Readings:
1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a
Psalm 23: 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41
I will never forget when I learned I needed glasses. I was eight years old and in second grade. We were playing ‘Around the World’ with multiplication problems. I was on a roll, winning against every one of my classmates. Until I stepped to the back row, the card was flipped over by the teacher – and I couldn’t read it. I lost to my classmate, a girl named Laura, who moved on to our next classmate, while I stood there confused and bewildered. I couldn’t see it. And I had lost. At eight years old, it just felt unfair, because I wanted to win. But I couldn’t, because I couldn’t see. And I didn’t know why.
Many years of glasses and contacts later, I am comfortable with these aids I need to help me see clearly and navigate the world. As I read this Sunday’s gospel, I think about the man born blind and I wonder – what was it like when he opened his eyes? What was it like to see things? I also wonder about the times when I have been the person who – for a multitude of reasons – didn’t recognize Jesus in front of me.
I have had so many encounters that shift the lenses not only for my eyes that see the physical world but shift how I understand it. Encounters and new ways of seeing change how you move in the world. Not just what do I see – what do I recognize? My children change how I see and recognize the world around me. They keep me attentive to what I say and do and what it means to lead by example and model a life of discipleship. My community, especially my faith community, challenges me to look at the world differently. It is my faith and my community, my growing search for where God is calling me in the world, that works to see every person I encounter as my neighbor, especially the widow, the orphan, the stranger in a new land, and every person made vulnerable
I see the man born blind in the gospel and I used to simply acknowledge him as a man who couldn’t physically see. I have learned to see someone who was vulnerable, who was used, who wasn’t heard or understood. I see leaders who struggled to see God working in their midst.I can see a community of people struggling in a time of empire. I am sure there is more that God is calling me to see in this gospel and in this moment. I know that there is plenty I do not see and ways I need mud smeared over my eyes that I might come to see things entirely anew. As we move through these final weeks of Lent, may God find new ways to open our eyes to recognize who is truly standing before us.