Fourth Sunday in Lent A
30 March 2014
José Enrique Ruiz de Galaretta S.J.
THEMES AND CONTEXT
THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL
This text of the First book of Samuel
Falls within the tradition of the divine choice of the least worthy in the eyes of men. The problem is to find a new king, for Saul has proved himself unworthy and has been rejected by the Lord. The prophet Samuel is searching for the one chosen by God, who happens to be the last, the least appreciated of all. God’s choice is never made by taking into account the merits of the man. This is a theme constantly found in Scripture. Paul will develop this theme at length in the first chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians.
THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS
The theme of light is developed. Before you were darkness, now you are light. The text develops a beautiful symbolism: you were darkness, your works were works of blind people, they were sterile. The light exposes what is sterile, unclean. Now you are enlightened by the light of Christ. Earlier you were asleep, now you have awakened to the light.
THE MAN BORN BLIND
This is the second of the great “SIGNS” of the Gospel of John brought together in these Sundays of Lent. Last Sunday the sign was Water. Today it is light. Not only the light that shines in the sky, the sun, but the light that is born in man, which draws one out of darkness. Let us pause to analyze the story of John.
1. We are dealing with a story of an event that took place, made use of by the evangelist for catechetical purposes. Jesus cured blind people (Mark 8 & 10, Luke 11 & 18, Matthew 9,12,15,20,21). This is one of the stories, the only story of a blind man recorded by John. The healing is briefly told. John, with a perfect sense of drama, uses this healing to show the progression of the men of good will towards the light, which is to accept Jesus, and the regression of the “just”, who are increasingly plunged into their blindness, preferring their own ideas on God, to the Word itself.
2. Above all, the miracle takes the form of a sign. On the whole, it shows Jesus as a prophet, confirmed by the signs. Together with this they are concrete signs: Jesus is light, and the healing with water. They are symbols of baptism. This story was used in the primitive Church in the preparation and the scrutinizes before baptism, and baptism itself was presented as enlightenment, getting out of darkness to come to the light of Christ, who is life and fertility. There is a beautiful phrase of Saint Augustine: “This bind man stands for the human race. If blindness is the lack of faith, enlightenment is faith..(The blind man) washes his eyes in the pool of Siloe, which means “The One Sent”: that is, he receives the light of Christ.”
3. The story is placed in the usual dynamics of John, of opposition of pharisaic “orthodoxy” to Jesus. Jesus is considered a sinner, because he breaks the Sabbath rest. Hence he cannot come from God. So then this is a story in which Jesus “provokes” legality. There was no immediate need for a cure. Hence the story is written from the perspective of the Passion and of the Cross, as the height of the blindness caused by the darkness that rejects the light.
In the story there is an allusion to the threat that those who follow Jesus would be expelled from the synagogue. Beside the fact that this would help us to date the text during or shortly after the official expulsion of Jewish Christians (around the year 90), there is included here the extension of the persecution to the followers of Jesus.(“If they have done it to me...you too.” “A time is coming when anyone who persecutes you will believe he is giving glory to God.” “Happy are those who suffer persecution for justice...”).
4. All this shows us one of the fundamental core ideas of the Gospel of John. Jesus is not rejected only – nor chiefly- by “the world”, that is, by worldly ways of living. There is a still more disquieting rejection on the part of religious people, “the just”. Jesus is received with delight by “sinners”, those who are conscious of their insufficiency, those who know they are sinners, those who are looking to be freed by God from their condition of sinners, a burden to them, and from which they cannot free themselves. Jesus is regarded with suspicion and finally rejected by those who thought of themselves as just, those who fulfilled the law. And it is true, they did fulfill it. But they are blind: they do not know that they do not have any merit, and what they have is a gift of God for them to help their brethren, and nevertheless they have made of their “virtue” a reason for arrogance and believe that God is in debt to them, unlike their sinful brethren. This leads us to the theme of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, of which we spoke in the thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
R E F L E C T I O N
God is Water for the journey through the desert. God is Light to help us walk without stumbling. We are continuing on the wonderful world of symbols with which the Bible and the Gospels speak to us – so marvelously – of God. The symbol of light comes from the beginning, from the book of Genesis. The first word of God that appears in the Bible is :God is light and order. With God reality can be seen; without God, all is darkness and chaos. Exodus continues to make use of the symbol: God guides the people, like a pillar of fire. And it goes on being developed in the Prophets, especially in Isaiah: “The people who walked in the darkness saw a great light.” “Arise, Jerusalem, for your light is coming.” John takes up this thread from the prologue to his Gospel.
In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness,
but the darkness has not understood it.
The true light that gives light to every man
was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and though the world was made through him,
the world did not recognize him.
He came to that which was his own,
but his own did not receive him.
This is the drama that makes up the inner train of thought of the Gospel of John. Jesus, the light of God which shines in the darkness, and men close themselves to the light, in an inexplicable mystery.
This theme supposes a deeper entry
Into the theme of sin and God. God is light, but we shut ourselves off from the light, and that is the essence of sin.
GOD IS LIGHT
Quite often we understand God as someone added on to reality, as if there existed things, events, the ordinary tasks of our lives and...besides, religion, the faith, God. It’s all the other way around: there exists one Reality, and we are in it in the dark, trying to grasp it only with our senses and our reason. And with them we see very little, we proceed blindly, we stumble, we lose our way. God is the light that helps us not to live blindly. With God we understand things, life, work, death...
All this clarifies still more the notion of “sin” in the Gospel: a blunder for lack of light. We have insisted too much on judicial aspects of sin: obedience, guilt. And too little in factual objective aspects: disorientation, error, stumbling for lack of light. We have insisted too much on the condition of freedom of the human being: I am able to choose and when I choose apart from God, against the law of God, I do so by exercising my freedom in a culpable manner. The Gospel does not consider us free, responsible persons, but slaves of sin: and God does not judge free and responsible persons, but helps blind slaves, to see better and free themselves from their chains.
Gospel means GOOD NEWS PRECISELY FOR THIS REASON: It brings us light to live properly, it informs us about who God is, it frees us from that judicial stance, brings light about God and about the human being: a wonderful news: we can see, we can journey, and God is our light.
SIN IS TO BLOCK OUT THE LIGHT
This second theme of the reading of the man born blind is more moving and chilling. Enclosed in the cave of the world, in the dark subterranean labyrinth of making sense of life, the light of Jesus shines out, and everything is illumined with joy and hope...but some shut their eyes, return to the shadows, reject the light...And these are not “the sinners” but the “just”. It is the most dramatic argument of the Gospels, when John says that “the darkness did not receive him”, he came to his own and his own did not receive him.”
Why did they not receive him? It is quite clear historically: Jesus does not fulfill messianic expectations , does not promote political liberation, he is not interested in having Jerusalem made the centre of the world, he does not back the interests of the priestly class...Politically and economically speaking, Jesus is of no use to them.
To go deeper along this line of thought, Jesus strips religious leaders of all power. Leaders are there to serve; pastors have no purpose beyond seeing to it that the herd of sheep live well; there are no sacred intermediaries between God and the heart of man. It is the very idea of religion that is at stake. The leaders of Israel saw very clearly that Jesus was a most serious danger. The temple loses leadership, Jerusalem will not be a holy city, the priest will not control the mysteries... It’s inevitable that they will reject Jesus, understandable that they will do away with him from their midst.
Going a little deeper into this attitude, we see that it comes from the fact that they have taken possession of the Word of God for their own benefit. They have put God at their service: God is used so that the people of Israel can be greater than other nations, that the priests can be greater than the faithful, so that the learned control the faith of the people. They have taken possession of God for their own benefit. And when the light of God is shone on them they appear naked and filthy... There are only two options: wash themselves in the new Water, use the light to change...or block the light, try to stamp it out... or try again to gain possession of it and confine it to again make use of it.
In the crude language of the recently cured blind man an unbearable light shines for the leaders, the priests and the learned: they have no option but to expel him from the synagogue...and to persecute Jesus. The discussion of Jesus with them is dramatic. It is reflected at the end of this gospel: Jesus said: For this I came into the world so that those who do not see, see; and those who see remain blind.”
The Pharisees who were with him heard this and asked him: “Are we too also blind?” Jesus answered: If you weren’t blind, you would not have sin; but, since you say you see, your sin remains.”
FOR OUR PRAYER
1. Let us read the story of John, very slowly, savoring each detail. As we read it see the hand of John as he tells it to us. John was there, he saw the healing. John sees and believes. And he transmits faith relating what he saw and believed. Read the Gospel with the eyes of John, believing in Jesus, accepting the challenge of believing in Him, ready to accept the Light even though it hurts the darkness in us. John has understood that Jesus breaks the Law, which is “something else”. Contemplate in Jesus the effort of the love of God to save. Renew faith in Him, accept him as the light of life. Accept that God is like what Jesus shows him to be. Make an act of trust in God, my Savior.
We make ourselves present at the scene, we mix with the people, we join one of the groups. Which one? Do I feel relieved, enthusiastic about what Jesus does and says? Do I feel frightened, tempted to reject him, as if the light of Jesus were a danger to the kind of life I lead?
2. The Salt of the earth, the light of the world... that’s you all: let them see your deeds and recognize the Father. A wonderful summary of the meaning of our lives: to make the Kingdom shine out, that it should be clearly seen and attractive. In our own lives we have enjoyed the company of people who have given us much light. It is our vocation. It is not what we say but what we do that can give a little light to this society.
3. During these days the assassination of Bishop Oscar Romero completes thirty years, which was celebrated with champagne the day he died. His assassins still rule the very country they continue to crucify. They are an existing example of the fierce resistance of the darkness to the light:”they preferred the darkness for their works were evil.”
Neither the assassination of Romero nor that of Ellacuria and his companions, men and women, nor of so many others has been officially recognized as martyrdom, but it doesn’t matter: the spiritual sense of the people of God has canonized them. They did so while they lived and they continue to do it. They do not need to tell us from above what light is and what darkness is all about. Thank God, we have eyes.
PSALM 27
The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, whom shall I fear.
The psalmist expresses faith in God, Way and Word, and in symbols appropriate to his times points out the dangers of life, his trust in God and his longing for Him.
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