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Fourth Sunday of Lent
Jn 9:1-41
A man blind from birth, living in darkness, is given sight by Jesus. We could easily stop here and marvel at the miracle in today’s Gospel. However, the story offers more that is relevant for our time.
The man given his sight was considered an outcast, pushed to the margins of society as were many who lived with physical and mental challenges during this era and are today. His parents, according to the thinking of the time, must have done something wrong, sinful even, to deliver a child so handicapped. If we are honest this is a way of thinking we sometimes employ when seeing or hearing about people who suffer difficulties in their lives. They must have done something that caused their plight.
The Pharisees, esteemed religious leaders, scoffed at Jesus doing their best to diminish his extraordinary healing of the blind man. Their world was built on following long established rules. The Sabbath was sacred, holy, a time given only to God. When they observed Jesus performing this miracle on the Sabbath it shook their world.
This man does not keep the Sabbath: he cannot come from God ((9:16)
The Pharisees were tied to their rules. Thinking outside of the rules was probably unimaginable. They were men of God believing they were doing the best for the people they led. Following what had been taught for a long time insured order. They were skeptical of anything new. This man Jesus was turning things upside down. He was turning their world upside down with his new way of thinking and being in the world and this most likely frightened the Pharisees. They were comfortable with their positions in society and didn’t need someone upsetting things. We can find examples of this thinking within government and Church structures today.
Over the past year we have been introduced to the Synod, initially by Pope Francis, and then in our dioceses and parishes. I was skeptical at first. Haven’t we done this before without any real change taking place? We, the laity have been asked our views but felt unheard as nothing changed.
This time it is different. Across the world as the Synod process takes place priorities among the faithful come to light. Locally, issues that emerged included those around inclusion: for the LGBTQ community in the life of the Church, for women in leadership and ordination, for divorced and remarried Catholics in terms of sacraments and for people who are deaf or disabled, among other groups.
I cannot read this story of the blind man and Jesus without remembering a chapter James Alison, a British theologian and Catholic priest, wrote in his book, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (Herder and Herder, 2001) focusing on both inclusion and recognizing that those in power, those we sometimes disagree with and cannot understand, are our brothers and sisters. His work is prophetic given the outcomes from the Synod that call for all members of the Church, at all levels, to work together to move forward as God calls.
A question for the week might be: Who am I excluding, dismissing or not seeing that I might try to understand?
Peace,
Anne
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