Monday in Holy Week

"...whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.


Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own...I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly* call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:7-14)

Do You Even Give A Damn?

There’s a story about a noted archbishop who was addressing a seminary class. He told them about a young man who, years before, had come into the Cathedral one day. The young man didn’t really care much about churches or religion: in fact, he rather disdained them. To vent his disdain, as a sort of practical joke, he got the idea of lining up with those waiting to make their confession and, when his turn came, to make a confession so obviously preposterous that the listening priest would be embarrassed by it.


When the young man had finished his mock confession, there was a moment of silence, then the priest reached for a piece of paper, wrote something on it, folded it, then slipped it through the grill to the young man. He directed the young man to go out to a large crucifix enshrined in a nearby alcove, and there to read what was on the piece of paper. Taken a bit unawares, but willing to go along with the charade, the young man agreed to do so. As he looked up at the figure of Jesus on the Cross, he slowly unfolded the paper on which the priest had written: “He died for you...and you don’t even give a damn!”


The archbishop concluded his story to the seminary class by saying: “I was that young man.”


Many of us wonder at times about the whole “Jesus thing”. We wonder what it’s all really about, particularly as it applies to us. Perhaps at those times we would do well to look at a crucifix or a picture of the Crucified Christ. As we stand at the beginning of the holiest week in the Church’s year on this Palm Sunday, we might also do well to stand, at least in spirit, in front of a Cross, look at it, let the reality of it sink into our minds and hearts, and then ask ourselves: “Do you even give a damn?”


The events of this Holy Week which we’re about to recall and celebrate were destined to change the entire course of human history. It began on a note of triumph, or so it must have seemed to the crowd who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem like some conquering hero returning to free his people from oppression. Freedom was on Jesus‘ mind, for sure, but freedom of a different kind: a freedom of heart and spirit. Just where and when and how Jesus had come to realize his calling isn’t very clear. We’d suspect that Jesus had at least thought about some of Isaiah’s visions, particularly regarding the Suffering Servant. Also, as a Jew, he surely couldn’t have been unaware of the super-zealous urgings of some of the citizens, who also hailed his coming into the Holy City, to perhaps take the opportunity to overthrow Pontius Pilate. Pilate was surely aware of the threat. It didn’t take long to see that Jesus would, indeed, confront both Pilate and Herod, though quite differently, as he would and does confront all those who wield power that is merely of this world. Jesus‘ power was different: it was the power of self-giving love, encompassing, sacrificing, enduring, like that of the All Holy.


That’s the power of love, hanging on the Cross, upon which you and I gaze at the beginning of this Holy Week. But there’s a caution. As often as we hear the story of Jesus’ passion and death, as we will several times this week, as often as we find ourselves in the place of the centurion at the foot of the Cross, the Crucified One has a way of working his spirit into our hearts and minds and lives. If we really don’t want our life changed, if we’re afraid of his presence, if we don’t want to be refashioned as a new people, to be made more aware of our injustice and inhumanity to one another, then you and I should be somewhere else than in church during this coming week.


Because Jesus befriended the poor, you and I can be enabled to see them with new eyes. Because Jesus reached out to the sick and suffering, you and I can learn how to empathize with others in their pain. Because Jesus loved all human beings so much that he actually died, even death, the inner, daily dying, and our eventual physical dying, can now be seen from a new perspective.


Sacrifice and surrender, clearly, aren’t the only truths of Christianity, as this week will show us. Nevertheless, we all have hard choices to make in daily living. In this “experience of salvation”, as Frederick Buechner calls its, two things happen. First, we lose ourselves; and secondly, in so doing, we discover that we’re more fully ourselves than ever before. The losing of ourselves is a dying, no question, and despite the promise of death and resurrection, symbolized in our Baptism, it’s still hard for us to understand how there can really be life beyond this “death”. Even worse, we’re not always sure that we want to be born to new life, if being re-born means we have to change.


“He died for you...and you don’t even give a damn!” True or false?? Only you and I, standing before the Cross, know what the answer is as it applies to us. However weak-kneed we may feel about the journey ahead of us this Holy Week, and the rest of our lives, however afraid we might be to allow God to touch us, one thing is for sure. It’s hard to stand before Jesus on the Cross and not sense that, as at the foot of that Cross on the hill of Golgotha, there is here also the sure ground of God’s presence and unconditional acceptance.


In Jesus’ Cross we learn the truth that religion has infinitely more to do with the amazing grace and love of God than it has to do with any unworthiness or success of our own; infinitely more to do with God’s purposes than with fearful and corrupt governors and religious leaders. The story of Holy Week is the story of Jesus’ giving of himself for others: a story so incredible and overwhelming, yet so real and true, that we find it reviving our faith, reborning our hope, and deepening our love.


Because, as we stand at the Cross, looking up at that tortured, dying man, we come to know that, without a doubt, he gave and gives a damn...even for you, even for me, even for every one of us!

Reflecting On Holy Week

Some years ago I ran across this statement from Aeschylus, the 5th century B.C. Greek tragic dramatist: 

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep 

pain that will not forget falls drop by drop

upon the heart. And in our despair, against our will

comes wisdom, by the awful grace of God."

(Agamemnon, 2nd Choral Ode)

That hit me right between the eyes, coming as it does from an unusual source. It represents to me a sort of summary of what Lent and Easter, and, indeed, the whole Church year, is about: a summary, really, of what our life is about.

I'm amazed at how often I catch myself being surprised and upset when suffering of hardship intrudes on the ordinariness of my life, as if it were something I should never expect to happen, as if somehow I should be immune to it, most of the time anyway. It's always inconvenient. It never fits my schedule, my timing. It has a way of appearing, unwanted, at the most inopportune times, and I often react angrily, with frustration, and eventually with embarrassment. And it is unrelenting: falling "drop by drop upon the heart."

The unconsoling, damnable truth of human and Christian life is that I can learn, can come to wisdom only through embracing my pain and suffering, and that, not even by my own resources and power, but only "by the awful grace of God."

Those men and women before us and with us now whom we call saints affirm and reaffirm over and over that this is the only way to God. In doing considerable research for a past project on classic and contemporary spiritual writers, I was struck by the absolute consistency of how each person, so different in terms of age, family or country of origin has arrived at virtually the same conclusion: that in order to live in Christ, in life, light and true consciousness, one must abandon, must permanently let go of all that smacks of death, darkness and sin. Permanently -- not just for a little while.

Despite the starkness of that reminder, I'm looking forward to Holy Week in which the community of faith will "enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby [He] has given us life..." (Collect at the Liturgy of the Palms, Palm Sunday) The liturgies this coming week are full of grace-laden droplets which, if I but allow them, can, together with pain and suffering, fall "drop by drop upon the heart." To single out just a few:

PALM SUNDAY:  "...Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering and also share in his resurrection..."

SERVICE OF TENEBRAE ("SHADOWS/DARKNESS"):  "Christ for us became obedient unto death, even death on a cross..."

MAUNDY THURSDAY:  "Do you know what I, your Lord and Master, have done to you? I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done."

GOOD FRIDAY:  "We glory in your cross, O Lord, and praise and glorify your holy resurrection; for by virtue of your cross joy has come to the whole world."

GREAT VIGIL OF EASTER:  "Through the Paschal mystery...we are buried with Christ by Baptism into his death, and raised with him to newness of life."

SUNDAY OF THE RESURRECTION/EASTER:  "Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection."

A blessed Pascha to each and all!       

"The First Detective Story"

On this Tuesday of Lent 5, the first reading is the story of Susanna, included in the Apocrypha. The New Oxford Annotated Bible's commentary on the apocryphal book, Susanna or Shoshana (Hebrew: שׁוֹשַׁנָּה = lily), describes it as "often called the first detective story". It is an addition to the book of Daniel, and the Greek text survives in two versions: the Septuagint text, appearing only in the Codex Chisianus; and the version of Theodotion, which appears in Roman Catholic bibles. It was regarded as a part of the Daniel literature and was placed at the beginning of the Book of Daniel in Hebrew Scripture manuscripts. 


St. Jerome (347-420), in translating the Vulgate, treated this section as a non-canonical fable. He notes that Susanna was an apocryphal addition because it was not written in Hebrew, as was the original book of Daniel, but was written in Greek. Origen observes, in his Epistola ad Africanum that it was "hidden" by the Jews in some fashion. There are no early Jewish references to the book. 


Susanna occurs in the Book of Daniel, as chapter 13, in the Scriptures of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, whereas Protestants generally consider it apocryphal. It is listed in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England and of the Episcopal Church among the books which are included in the Bible for teaching, but not for doctrinal, purposes. It is not included in the Jewish Tanakh.


As the story goes, Susanna, daughter of a possible priest, Hilkiah, and the "very beautiful" Hebrew wife of a wealthy man, Joakim, gets trapped in quite a compromising situation. She and Joakim, from the southern kingdom of Judah originally, apparently had a wonderful villa in Babylon, with a magnificent garden. Because of Joakim's honor and reputation, many folks frequently came and went at their home, including prominent community members such as elders/judges. It was customary for Susanna, once the hubbub of business had subsided in the afternoon hours, to relax by strolling alone in the ample garden. Unbeknownst to her, two of the judges who used to see her "began to lust for her", each of them separately. 


So it was that two "politicians", probably viewed as pillars of the community and upholders of justice and righteousness, secretly in their hearts ignored the principles they were committed to uphold. As it's later pointed out, in fact, one of them had been routinely terrorizing and blackmailing Israelite women into non-consensual sex. One day, as the two judges left the villa for a lunch break, both bade each other farewell and went on their way, only to backtrack, in order to peek in on Susanna. Unfortunately, the paths they chose crisscrossed and they bumped into each other. Embarrassed at catching one another "with their pants down", as it were, or almost so, they compared notes, "confessed their lust, and decided to join forces in carrying out their nefarious mission.


It was a very hot day, and Susanna, instead of walking, decides to bathe in the garden. Her attendants bring her olive oil and ointments, then leave her to herself, exiting by the side doors of the garden. The two judges seize the opportunity, run to Susanna, and confront her: "The garden doors are shut and no one can see us. We're both burning with desire for you and want you to have sex with us. If you don't, we'll tell everyone that you sent the maids away just so that you could be with a young man." Susanna realized immediately that she was trapped in a no-win situation: if she consented, she'd be stoned to death; if she refused, she'd still be hauled to public court and, to make things worse, these reprobates would be the very judges who'd condemn her to death! 


Susanna, whom the writer desribes earlier as "one who feared the Lord" and who'd been trained by her parents according to the law of Moses, declares that she's not about to give in to their perverted wishes, preferring to "fall into your hands, rather than sin in the sight of the Lord." Immediately the two men begin shouting, opening the garden doors, accusing Susanna of shameful acts, to the complete dismay of Susanna's household, friends, and even her servants who "felt very much ashamed, for nothing like this had ever been said about Susanna."


The next day everyone gathers at Joakim's home, including the two self-righteous judges who send for Susanna. She arrives "with her parents, her children, and all her relatives." The author of the story notes that Susanna was both "a woman of great refinement and beautiful in appearance." So much so that she was brought in veiled. The men, who in modern parlance could only be considered "scumbags", actually order her to be humiliated by insisting that she be unveiled [the Septuagint says "stripped"] "so that they might feast their eyes on her beauty." Lest we think it couldn't get worse than that, the author says the two judges then "laid their hands on her head" in harsh judgment, the closest they would ever get to fulfilling their hypocritical sexual fantasies, as Susanna, in tears, raises her eyes to heaven, "for her heart trusted in the Lord." The two judges proceed to repeat their false accusations, and are convincing enough that "the assembly believed them and condemned her to death." All, that is, except one young man, Daniel = Hebrew, my judge is God, standing in the crowd, in whose heart "God stirred up the holy spirit" of prophetic ability and wisdom.

Daniel interrupts the proceedings, shouting "Are you such fools, O Israelites, as to condemn a daughter of Israel without examination and without learning the facts?" This shocks everyone into a reality check, and the elders, recognizing something special in Daniel, invite him to "sit among us and inform us, for God has given you the understanding of an elder." Daniel immediately demands that the two judges be separated so that he can question each of them. He thereupon proceeds to cross-examine each of them about the details of what they saw. It quickly becomes evident that they disagree about the kind of tree under which Susanna purportedly met her imaginary lover. The Greek text employs a play on words. The first judge says that they were under a mastic = clove tree, and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to cleave the liar in two. The second judge says that they were under an evergreen oak = yew tree, and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to hew the other liar in two. The great difference in size between a mastic and an evergreen oak makes the elders' lie plain to all the observers. The author says that "out of their own mouths Daniel had convicted them of bearing false witness", and so, in accord with the law of Moses, the false accusers are summarily put to death.


It has long disappointed me that this, among other Scriptural stories, whether apocryphal or not, does not appear more in our Christian liturgies. This story is one which will certainly resonate with many in our day and age, bombarded as we are by continual exposés of sexual injustice, violence, manipulation, and demeaning of women in our society and, yes, particularly in our church communities! The story's point, I believe, is not just that virtue triumphs over ungodliness, or that, in the closing words of the story's author "from that day onward Daniel had a great reputation among the people." It's a story dealing with the inherent value and dignity of every human being, and of the absolute injustice and sinfulness of using power over another person for one's own selfish satisfaction; not only that, but of the injustice and sinfulness of allowing or promoting in our society the presumption that somehow men, particularly, have a "right" to such abuse, or the privilege of being "excused" this sort of thing: the old cliché of "Boys will be boys."  

Commentator Cherie Booth observes that the barriers and discrimination against women "are not an accidental byproduct of gender. They exist simply because of it. They rest on the idea, spoken or unspoken, that women are somehow not the equal of men, that their rights, views and interests don't carry the same weight. It is this assumption that underpins and links the pay gap in developed countries, the denial in some developing countries of a woman's right to own property, the practice of abortion or infanticide because the child is a girl, and that allows rape or honour killings to go unpunished. It is the belief that women are worth less than men.There are those who, while appalled at such prejudice in our societies, attempt to excuse it elsewhere as a result of different cultures. They argue that it is wrong to impose our standards across the world, casting doubt on the concept of universal human rights in a world of diverse cultural and religious standards. I believe this is both wrong and patronising. As Rosalyn Higgins, the first female judge on the International Court of Justice, noted, it's an argument advanced by states or by liberal scholars but rarely by the oppressed groups themselves. It's often based, too, on a false belief that the idea of universal human rights, and the UN declaration that made them concrete, is a construct of a few Western democracies foisted on a reluctant world. The declaration was drafted, in fact, by experts from every background and improved by contributions from all the UN's founding members from across the world. It was an express statement that the same human rights belong to each and every one of us, whatever our race, gender, religion or background. They are a recognition of our essential dignity as human beings, something that, I would argue, has its roots deep in all our great faiths. As such, they can't be ignored or watered down..."






  

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Let The Dry Bones Live!

Ezekiel's dramatic vision (37:1-14) of all those dry bones joining together and coming to life again strikingly resembles the vision of creation in Genesis 2: "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." That same breath of God, always associated with God's ruah, God's breath, is what Ezekiel is told in a vision to call upon: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live."


In this story God's creating spirit, who in the beginning had brought life into being by breathing into human flesh, is seen recreating life out of death for the whole people of Israel, a people carried off captive into exile, and wondering if ever again they would become a strong, free, living people.


Ezekiel prophesies to them in their near despair, in their living death: "Thus says the Lord God: 'Behold I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you home into the land of Israel...And I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.'" Raising up dry bones, bringing life again where there is the emptiness of death, is the work of God's creating and recreating Spirit, a work which continues in our midst.


As humans, those who follow Jesus must each walk in their personal valley of dry bones in two ways: facing and dealing with the reality of death; and facing and dealing with the reality of limitedness and selfishness, also called sin. They're two unpleasant facts, however tempted we might be to gloss over them or avoid them, or pretend they're not so, or ignore them.


First, death. In John's Gospel for Lent 5 (11:1-45) the family and friends of Lazarus, including Jesus, come face to face with Lazarus' illness which leads to his death. Lazarus' sisters, Martha and Mary, and their friends ask, in effect, the question which we all ask at some time or other: "Why? Why did this happen? Why now? Why me, or my loved one?" Ultimately, there's really no satisfying human answer. Among the explanations offered is the one which holds that death isn't a punishment. It's simply a fact of life. All people who begin to live sooner or later stop living. Many believers state that God isn't the problem. It isn't God's choice that a person dies, especially if the situation is a particularly tragic and sudden one: heart attack, cancer, a shooting, an automobile accident. Sometimes, other hold, there's simply no logical reason for death. Sometimes things happen at random, in those corners of the universe where the creative light of God's Spirit hasn't yet penetrated.


For those who try to understand with the eyes of faith, there are further explanations. In its directions for An Order of Burial, the Book of Common Prayer (p. 507) notes: "...It [death] finds all its meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised...This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend [Lazarus]. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn." Jesus, indeed, wept at the death of his friend, but he also affirmed that "...the one who believes in me, though he die, yet shall live."


The second unpleasant reality is our human finiteness and selfishness. Most of us, at least periodically, give in and accept this condition as "just the way I am", resigning ourselves to the reality of self-absorption and sinfulness. Look at the Israelites in exile: surely some among them had concluded that, for all the hardships they'd endured, for all the insult and indignity they'd suffered as a captive people, maybe this was the best that life could be for them, that to hope and strive for more was to dream an impossible dream, that it might be better to accept second-class citizenship under foreigners rather than to risk losing even that in pursuing something better.


We've all experienced the strong temptation to just "let things be", to come to terms, perhaps too quickly, and accept the failings of our human lot as a given. Not only that, but aren't we often strongly tempted to make believe that what we've settled for, that for which we've compromised, isn't really so bad an existence after all. At least, it's an "adequate" way of getting by.


Over and against all such glossing over who and where we actually are, Ezekiel throws down before us his vision of this valley of dry bones. He dares us to see ourselves within it. For all our attempts to convince ourselves otherwise, for all our covering up to the contrary, many of us, much of the time, are living in a valley of dry bones. When we gain the courage to face failure and fear, when we stand up and refuse to settle for the shallow, the sordid, the second-best in our lives, then we allow God's creating and recreating Spirit the freedom to raise up our dry bones, to breathe into them the refreshing, revitalizing power of God's presence. This, according to the Gospel, is exactly what Christian faith is based upon. This is what God did for the crucified Jesus, and what God ever does for us all through the Risen Christ. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." We have only to recognize the dryness of our bones to have those bones brought to life again, eternal life, by the power of Christ's Spirit within us.


How do you and I deal with all this during these two weeks before celebrating the great feast of the Resurrection? How do we come to that recognition and hopefulness when we're down and know we're down? Are we, at last, willing to admit it, and to reach out to each other, the community of faith, in whom the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ dwells, the Spirit who reaches out to raise us to new life. In the Eucharist you and I are most dependent on one another as partners in faith: on one another who often, quite unconsciously, through a word, a comment, a gesture, a look in the eyes, convey to each other in a marvelously real way the new life which God is ever holding out to us. We're not doomed forever to our valley of dry bones. Through God's Spirit, groaning within us according to St. Paul, what we bring to and renew in each other is Jesus' own promise: "I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in me, even though he die, yet shall live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die."


Rabbi Harold Kushner relates the beautiful story of a Chinese woman whose only son had died. She went to her holy man and said: "What prayers, what magical formulas do you have to bring my son back to life?" The holy man responded: "Fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow, and we'll use it to drive the sorrow out of your life." The woman went out, and in every house she visited she found misfortune, suffering, despair. She began to stay in each house in order to comfort those in grief. Eventually, she became so involved that she forgot about her original quest for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that, in fact, it had been driven out of her life. The lady felt herself awakening. She came to know the power of resurrection in her own life because she was willing to walk with others through their valley of dry bones.


"Prophesy to these bones," Ezekiel was commanded. "Prophesy to them that they shall live." Especially as we near the conclusion of the Lenten season, it's perhaps good for us to both hear and, hopefully, to proclaim that same prophecy by our actions, to both experience and share that same renewing, raising-up Spirit, the Spirit who turns death into life and transforms dry bones into living beings.

Walking In Light & Love

The message of John’s Gospel (9:1-41) for Lent 4 is so simple and direct, yet so terribly profound. In 8:12 Jesus had said, “I am the light of the world. No follower of mine shall ever walk in darkness; no, he will possess the light of life.” John’s story of the man blind from birth describes how Jesus justifies this claim. It’s a beautiful story, with moments of almost childish naïveté and even a touch of humor. According to the late Scripture scholar, Fr. Raymond Brown, an authority on the Gospel, it shows John’s dramatic skill at its best.


The occasion of the story is that Jesus, walking along with his band of disciples, sees a man blind from birth. The disciples pose a question, arising out of the old tradition “wisdom” which holds that successive generations are punished because of sin, either personal or that of a forbear. Such faulty thinking was still alive in Jesus’ time, and, sadly, we still see remnants of it today. Jesus is very definite in responding: “It was no sin on this man’s part, nor on his parents’ part. Rather, it was to let God’s work be revealed in him…” God’s purpose is served in history, and John’s Jesus speaks of times of darkness and light. “I am the light of the world”, says Jesus, hearkening back to Isaiah 49:6: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”


As is so often the case, Jesus engages the man physically, spitting on the ground, making mud from his saliva, then smearing the man’s eyes with the mud. He directs him to go wash in the pool of Siloam, Greek form of Shiloah = sender or, according to John’s parenthesis, “one who has been sent”. That doesn’t jibe with Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, but I’ll go with the Greek text of John! Siloam was a reservoir within the city connected to a tunnel running from the spring of Gihon, the principal water source for ancient Jerusalem. The man willingly goes off, washes, and returns, now able to see.


Eventually, the news got around and people who used to see the blind man begging begin to question how he could now see. As with most groups faced with a dilemma, everyone becomes an expert. “Wow,...it’s really him, and he can see!” “You got it wrong -- it’s just someone who looks like that blind man.” The man speaks up: “Yep, it sure is me!...that guy, what’s his name?...Jesus...yeah, he made some mud and put it on my eyes. I went and washed in the pool of Siloam, and Voilà!..I can see!”


There are always skeptics, and those who have to check everything out with the religious authorities! So, they trundle the man off to the Pharisee leaders. John quick slips in a reader’s note: “Oh, by the way, it was a Sabbath day when Jesus did all this...just for the record.” Naturally, the Pharisees want to discern what had happened, so they make the man repeat the whole story once again. Immediately, a couple of Pharisees proclaim that Jesus surely can’t be from God because he obviously doesn’t observe shabbat. According to their reckoning: 1) the man’s life wasn’t in any danger; 2) Kneading was one of the 39 works forbidden on the Sabbath by the Mishnah; 3) according to a later tradition, anointing an eye on the Sabbath was unlawful; and 4) one was not supposed to put fasting saliva on the eyes on the Sabbath. The objections didn’t go down well with some; if he’s a sinner, surely he couldn’t do such a miraculous thing. The public squabbling continues, something which interferes with “good order” for the religious leaders.


The Pharisees take a different tack by asking the man what he thinks about Jesus. “He’s a prophet!” -- a no-brainer there! The religious leaders huddle and mumble, and conclude that the guy’s lying, that he surely hadn’t really been blind from birth, so they summon the man’s parents. Probably among the community’s senior citizens, they’re obviously terrified, and probably embarrassed by all the commotion. To admit that Jesus could even possibly be the wonder-working Messiah would’ve gotten them kicked out of their home synagogue. They quickly confirm the man’s identity as their son, and that he was born blind, no question. But as to how got un-blind, “we don’t know. Ask him; he’s old enough to answer for himself.”


So the second grilling on the man starts. Pulling rank they try to bully the man into agreeing with themselves, who are obviously much wiser about such things, that Jesus is really a sinner. With a fresh and innocent directness the man tells them, “Maybe so...I surely wouldn’t know about that. But what I can say is that I was blind before, and now I can see.” They press him further, “Well, just exactly what’d he do to you. Spell it out for us.” Now the newly sighted man is getting a little testy and he delivers what I consider a delightful zinger that must’ve made those Pharisees see red: “Why tell it again? Is it because maybe you’d like to become his disciples?” That, of course, blew off the lid! Angrily, scornfully, disdainfully, these so-called religious models accuse the man of being a disciple, proudly noting they “we are disciples of Moses!” They know God spoke to Moses, but this guy...they don’t even know where he’s from. The man, whom gave the impression earlier of being somewhat soft-spoken, rises now to the occasion and challenges the sputtering Pharisees. “That’s interesting...you don’t even know where he comes from, but he opened my eyes. Surely God wouldn’t empower some stranger, especially a sinner, to do that. God listens to those who are devout and obey God’s will. Why, think about it...it’s totally unheard of that anyone, sinner or not, ever opened the eyes of someone who was born blind!”


When all else fails, corrupt religious leaders can always fall back on the excommunication card, which the Pharisees do, expelling the man from the synagogue, calling him “steeped in sin” and accusing him of “lecturing” them, as they lecture him, and finally throwing him out, maybe even physically. So much for the pious!


Word gets back to Jesus about all of this, and he seeks the man out. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “Who is he, sir,” the man respectfully asks, "that I may believe in him?” “You have seen him, for it is he who is speaking with you.” It seems that v. 38, about the man professing his belief and kneeling down to worship him was probably a later addition, not by John, possibly a liturgical reference. Whether v. 39-41 is also an addition, the points made are certainly valid lessons from the story. “I came...that those who do not see may be able to see, and those who [think they] see many become blind.” If the Pharisees had only been “blind”, in the sense that they really didn’t “get it”, they wouldn’t be guilty, but when their “darkness” -- denial in the face of reality -- now claims to be “light”, they’re lying, resisting Truth itself, and as such, are sinning against the Holy Spirit.


This reading and the other two readings for today’s liturgy (1 Samuel 16:1-13 and Ephesians 5:8-14) have a common thread of people being chosen by God to come into and walk in the light. 1 Samuel recounts God’s election of David as king. He wouldn’t have been Samuel’s nor David’s family’s first choice, but God is clear: “...this is he.”


Paul reminds the Ephesians and us that we, too, have been marked, chosen. He calls us “beloved children” of God, “saints”, holy ones, “children of light”. In Baptism you and I were “marked as Christ’s own forever”, just as the blind man of the Gospel was chosen by God “to let God’s work be revealed in him”.


None of us would be part of the Church had we not first experienced God’s choosing us, a pure gift. For our part, we’ve chosen to be chosen in response, to acknowledge the gift of Jesus the Light in our life, to commit ourselves to letting his light permeate all the dark and unredeemed corners of our hearts and lives, to ungrudgingly share that light with whomever is open to it.


How do I do this? How am I able to walk in the light and love to which God calls me? How do I sidestep being taken in by evil and deception, from within myself and through others? How do I avoid blindness of spirit? Both individuals and communities of faith in the Church go through all levels of spiritual blindness, as well as recognition, just as the man in the Gospel did. There are times when about all we know is that he is “that man they call Jesus”. At other times we see him as a wonder worker, a prophet, or as One whose life is marked by complete obedience to the Father. By his grace, and it alone, we may even come to that stage where we, too, can bow down in faith and say, “I do believe, Lord.”


That is a life-long struggle. I can never say “I’ve arrived.” “The Way” is a continual, deliberate choosing to put aside whatever doesn’t befit “saints”, to bear “the fruit of light” in actions that are good and right and true. How we do this, I believe, lies in the community of believers which we call the Church, those who keep coming together to share his living Word and Presence in Eucharist, then carry the light of that forth into our homes, schools, places of work, community. We need each other for regular care, support, encouragement and prayer in our personal struggles to be faithful, in our frustrations and failures, as well as in our joys and successes. It’s uniquely in the gathering which we call Eucharist, Thanksgiving, that God’s Spirit of Light comes upon us, week by week, year by year. Dorothy Day writes: “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”