HOMILY for March 26, 2017: 4th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

PODCAST - Press sideways triangle below to listen   

or click here if there is no triangle

4^th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

St. Mark Parish 4:00 pm Mass

March 26, 2017

The Call to Initiate and Fear Not in Doing So

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

Jesus Initiates

In today’s Gospel story Jesus takes the initiative. He sees a man who was born blind from birth and does not turn his eyes away.

In not turning he quickly clears up the mistaken belief that this man’s blindness was due to sin.  Passersby would all turn the other way admitting by their actions that sinfulness was the cause of his blindness.

That is why Jesus initiative is more than just a kind gesture. 

Note that he then makes a mud paste with soil and saliva, and smears it on the man’s eyes.

He then tells the man to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam.  And notice that the passage carefully says that the name “Siloam” means “Sent.”

So this man is “sent” to the pool to wash.  And, after his healing, he is again “sent” and this time to proclaim his faith in Jesus.

In being sent, he professes Jesus as a good man, a prophet, and finally the Son of Man.  The title “Son of Man” means the human being closest to God.

And so this man is both (1) Healed and (2) Sent, and he goes.

We Initiate

In this story, we are challenged to take the initiative in the name of Jesus in assisting someone in need.

As with Jesus, we don’t need to know the background or worthiness of the person.  We assist in healing simply because the individual is in need. At times that person whom we’ve touched by our kindness will experience a sending, a sharing their being helped with others.

So someone is seriously sick; we assist with companionship, with caring for their personal needs, sharing prayer with them. 

And as Jesus sends the blind man to testify to others, we “send,” in some small way, the sick person to share their good experience with others who may not even know us or what we did.

Or a family member or someone we know has an addiction, we try to hang in there with them without enabling them.   And our “sending” of this person may be our guidance of them toward a twelve-step program. 

They Are Afraid

The other major point I want to note from our Gospel is that some people are afraid of Jesus’ gift of seeing.

Notice, the man’s parents and neighbors, and the religious leaders, do not rejoice in the man’s eyesight.  Instead, they find fault with Jesus.

And their reaction gets to the underlying gift that Jesus is giving here – spiritual eyesight, to see with God’s eyes. The passage uses the word “afraid” to describe how they respond.

These people are afraid to admit that Jesus enables the man to see physically because then they would have to admit that he enables all of us to see who he really is and what he’s able to do. They are afraid of this because they are not sure what it would mean for them.

It might mean that they would have to change in some way and follow him, so their fear, then, leads them to remain spiritually blind to him.

We Are Afraid

Being afraid can also keep us from seeing – from seeing spiritually, from seeing as our parish sign says, “With the eyes of God.”

I have been thinking of the genuine fear so many have of Muslims and of Islam.  Fear has led some to demonize all Muslims.

It is something like the dynamic we see in today’s Gospel.  The religious leaders see Jesus as sinful because he has broken the Sabbath law.

And because of that, they make a generalization and believe that nothing good can come from him.  For them, if a person does one thing wrong, the entire person is bad.

That same dynamic is at play when we see whole groups of people – be they Muslims or any minority.  If some of the group do evil – as the terrorists – then the whole group must be bad, sinful. It was said of Italian and Irish immigrants.

Fear, being afraid, is what leads us to this.  When we let fear control us, we are like the parents and neighbors and religious leaders in this story.

We are blocked from seeing – from seeing with the eyes of God and his treatment of all persons as brothers and sisters, as God’s daughters and sons.  That fear and its blindness led the people to reject Jesus.

Things get turned upside down in the Gospel where the blind see and those who see become blind.

Conclusion

Today’s Gospel has much to teach us.

It calls us (1) To take the initiative in coming to the needs of other, regardless, and (2) To work through our fear and be open to seeing with the eyes of God.