Homily - Blindness, Culture, and a Tangle of Knots

OrthoAnalytika

Sunday of the Blind Man

Immediate context: God has power and compassion. When He says He invites us to join Him in His plans for remaking us and the world, we can trust both His intent and His ability to deliver.

John 20:30-31. 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

Symbolic context:

Matthew 6:22-24 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Popular song: We were blind, but now we see.

True, but incomplete. Given eyes when we accepted the reality of Christ as the Son of God and united ourselves to Him and dedicated ourselves to His plan, the Gospel.

But our eyes still see things through a mirror dimly. Why?

If we believed, were made new, then put into a perfect community – back in Eden, we could be grown well. God and the community would help us identify and root out the complex web of interconnected dysfunctions…

But is that what happened? No. So we are working out our brokenness in the midst of others who are.

So the answer? Long term - a healing culture.

Short term: the virtue of humility about our own discernment. About everything.

And trust the one that has power has included all of this in His plan