing us who have found Christ to be the light of our lives?
This Gospel stories encodes the reality about those who comes to belief and those who do not. In everything that we do in life, how we see and believe is determined by the inner condition of our lives. We see from within. The Gospel of John is all about the inner life of the Word and the Spirit. If the words of our inner life can be rearranged into certain lenses, then we will be able to see through those word constructs and see Christ in a way that inspire us.
There is the ambiguity of freedom in our lives. Those who don't believe in Christ feel sorry for us that we believe in Christ. Those who believe in Christ feel sorry for those who don't believe in Christ. And what is the difference? The difference is about the conditions inside of us. The difference resides in how we are constituted by the words that have come to make up the scripts of our lives.
What is the up side of this very ambiguous freedom of who believes and who does not believe? The up side of freedom is time. Time means we have a future. And the future means that we can always come to the vision of new belief and new belief in Christ.
The blind man who was healed by Jesus had to learn to see again. He had physical sight but he came to also have spiritual sight in knowing who Jesus was.
I think that positive message in the Gospel of John can be summed up in one of the most important adverbs in the human language. What is that adverb? "Again." Why is the adverb "again" important? "Again" refers to basic human repetition. Human behaviors can be summed up by this adverb. In life, we continually do things over and over again. Repetitions may seem to being doing the same thing, but because they are later in time, they are different. "Again" means life can be either the routine of a boring and losing habit or state of ignorance, or doing something again can be the possible expression of something new and insightful and life changing.
The Gospel of John is all about the possibility of a better future of doing things again, only with better seeing. As the blind man was able to see again and see Christ as a new hopeful model for living, his seeing again was a better way of seeing.
The Gospel of John is also about the danger of the continuous repeating our losing habits of seeing the world in ignorance without insight and understanding.
Today, you and I are invited by Jesus Christ to the positive notion of the word, "again." We cannot help but do, see, know, think and speak again. So the question is this? How are you and I going to see, know, think and do "again?" Are we going to perform everything again with a better excellence than we have been doing before now?
Who are we going to use as the models to inform the standards of excellence in seeing and doing? Let us ask ourselves who are the heroes of our lives now to whom we submit as models for our lives, our thinking and our actions. Do the models of our lives line up with Jesus the Messiah?
The Risen Christ invites us to see again today. We do not want our seeing to be a blindness to the Risen Christ. We ask for the Risen Christ to open our eyes to see him and his excellence which will help us perform the words and deeds of our lives in an enlightened "again."
If you and I cannot avoid repetition of the adverb "again," how will we perform the next repetitions in our lives in word and deed? Will we be informed by seeing the excellence of the Risen Christ? Or will we repeat the words and deeds of our lives in unenlightened blindness to the excellence of Jesus Christ. May God grant us enlighten vision again as we receive the life of the Risen Christ. Amen.
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