Fourth Sunday of Lent – The Man Born Blind

I am a member of several faith-based groups of women and/or men, similar to our Men of Saint Martha, and our Adult Faith Formation groups. During one of these recent meetings a discussion came up about this scripture passage: the man who was blind from birth. One of the men in the group (Steve) told us a story that early on in his marriage, in fact, right after Debbie and he were married, they went to a marriage counselor; not because of any problems, but just to discuss how to make their marriage stronger from the start. Steve said the counselor gave them an exercise to try. The way the exercise worked is that the couple would place a cassette tape recorder (you know this was a long time ago because the exercise involved a cassette tape recorder). The couple was to place this tape recorder in a common area of the house, in this case it was the kitchen. And if either of the couple started to feel aggravated with the other one, they simply push the play button on the tape recorder. The conversation that followed was obviously recorded.

Steve tells of how the first couple of times they tried this, Steve followed the process: he started the tape recorder when he began to feel aggravation with Debbie. Then, in the first couple of instances, sure enough, an argument ensued. At some point in the latter part of the argument, Debbie would quote Steve, repeat quotes that she said Steve had said to her early on during the argument…when things were a little more emotional, quoting hurtful things that Steve had said. As Steve puts it, he remembers this specifically, because he knew he had never said those things.

He thought Debbie was making things up to Steve feel bad so she could win the argument.

In this exercise, at some point after the argument ends, the couple goes back and listens to the recording. Steve told me it took exactly two times of him going through this with Debbie, hearing himself on the recording say the very things that Debbie had accused him of saying, and that he had vehemently denied, because he knew that he had never said those things. Until he realized he had been blind to his own faults.

Sin – in this case, Steve’s anger, or wrath (7 Deadly Sins) – blinds us to reality. It obscures or distorts our vision of things. And this is but one example, but in general, if we are sunken in sin, we are often blind to the reality of the damage we do, the pain we cause to others; and the distance we put between ourselves and the love of God – the light of Christ, that would otherwise allow us to see.

In terms of today’s Gospel, Saint Augustine spoke of this very thing quite powerfully: he said the Spittle of Christ represents his divinity. The earth/dirt represents his humanity. When divinity and humanity meet, they create what the Gospel calls paste, but Saint Augustine’s word “Salve”. Jesus makes salve, like you might put on a baby’s eyes: salvos/Latin= health. Jesus is called the Salvator, the Savior, Salvation. The one who brings healing. He is the light of the world, who gives us our sight when we are blind. Oh…my goodness!

What sins are we blind to, that distances us from the love of God, but we’re so blind to them that we don’t even ask for his help and forgiveness: for the paste of salvation that will cure our blindness?

In 1942, C.S. Lewis wrote a book entitled The Screwtape Letters. In this book, Lewis tells the fictional story of the devil, whose name is Screwtape, and Screwtape writes letters to his nephew, a lesser demon, who is in the world constantly trying to keep people out of heaven, and lure them to hell, one small step at a time. In the book, CS Lewis implies that his nephew doesn’t have to create any big distraction, he says all he has to do is to create small distractions that “make humans do nothing at all for long periods. Keep them up late at night doing nothing at all”. He says the only thing that matters is the extent to which he separates us from God. It does not matter how small the distractions, or the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and into the darkness, the nothing. Anyone have a cell phone? How many hours do we spend doing nothing, or the wrong things on that? In the book, Screwtape/the devil quotes from his experience having heard people who he has lured away, one…small…sin at a time. With the sins to which they were blind.  

Screwtape quotes one of his victims that he coaxed into hell as having said: “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”. That book was written in 1942.

What sins are we blind to, that distance us from the love of God – so tied up in the things of the world that we don’t recognize our need for his healing and forgiveness?

I have a friend who doesn’t speak to his daughter. He says: “She is living in sin!” Her lifestyle is clearly in violation of – his interpretation – of the bible! How can he, in good conscience, just go on in a relationship with her and not acknowledge how she is living, or who she is living with? He/my friend knows what (he believes) the bible says, and he will not tolerate his daughter’s lifestyle. He also will not listen to the idea of how much damage he has done, and continues to do, to his daughter. He is blind to that damage.

What sin are we blind to, that distances us from the love of God, in one another?

Now this last example is more difficult than the rest, because it comes from deep within, in a place that we do not typically share with others. How many of us just know we are unworthy or inadequate? We say to ourselves: “I’m not good enough. I’m not like other people. They don’t know what I have done, the sinful thoughts I have. Or they don’t know what I’ve been through.” “I could never confess these things”. “I don’t think God could ever forgive me for them, and I know I can never forgive myself.” Sisters and brothers, the world will wound you and break you. We can be so beaten up or broken by life, whether by war, by abuse, by our past; or whatever it is, that we are blind to the sin of not believing that God can…and will…forgive us…and make us whole! There is nothing you can say during the sacrament of reconciliation that a priest has not already heard. And there is NOTHING God will not forgive. The sin that we are blind to is failing to believe we are forgivable, that we are worthy, that we are worth it; and as a result of these feelings, failing to ask for that forgiveness.

What sin are we blind to, that distances us from the healing forgiveness of God: the paste or the salve of salvation, the light of Christ that will cure our blindness?

Jesus rubbed the paste of salvation on the man born blind’s eyes and sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam to be cured of his blindness. Sisters and brothers, as we walk through these 40 days of Lent, with Jesus, toward Easter; let us ask and allow The Light of the World, to open our eyes, and to wash away our sin.