Richard Bollman, S.J.

HOMILY: "The Man Born Blind," 4^th Sunday of Lent, A (2007)

The essential teaching in this long story is revealed in its opening lines,

where Jesus has this to say about our human struggle:

the hard situations we live through,

they are the occasion for the work of God to be revealed in us.

All the stuff we carry and have to come to terms with?

the work of God shall be revealed: we are not alone, not left hanging.

Think back to the big change points in your own life:

back when you were first married, back before you found the right college,

back when you were interviewing for a job that you wanted,

or when you felt troubled or alone with the struggle to be good at something,

at friendship, at managing a company, learning to live with cancer . . . .

It’s through these things that we grow into the light.

At least that’s the invitation, the work of grace, as long as we don’t just close up,

back off, resist the truth of what’s happening, and what God might make possible.

When you look back, when you see the times

when the core of your life was exposed,

can you also see, notice, acknowledge that you got through:

something essential about yourself was being revealed or drawn out.

Love, courage, faith.

I often ask engaged couples when it was that they first knew

they belonged to each other, that they would marry and be committed.

There it is: God at work, drawing them toward the bigger mystery of life.

Who does not know someone who lives with chronic or terminal illness

whose courage and vitality seems to have grown through the ordeal,

not of their own grit merely, but the work of God making its way

in the human condition.

Thank back even half a year. What have you been coming to terms with,

and where have you questioned your power to survive,

and all along there is a depth in your story underneath the dark parts,

and that depth is the work of God being revealed, drawing you

to something even greater and finer.

It is like seeing, having your eyes opened.

I think this is the story of teen age years too.

Parents notice that a son turns fourteen or fifteen and seems to be off somewhere,

not the person he was, not the daughter around the house who was such fun.

Right. Don’t we all know this. To be a teenager

is to begin to see that yes, one’s whole life could crash.

You can see the implications, the hopes, the dangers,

and to take the time it takes to follow who you really are,

it’s quite a deal. It’s seeing or not seeing,

Nobody can do it for you.

This story maintains that the living Christ can touch this transition,

and gradually through time, Christ is claimed, understood and met,

as we are challenged, as we look back.

So therefore, you who are our Elect, moving now to the Easter sacraments,

think back to your first moments of checking this out,

the Church question, inquiring, meeting people.

In a way, it all seems so ordinary and human. Thursday nights.

Everyone appears to be sane, accepting, able to entertain hard questions,

about values, conscience, the deeper desires,

about our creator, our origins, the roots we might find in God.

We ritualize this: a beginning inquiry becomes sacred,

"every Thursday, every Sunday,"

and suddenly you know something has happened.

You’ve been touched.

Like muddy paste washed from your eyes,

you see some new possibilities and peace for yourself in life,

some new friends, and a community that feels right.

There it is, a first moment of SEEING.

And then you learn how to LISTEN, to let the word of others

be reinforced with the Word of Christ.

Because people will ask, you yourself might ask,

what does this mean, I’m going to church now.

I have a different sense of right and wrong,

I feel better about myself: what’s going on.

You pinch yourself, maybe you find a doubt here and there,

but maybe you notice how your life starts to fit together,

as you look back, the events, the people who helped you out.

But through it all there is this one person you’ve met in Jesus.

You don’t know him well, but he has made a difference:

he has been a channel, a source. The Word of Life.

"A Prophet" you might say: he put you in touch with the word of God.

And from this point on you have a whole new horizon.

It’s an awkward time then. Seeing and listening in new ways,

this can lead to new choices in life,

troublesome invitations to be different than you were.

A person who is beginning to live from inner freedom

can feel awkward, like Rosa Parks taking her seat in the bus,

or a high school athlete trying out for the play,

or like many women in our church

expanding our notion of God’s life and person–

you name it. Walking in freedom, from within, brings trouble.

But a good kind of trouble.

You don’t want to give up that spark

even if it leaves you "not fitting" anymore.

And it is at such a time, according to the story,

that Jesus is most attentive to what is going on, looking for you,

offering MUTUAL FRIENDSHIP AND RECOGNITION.

And so you come to a moment of real conversion, turning,

entering into friendship as a companion with Jesus. Directly.

"Do you want to be my disciple, do you trust me over the long haul?

It is only I myself who speak to you, the one you wait for."

There you are, encountering Jesus not just as a prophet and teacher,

but as the One who is promised to come, in whom we can

place our whole soul and our deepest faith.

"Yes, I believe," you say.

And there is this moment of worship.

"Worship" is not a second thing, not subsequent to the encounter.

The encounter and mutual exchange, that IS the worship God invites,

in spirit and truth, as Jesus told the woman at the well.

So there it is, our whole story of waking up out of the dark.

The life challenge we live with, that we can’t turn away from,

it leads to a new way of seeing. There are people to join in with,

there is a way of life that makes sense and satisfied our thirst.

We find help from the scriptures, from listening with open mind,

and we know Jesus is a Prophet, one who brings the word to us.

And finally, in every difficulty, he offers himself

as the divine presence in whom we shall abide, who abides in us:

the one who has been sent for the rebirth of the world.

It is that tremendous acknowledgment, giving over everything in trust,

toward which our life keeps moving.

Finally getting it. We have nothing to fear.

Christ lives in us, and we in Christ.