1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a | Ephesians 5:8-14 | John 9:1-41

Oh God, true light who created light eternal, spreading it far and wide, pour, we pray, into the hearts of the faithful the brilliance of perpetual light so that all who are brightened in your holy temple by the splendor of your presence may happily reach the light of your glory through Christ our Lord, amen.

It’s impossible to miss the theme of this fourth Sunday of Lent: light, understanding, wisdom, insight.  Jesus came into the world to open the eyes of the world, particularly the world of religious leaders, to a truth that they had lost, but in defense of them, they didn’t lose it intentionally or in any way that you could say is all their fault.  It was just simply that what had evolved over centuries, in terms of a misunderstanding of who God is, that his demand from us was perfection, that sin was our great enemy, that our imperfection was our great enemy, that our humanity was our great enemy.  If you could look carefully at the ministry of Jesus, he came to open our eyes to all things, who the Father is, what we’re here for, but the most interesting thing to me is he opened the eyes of something that had been hidden for so long, and that is the beauty, the dignity and the wonder of our humanity — our humanity.  Jesus loved the title Son of Man, loved saying, “I’m a human being; I’m a man filled with God.”  And that image of a man filled with God was still so foreign to those who grew up with the temple as their guide that they ended up having a really hard time with a God living in something imperfect.  So perfection became, in a way, the great blindness.  It had grown so strong that it was considered that anything, anything that was seemingly a difficulty, a suffering, a malady, a disease, an accident, it was all punishment for sin, and yet they could say, “Well, wait a minute.  This person didn’t do anything wrong.  Why is it that they’re in the shape they’re in?  Why did this thing happen to them?”  Well, the church had a simple answer.  The institutional religion did.  It just simply said, “Well, it was the sins of the parents.”  So imagine living in a world where you saw a God who was constantly watching his people, and anytime they sinned, he would inflict some kind of painful situation on them to somehow say, “Now you deserve to be punished, not to be supported, not to be helped and not to be loved, not to be forgiven, not to have compassion as your companion.”  No, you’re to be punished.  It’s into that darkness that Christ came to bright light.

So perfection is not the goal of anything in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  It is a byproduct.  Yes, we do get perfect.  We do get more perfect.  We get better, but the reason we get better is because we become more who God intended us to be.  So the core of the goal of this wonderful tradition is to accept and embrace exactly who God has intended us to be, to be enlightened, to know ourselves, to know why we’re here, to know what our goal is.  That’s something I would call authenticity.  So let’s shift from thinking that religion is calling us to perfection but to some kind of authenticity, to some kind of enlightenment where we see exactly what is real, what is true.  And I think the most amazing truth that came into the — that Jesus came into the world to reveal to us was the illusion of a temple that was designed to somehow keep people in the fear of God constantly and the need of a place where they could find reconciliation.  That role of religion is so toxic and dangerous.  It separates us from an intimate, loving Father, and it’s there still today.  And you know where it breeds?  In a human being who feels they have privilege and power over people, and when you get that coupled with an image that the reason they exist is to somehow keep us from doing anything that is outside the norm of what they set, you’ll find a community that is built on some kind of false notion of oneness.  Oneness is not uniformity.  The oneness of religion, the shadow of it is everybody in this group is understanding the same things, believing the same things, doing the same things, same practices, dress the same way, act the same way, that whole image of the classic church person that is so wrapped up in an image that you have no idea who they really are.  It’s that that wisdom, enlightenment is destined to free us from.

So let’s look at this set of readings.  It’s interesting, because the first reading is about the work of a prophet trying to accomplish the work of God, and the work of God is not the same as the work of man.  So what we see in the story is a lesson that says God is looking for the right person who has real authority in the world to be a voice for them, and the first son is always the privileged one.  Out of an entire set of children, he’s the one that has the authority over the others, and that authority often is exercised by power over someone else.  But when God looks for those who are going to speak the truth, he doesn’t go to the top, but he interestingly goes to the bottom.  The interesting thing about the bottom, the youngest of that family, it’s the one who is young, who is open, who is receptive, but also the one who tends the flocks.  Isn’t it interesting that, in the first conflict of human beings, Cain and Abel, Cain was the one who thought that he should be the one who is the superior, and he was in charge of crops.  And Cain [sic], his brother, was the younger one, but he tended flocks.  So there’s something about youth, openness, eagerness to learn, not feeling that you know it already or have the position you need already, and that you’re interested in tending people, caring for people.  These are the ones that God calls to be what — authentic witnesses of the most profound teaching that Jesus is going to bring into the world, this notion that this God, this Father of ours is revealing a truth.  And the truth is the intoxicating forgiveness and compassion of the Father for our weaknesses and who we are and a desire for nothing other than authenticity.  Every soul open to life, to longing for life, understands that message, and so we see in the first reading that God is the God who is seeing differently than human beings see.  So right away we have to be careful of who do we trust, human authority figures or the God who dwells within us, reveals himself to us.  It’s obviously the latter.  

In the next reading from Paul, it’s so beautiful what he’s saying about light — light, wisdom, insight.  It’s the thing that Christ has come to give to the world, and if it’s not accepted, if it isn’t embraced, if we don’t want to see what’s real, we’re going to lose out of the most exciting, dramatic thing that God has promised us: this participation with him in bringing life to the world, not surrendering to some authority over us but finding the inner authority that God has created in us to be the person that brings the gift that is us to others. That’s the key.  So in the gospel, we see this interesting tension between these two figures, the authority of the church that refuses to see, the authority of religion that refuses to see, and I’m not blaming the institution.  I’m just saying it’s in an institution’s DNA to be this, and it just refuses to look at the truth of a man who’s been gifted with this sight that is not deserved, not earned.  And it so throws them off, so undercuts their whole system that all they can do is, looking at the face of the absolute certitude that this happened, refuse to accept it and see it for what it is.  It’s why the end of the gospel is so important.  If you really didn’t understand, you would be okay.  You wouldn’t be so guilty of a sin, but you say you don’t see, and yet you do see.  It’s clear that this man was gifted by this man Jesus through his sight, and yet you still denied it.  What an incredible, interesting part of human nature that we can be so clear in seeing and at the same time refuse to see.  That’s the danger, not just for an institution but for all of us, and we’re so eager — I pray you’re as eager as I and all those who long to see.  Just show us.  Show us what is real and give us the grace to embrace it and become a light to the world.  

Father, you are our Father.  You created us, and your intention is that we become exactly who you created us to be.  Bless us with wisdom.  It’s the only thing that is absolutely essential for us to see what you see, know what you know, believe and trust in what you believe and trust in, each of us, our work, our life, our struggles, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.