Fourth Sunday of Lent – A
Hundreds of people walked past the blind beggar every day and they saw only blindness and ugliness. Jesus, however, opened the box of poverty and disability and helped those in his company see God breaking into their lives. Jesus saw a God of surprises who uses a person reduced to begging to open people’s eyes to divine riches!
It seems so natural for us to classify the people we meet as either superior or inferior, attractive, or unattractive. We have trained our eyes to look for differences. We use ourselves as the norm. People’s gender, skin color or ethnic background are mentally organized for our personal benefit. We can learn to value such differences by realizing that God may be waiting to surprise us with a new awareness of grace in these very differences, in these ethnicities or in these skin colors.
When we are suddenly aware of a very attractive person, how do we react? Do we shy away because we may feel less attractive? Or are we able to see that God creates beautiful people to remind us that we are not meant to isolate ourselves; that God will drive us out of our box of isolation and into a grace-filled world. Beauty is an occasion of grace! Does the awareness of someone’s different skin color or ethnic origins cause us to move away or can we realize that the diversity of color and ethnicity also makes the human family attractive! The differences we notice in others can seduce us into deciding if we are better than or worse than someone else.
These same differences could be a reminder of the beauty and variety of God’s creation, if we but open ourselves up to God’s creation. God may break through to us when we suddenly become aware of differences – this too is Grace!
The blind beggar sat all day while people passed by noticing only the exterior. Jesus’ own disciples were even concerned with whether he sinned, or his parents sinned to make him blind. The Pharisees were only concerned with the fact that he was healed on the Sabbath. No one, only Jesus, took the time to see what was below the surface. No one cared that this man was also human; that he had a heart and soul, that he should be treated with dignity. They were all caught up with the exterior. God is concerned with the interior!
The Blind Beggar had faith. Listen again to what he tells the authorities: “If he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.” Jesus performed the miracle, yes. But it took faith on the part of the blind beggar to be open to the grace of God in his life! God may break through to us when we suddenly become aware of His Grace.
This morning as we celebrate the Sacred Liturgy, let us be aware of the differences around us, and the grace that God gives us to acknowledge the differences and the grace! When we come to acknowledge that there is a little bit of the Blind Beggar in each of us, then we too, like the man in our story, can open ourselves up to the grace of God and let God surprise us! When we decide to remove the barriers that we have placed in our lives, then we can “see” clearly our God who loves surprises!