Homily for 4th Sunday of Lent
The images of darkness and light, blindness and vision, are very prevalent throughout the Scriptures. Today's gospel is read in the knowledge that the light of Easter is approaching. The blind man of today's gospel, like blind people everywhere, inhabits a world of darkness. His disability cuts him off from the rest of humanity. He is totally dependant on the guidance and financial assistance of other people. In biblical time, beggar and blind were synonymous terms. In fact, blindness was such a curse, such a disability, it was assumed that the blind man was being punished for the sins of his parents. Even the disciples of Jesus made this assumption when they asked, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?'
That blind man is symbolic of humanity. This language has a common currency. We use it in our everyday speech. We often refer to a person as "having a blind spot", or of going down blind alleys; He or she fails to see the entire picture, and, as a result, acts or behaves in a morally deficient manner. We speak of a person being blinded by rage, or by jealousy. Our blindness can take on many forms. Left to our own devices, we are morally blind. If we have no moral or ethical reference point outside our own needs and greeds, blind selfishness takes over; we line our own pockets at the expense of our fellow man. This sort of blindness gives rise to widespread injustice.
Another familiar malady arising from moral blindness is fanaticism. So convinced is a person or a group of the rightness of their own cause that they are oblivious to the rights and indeed in many cases of the humanity of their supposed adversaries.
Yeats' famous poem, The Second Coming, captures the fanatic heart with great power:
Turning and turning in a widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
the blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned
The best lack all conviction , while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.
We see today the blood dimmed tide loosed every day in Iraq. 125 people were killed by one suicide bomber this week alone and the incident was hardly noticed by the world media. The blindness of the fanatic is the most dangerous blindness of all. He experienced it in the northern part of our own country for 30 years. We have more than our share of home-produced examples. Instead of rational, informed debate we witness closed minds spinning around in circles. The end product of such blindness is, as we know to our cost, exclusion, death and suffering.
Petty jealousy can also blind us. So jealous can we become of other people that we fail to see the goodness in their lives and in their work. People are deprived of what is rightfully theirs because our blindness has placed ourselves at the centre of the universe. If we are selfish or blinded by our own cares and desires, it will be impossible to see other people as our brothers and sisters. My own comfort and welfare becomes my only guideline.
However, as Jesus pointed out in today's gospel, faith leads to sight, to clear vision. The Pharisees in today's gospel, the most learned sector of the population, were the most blind of all. The people with the clearest vision of all were the blind man and his parents. Each of us will have different ways in which our eyes need opening. It could be that we need to see ourselves in a more truthful way. We may need to recognise our sins in a clearer light. But for a very many people their deepest need is the exact opposite: they need to see themselves more truthfully as children of God, loved by him and pleasing in his sight. Many of us are blind to our goodness, to what God's grace has already achieved in us. This blindness to our own goodness and talents is often glorified as Christian humility. But this is a false understanding of the Christian gospel and another source of moral blindness. We should recognise these graces God has blessed us with and, like the man in the first reading, give glory to God daily for them. We can also be blind to the lies that surround us, the false values that are so often paraded as desirable goals.
In his first sermon in his home-town synagogue, Jesus outlined his mission: one of his central ambitions was 'to open the eyes of the blind'. Opening the eyes of the blind was his first step in leading mankind to the vision of God.
The gospel then is the torch that God has handed to humanity. Only with the help of its searching beam can we view humanity, our world and our selves in a proper perspective. The experience of this century alone has taught us that when that torch is dropped, civilisation comes crashing down.