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Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

30 Mar 2014

SUNDAY SUMMARY 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Without guidance even a prophet can't see what is obvious from the divine perspective. Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 Like sheep in the hands of a caring shepherd, we enter the dark valley with confidence. Ephesians 5:8-14 Darkness is banished in the light of Christ which awakens us to fuller life. John 9:1-41 A blind man is given sight. That troubles those who still can't see.

Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

03 Apr 2011

SUNDAY SUMMARY 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Despite improbable odds, David is anointed the next king of Israel. Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 With God as our guide and guardian, even the dark valley is no threat. Ephesians 5:8-14 We awaken from the sleep of death into the light of Christ! John 9:1-41 A blind man teaches the sighted how to see clearly.

Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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The light of the world

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41 WE DO NOT SEE as God sees. We see the appearance, but God looks into the heart. That message came home to the prophet Samuel, as he looked down the row of Jesse's fine and handsome sons. He was on a quest for the next leader of Israel. Israel's first king, Saul, was large and powerful, charismatic and courageous in battle. But in fact Saul had made a dreadful ruler, vain and unwise. So Samuel was taking his time in reviewing Jesse's able sons. God told him this was the right house, but Samuel feared these were the wrong sons. Being a seer, he knew which question to ask: "Are these all the sons you have?" Samuel knew there was nothing wrong with what he was seeing. It was what he was not seeing that was the key to his mission. And so he met David and anointed the rightful king over Israel. That is our first lesson in discernment, which could be defined as learning to see as God sees. Beyond the surface of things lies the essence of reality that we often call the heart of the matter. At the core of people and circumstances is a truth much more powerful than what we observe with our eyes. But because it takes time and wisdom to navigate to the core, mostly we dismiss it in favor of what delights us at first glance. On the surface of things the man born blind was a luckless individual. Either he was a terrible sinner or a product of sin. At least that was the popular theory of the day. God had deprived him of his sight for a reason. Jesus did not disagree with that assessment. And he suggested that the reason was not what people thought. The blind man wasn't a signpost of the effects of sin; he was a receptacle for God's imminent glory. Jesus took the apparent situation and turned it on its head. Which is what Jesus often did with accepted reality. Think about the popular assumptions Jesus overthrew: Suffering wasn't payback for sin but an opportunity for grace. Death was not the trapdoor of the underworld but the gateway to eternal life. The poor had the kingdom given to them. The meek would inherit what the powerful had to surrender. The last, incredibly, would be first. Think about the popular assumptions Jesus overthrew: Suffering wasn't payback for sin but an opportunity for grace. Death was not the trapdoor of the underworld but the gateway to eternal life. Because Jesus saw to the heart of the matter, he knew the man born blind could see far better than the religious leaders around him The comedy that emerges from the cure demonstrates that. All of a sudden the man's neighbors aren't sure this is the fellow they've seen on his stoop all their lives. Isn't this man supposed to be blind? The Pharisees study this act of God and absurdly conclude that its roots are in sin. They drag in the parents to testify on behalf of a grown man, which is lunacy of course; but that's how little the personhood of this man is respected. Finally they put the man formerly known as blind back on the witness stand and insist he disavow the "sinner" who cured him. Naturally, this he cannot do. With utter simplicity, he declares: "If this man is a sinner, I do not know. But one thing I do know: I was blind and now I see." Clarity of vision in the face of the miraculous is one thing the authorities cannot take away, not with all their arguments and certitudes. The fellow now more properly known as "the man who sees" encounters Jesus a second time. Jesus asks him if he believes in the apocalyptic figure of the Son of Man. The man who sees knows instinctively which question to ask. He doesn't engage in theological queries about the meaning of this figure. He asks only, "Who is he?" Like the prophet Samuel he waits only to be pointed in the right direction. And Jesus points to himself: "The one speaking with you is he." We recognize these words from the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. The one people are seeking is always the one whose words they are already hearing. We, too, stand in the presence of Jesus. We wait for truth like a compass to point us to the way of life. We hear the word of God proclaimed in our midst and recognize that the one who speaks is the one our hearts have been yearning for. To our hearts Jesus is true north. If we follow the sound of his voice, we can never be lost. Jesus, we believe and profess, is the light of the world who opens the eyes of the blind so they might see. Elect and baptized, we want to see as God sees, with the clear vision of discernment. We seek to know the heart of the matter as we make choices in our relationships, in our labor, in the things dearest to each of us. We know the cure for our blindness: "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

Authors Alice Camille

Special occasion Lent Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A scrutinies rcia rite of christian initiation of adults catechumens 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

26 Mar 2017

SUNDAY SUMMARY 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Jesse’s tree is about to bear fruit of a kind that will last to the end of the age. Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 (1) Fear has no power against the one guided by God along right paths. Ephesians 5:8-14 The faithful leave darkness behind and step into the light of Christ. John 9:1-41 A man who could never see anything comes to see better than his betters.

1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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Preaching the News for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

26 Mar 2017

SUNDAY SUMMARY 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Jesse’s tree is about to bear fruit of a kind that will last to the end of the age. Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 (1) Fear has no power against the one guided by God along right paths. Ephesians 5:8-14 The faithful leave darkness behind and step into the light of Christ. John 9:1-41 A man who could never see anything comes to see better than his betters.

1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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You’re under arrest!

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41 CHRISTIANS TODAY seem to have a lot to worry about. We’re concerned with the place of prayer in public schools, posting the Ten Commandments in courthouses, getting the right judges onto the Supreme Court, and electing worthy political candidates into our government. Christians do and ought to play a prominent role in civic affairs. Our voices should be heard and our values brought to bear on the national debate. But we must not forget that the original interface between Christians and their governments was not a smooth one. On the local level the followers of Jesus were seen as rabble-rousers and troublemakers. From the view of the empire they were bad citizens and possibly a threat to the state itself. Christians apparently had their own king, their own governing authority, and their own way of life that was as countercultural as it was attractive. If the community were not contained, it was bound to spread and the threat grow ever worse. Jesus himself was arrested and put to death by the state under sentence of being “the king of the Jews.” Paul and Peter were both executed in Rome in the 60s, and by the end of the 1st century, the arrest, trial, and execution of Christians was pretty standard. It’s no wonder that the gospels include advice as to how disciples should behave before the courts; assurances that the right testimony would be provided through the Spirit’s power; frank admissions that those who can kill the body can never extinguish the life of the soul. The Acts of the Apostles even supplies the stories of famous and fearless testimonies like Stephen’s—which cost him his life—and Paul’s, which takes many turns over many years yet remains steadfast. Our RCIA elect may feel that in the past weeks and months their faith has been, in a sense, on trial before God and this community. One of the best primers for Christians under arrest is the Johannine story of the man born blind. The man doesn’t get a name, which is typical of John’s technique; he eliminates the name of Jesus’ mother, enlarging her to the role of Woman, and does not name the Beloved Disciple, permitting us all to share that space. We can therefore imagine that John wants us to understand we are all born blind and in need of a fateful encounter with Jesus to open our eyes. And in this Everyman (and Everywoman) character we also get five lessons in what to expect when our faith is on trial—as the writer of John presumes it will be, sooner or later. Lesson Number One: Tell what you know. Your life was a blind alley before you met Jesus. Now you can see. These are simple truths. You don’t have to do great theology to make the point. Lesson Number Two is a harsher one: Don’t expect support from family, friends, and neighbors. Those who have also met Jesus will see what you see. The rest will wash their hands of you. The blind cannot testify to what they don’t see. They’ll forget they even knew you! The next lesson, Number Three, takes confidence in the power of God’s Word: Don’t repeat yourself. Those who can hear will hear the first time. Those who can’t hear won’t hear the tenth time. The more you repeat yourself, the harder their hearts will grow. Lesson Number Four is serious enough to be funny: Your mature sense of humor in Christ probably won’t play well, especially among those who consider themselves religious authorities. Trying to teach the teachers will not impress or endear them to your cause either. The final lesson, Number Five, is: Jesus is not one whom we meet but once. He is always coming around again, and the next encounter rounds out the first—the way the Second Coming completes the Incarnation. So it makes no difference whether your trial ends with you being bounced into the street or into an early grave: Jesus will find you again. He knows where you live, if you live in him. Our RCIA elect may feel that in the past weeks and months their faith has been, in a sense, on trial before God and this community. They have had to tell what they know, respond to questions, and put their own lives under personal scrutiny to answer the ultimate question of this process: Am I ready to participate in the life of Christ? Am I ready to stand in the dock with the rest of Christianity and make my life, from here on out, a testimony to what I believe? Although the elect may feel particularly addressed by this issue because of their candidacy for full admission to the church, the whole assembly should feel personally challenged by the story of the man born blind and his faithful witness. None of us may be hauled off to a courtroom in our lifetime because of what we believe. But that doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility to tell what we know, simply and clearly, and to live what we know as passionately as possible.

Authors Alice Camille

Special occasion Lent Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A scrutinies rcia rite of christian initiation of adults catechumens 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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Eyes to see

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41 WE ALL KNOW FOLKS who don’t appreciate what they have and are always looking for more. Take the man with a terrific wife and kids who has a fascination for a woman at the office. Or the woman with the great job and comfortable apartment who’s obsessed with getting a better job and bigger condo. People “trade up” cookware, cars, homes, and relationships with frightening regularity. Is more really better? Meanwhile credit card debt soars, marriages crumble, and landfills rise. If we had eyes to see we might discover, like Dorothy on her return from Oz, that everything we are looking for we already possess. Even prophets can be tempted to see the surface and miss the heart of things. When Samuel goes looking for the next king of Israel, he is guided to Jesse who has eight sons. But only seven sons are paraded before Samuel. Each has what the worldly eye appreciates: stature and an attractive appearance. In the average American election, any one of these sons would be telegenic enough to win office. Samuel is taken in at first, but the wisdom of God reminds him to look deeper. Once the spell of attraction is broken, Samuel sees plainly that none of these young men are suitable for the divine purpose. Even prophets can be tempted to see the surface and miss the heart of things. And so David, the youngest son with a poet’s heart, is brought from the fields. To the eye—and perhaps to the nose, because he’s fresh from the flocks—David is an impossible choice. Although sharing the family good looks, his own father dismissed him as an insignificant person. Samuel, however, looks at David from a God’s-eye view and knows, “This is the one!” Saint Paul writes that Christians have made a crucial journey from darkness into the light. It’s as if we were sleepers who have been summoned into wakefulness. Without faith, we might be taken in by the lure of “more” and “better.” In the light of Christ, we see we already have more than we need and plenty to share. Yet religious vision can be lulled back into slumber if we do not exercise it. That is what happened to the religious leaders around Jesus. Though armed with God’s revealing word, their perception was poorer than the sight of a blind man. The Pharisees looked at the man and only saw “sin” like a brand on his forehead. They were not interested in the man himself. That would have required compassion, and a sinner was not worthy of a righteous person’s mercy. When the man’s sight is restored, the authorities are thrown into a quandary. This healing wreaks havoc with the system of rewards and punishments they so dearly hold. A gratuitous miracle like this one throws a wrench in the workings of the theological machine. It implies something about the mercy of God they aren’t prepared to accept. Jesus, of course, knows that very well. The forgiveness of sin is precisely the lesson he wanted to drive home with every miraculous sign and nail of the cross. It is the cosmic monkey wrench that confounds moralists and drives the keepers of religion into utter confusion. What do we see in this elaborate story of the man once blind? First there is the innocence of the disciples, who have swallowed what they learned about the connection between sin and suffering, as many of us have. This kind of thinking is a philosophical talisman: It wards off the possibility of pain for we who don’t “deserve” it. The fact that this line of thinking doesn’t keep the pain away has not served to diminish its popularity. Then there are the neighbors of the once-blind beggar, who can’t imagine him without his blindness. Because the man before them is sighted, they question what their eyes tell them. In the choice between their eyes and their preconceptions, they close their eyes and hold fast to their preconceptions. The parents of the man born blind are frightened. They acknowledge their son, but they are afraid to acknowledge the great work God has done in him if it offends the leaders of their religion. In the choice between God and religion, they bow before religion. And what of the recipient of the miracle himself? He only knows the simple truth: that he was blind, and now he sees. And when pressed to name his allegiance, to God or to this “sinner” who healed him, the man opens his eyes even wider. “If this man were not from God,” the once-blind fellow says, “he would not be able to do anything.” Together, this Lenten assembly of elect and baptized seeks to see what the man born blind has come to see. May our vision be as clear and our confidence be in God’s mercy.

Authors Alice Camille

Special occasion Lent Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A scrutinies rcia rite of christian initiation of adults catechumens 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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Now I see

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41 IT'S THE LAST LINE of today’s gospel reading that’s the real zinger. Jesus tells the Pharisees that their real sin is that they keep insisting that they see when in fact they are blind to everything Jesus is showing them. We can imagine their answer: “Surely you’re not suggesting that we are blind, are you? Because we know how God has set up the world. Good things happen to good people, and bad people are blind from birth. O.K., maybe this man isn’t directly responsible for his blindness, but his parents must have been sinners, right? And we know for sure that you are a sinner because you brazenly heal on the ‘sabbath!’ ” The world is an uncertain place. We cling to any small certitudes we can, hoping to keep a distance between ourselves and illness or death. Eventually, though, we acknowledge that there is much in our lives that is out of our control. The world is an uncertain place. We cling to any small certitudes we can, hoping to keep a distance between ourselves and illness or death. Eventually, though, we acknowledge that there is much in our lives that is out of our control. Maybe that’s why the bystanders recruited everyone they could to confirm their suspicions that the man would never have been blind—or had he been faking it all these years?—if he or his parents hadn’t been sinners to begin with. After all, they might say, look at us! We’re not sinners, which is why we’re not blind. Our own response to bad news is often similar: Yes, it’s terrible that she has lung cancer, but she probably smoked, and I don’t smoke, so I’ll never get lung cancer. Yes, it’s horrible about the car accident, but I’ll bet he wasn’t wearing his seat belt, and I always wear my seat belt, so the same thing won’t ever happen to me. There’s something in us that needs to find a reason why bad things happen to very good people, because it’s too awful to admit that they could happen to us as well. But once we face that fact, perhaps we are ready to let God shake us from our cynicism, peel away our layers of bravado, and actually heal us as well. It’s not a trick. It’s not a plot hatched years ago to make us think the blind man was blind when he really could see all this time. His parents weren’t in on it, and he wasn’t in on it. That man they call Jesus touched him, and then he could see. Fortunately, those who are asking for full entrance into the church this Easter are with us today. They come with open hearts, asking us to pray with them that Christ our Light will open their eyes even wider to the mystery of Christ in them. This business of “seeing” is a lifelong process. We turn ourselves towards the Light and have brief glimmers of the Light. But when we see Jesus face-to-face, we will cry out in wonder, Ah! I once was blind but now I see.

Authors Kathy McGovern

Special occasion Lent Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A scrutinies rcia rite of christian initiation of adults catechumens 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

22 Mar 2020

SUNDAY SUMMARY 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Samuel anoints the unlikely son of Jesse to be king. Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 The Lord shepherds us even in the dark valley. Ephesians 5:8-14 Awake, sleeper, and rise from the dead. John 9:1-41 The blind man sees, and the leaders remain blind.

1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

19 Mar 2023

SUNDAY SUMMARY 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Seeing as God sees requires a shake-up in our secular values. Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 The dark valley may seem fearful, but the Lord is our shepherd. Ephesians 5:8-14 Darkness is in our past, but the Lord of light is our future. John 9:1-41 Born blind? We all are. But there’s hope for a cure in Jesus.

1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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