Fourth Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

Reflecting on John 9: 1-41

One of the things we know for sure about Jesus is that he tried to divest people of the things they knew for sure. It’s our sureties that need to be dismantled before we can clearly see God’s work in our lives.

The disciples knew for sure that blindness (and all misfortune) was the result of sin somewhere in the family tree. In an uneasy world of sky-high infant mortality and the ever present violence of the Roman occupiers, it was comforting to assign some kind of sin to those who had huge challenges.

We can picture the disciples thinking, as they encountered the man blind from birth, “How horrible to have to navigate the world without sight. I must find a reason why he is blind and I’m not. I’ve got it! He must have sinned somewhere along the line. Thank God I’m not a sinner.”

Some contemporary ways in which we assure ourselves that bad things don’t happen to virtuous people might be: I wear my seat belt, so I’ll never have a catastrophic injury in a car crash. I’ve never smoked, so I’ll never get lung cancer. I made every sacrifice raising my kids in the faith, so of course they will love it and raise their kids in the faith too.

Except, of course, people with their seat belts firmly fastened die in car crashes, and non-smokers get lung cancer every day. And we’re all watching the culture lure this generation into a worldview that dismisses religious faith.

We can’t distance ourselves from pain and hope it never finds us. But this we know this for sure: Jesus is with us in blindness and in sight.

How do you walk in faith in a scary world?

Kathy McGovern ©2017

Lent - Cycle A