Musings on the Daily Lectionary

A blind man who sees and religious leaders who don't; that seems to be a theme of today's gospel reading. It contains part of a longer story about Jesus' healing of a blind man. We hear how some people who have seen the blind man begging have a hard time believing that the sighted man before them is the same fellow. And in the part of the story left out, the religious leaders throw the man out of the synagogue for stating the obvious, that if Jesus can heal a blind man, surely he is from God.

It is interesting how, when we are certain of something, facts to the contrary are difficult for us to see. "Don't confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up," goes one comical take on this phenomenon. Our certainties can make us "blind" to reality, even when we have the best of intentions.

The Pharisees are often depicted as the bad guys in the gospels. In truth, the Pharisees were a reform movement in Judaism, one that emphasized living by God's law over religious ceremony. I imagine that most of them were motivated by genuine religious passion, and they certainly had a lasting, positive impact on Judaism. But it seems that many of them couldn't fit Jesus into their religious certainties. What they already knew blinded them.

I think that the "blindness" caused by religious certainty is more difficult to overcome than other sorts of certainties. And yet many of our religious certainties are of questionable origin. Many Christians and non-Christians alike are absolutely convinced of the "immortality of the soul," but there is nothing in the Bible about this. Probably all of us have deeply held religious convictions that are either not true or half true; which might not matter much except when these convictions blind us to what God is up to.

A spiritual director once suggested a reflection exercise where I asked myself, "Where have I seen God at work in my life today, and where have I missed God at work in my life today?" But how does a blind man know what he hasn't seen? Perhaps I might pray the old hymn, "Open my eyes, that I may see..."

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