Homily for March 26, 2017.
Last Sunday, St. John presented to us
the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman wherein he clearly contrasted ordinary
water which she had come to draw from Jacob’s well with the living water that Jesus
alone could offer.
As Jesus said, the water in the well
would make one thirsty again but the living water he had come to bring is a
spring welling up to eternal life and one who drinks it will never be thirsty
again.
Eventually the woman drank this water
and left her water jar there, she who used to be afraid of people became an
evangelizer to her entire village.
If last Sunday was about water, this Sunday
is about Light and darkness. St. John again presents to us today the story of
the healing of a man who was born blind.
Physically, this man was living in
darkness because he could not see anything but as the story progresses, we get
to see that apart from him, there are also other people who were also living in
darkness because of their sinfulness and the refusal to acknowledge that Jesus
Christ is God; that is the Pharisees.
St. Paul tells us in our second
reading today: “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead
expose them. For it is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret.”
Dear friends, the question for us today is: “do the things you do in secret
mark you out as a child of light or a child of darkness?”
Once upon a time, I saw a short video
clip on Youtube. A lady was taking her bath and a young man started spying on
her from his balcony upstairs. The young man was sure that nobody was looking
at him and the lady had no idea that this young man was watching.
The young man must have considered
himself lucky to be spying on her at that time and he kept looking until he
lost control of himself and fell from the balcony breaking his head and bones.
The video ended with the note: Your secret sins will always expose you in
public.
This is the same message St. Paul was
passing on to us today. It is what we do in secret that identifies us either as
children of light or of darkness. And if we say we belong to the light, then
our hearts must be filled with light.
We cannot partake of darkness in
secret and hope to deceive others by pretending to be children of light in
public. When Saul disappointed God and became rejected as King of Isreal, God
told Samuel to go and anoint a new king for Isreal from the house of Jesse.
This is where our first reading today comes from.
Jesse presented his sons before
Samuel. Like the Pharisees, they were all good looking in appearance, tall and
handsome, well dressed and well kept. But God said: “Do not look at appearance because
the Lord does not see as men see; man looks at outward appearance but God looks
at the heart.”
Eventually, the smallest of Jesse’s
sons, David was chosen. In terms of outward appearance, David was just like the
blind man in our Gospel reading, he was not tall and did not look like a person
who could be king but inwardly David had the heart of a king.
Dear friends, let us stop deceiving
ourselves and others by pretending before them to be holy when in fact, we do
all kinds of evil in secret. God is not impressed by our outward performances,
he judges our true worth by those things we do when others are not watching us.
Back to our Gospel passage, we see a
contradiction when the so-called blind man started preaching to the Pharisees
about Jesus. Even though this man was physically blind, his heart was filled
with light and he could see clearly spiritually. He knew that no one could have
been able to heal him unless that person is God.
The Pharisees were so blind that they
couldn’t see the hand of God in the healing of a man who was born blind from
birth and they tried to convince this man that Jesus was just a common sinner
like any other person. But the man said: “We know that God does not listen to
sinners.”
In other words, an ordinary sinner couldn’t
have been able to heal him since this has never happened ever since the world
began. That is, “if this man (Jesus) were not from God, he could do nothing.”
This man had not even been preached
to by Jesus yet he was already convinced that Jesus is God. For this, the
really blind Pharisees expelled him from the synagogue. That was when the man
met Jesus and further confessed his faith: “Lord, I believe” and he worshipped
Jesus.
Last week, we read about how Jesus
refused to eat the food the disciples had brought because he said his food was
to do the father’s will which is bringing sinner to conversion.
Today, Jesus again repeated his
mission statement: “For this I came; that those who do not see may see and
those who see may become blind” obviously referring to the blind Pharisees.
Faith in God is light. Failure to believe in God is the worst
kind of blindness. And when we say we have faith, our faith must express itself
in works of light especially when we are in secret because God does not look at
outward appearance but the heart.
Let us Pray: Lord Jesus, open my eyes that I may come out of my darkness.
Amen.
Happy Sunday. Be Happy. Live
Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. (4th Sunday
of Lent. Year A. Bible Study: 1st
Samuel 16:6-13, Ephesians 5:8-14 and John 9:1-38).
Fr. Abu.
No comments:
Post a Comment