Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John.
Glory to you, O Lord.
As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.
His disciples asked him, rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, neither he nor his parents sinned. It is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.
We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is still day, night is coming when no one can work while I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva and smeared the clay on his eyes and said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent.
So he went and washed and came back able to see.
His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, isn't this the one who used to sit and beg?
Some said, it is, but others said, no, he just looks like him.
He said, I am.
So they said to him, how were your eyes opened?
He replied, the man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, go to Siloam and wash.
So I went there and washed and was able to see.
And they said to him, where is he?
He said, I don't know.
They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees.
Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a Sabbath.
So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see.
He said to them, he put clay on my eyes and I washed, and now I can see.
So some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath.
But others said, how can a sinful man do such signs?
And there was division among them.
So they said to the blind man again, what do you have to say about him since he opened your eyes?
He said, he is a prophet now. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight.
They asked them, is this your son who you say was born blind?
How does he see now?
His parents answered and said, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind.
We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes.
Ask him.
He is of age. He can speak for himself.
His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews.
For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue.
For this reason, his parents said, he is of age, questioned him a second time. They called the man who had been blind and said to him, give God the praise.
We know that this man is a sinner.
He replied, if he is a sinner, I do not know.
One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.
So they said to him, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?
He answered them, I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?
Do you want to become his disciples too?
They ridiculed him and said, you are that man's disciple. We are disciples of Moses.
We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from.
The man answered them and said to them, this is what is so amazing that you do not know where he is from.
Yet he opened my eyes.
We know that God does not listen to sinners.
But if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him.
It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind.
If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.
They answered and said to him, you were born totally in sin and you are trying to teach us.
Then they threw him out.
When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, do you believe in the Son of Man?
He answered and said, who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?
Jesus said to him, you have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.
He said, I do believe, Lord. And he worshiped him.
Then Jesus said, I came into this world for judgment.
So that those who do not see might see. And that those who do see might become blind.
Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this. And they said to him, surely we are not blind, are we?
Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin.
But now you are saying, we see, so your sin remains the Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Even Jesus closest followers were pretty slow at understanding.
So the first question they asked is, lord, who sinned? This man or his parents?
Because they saw his blindness as punishment.
The Pharisees, who claimed to be pious religious leaders.
Couldn't open their hearts enough to see the beauty of this man who had suffered his entire life.
Being freed from his blindness. Instead, they were worried about who did this, and was it the Sabbath?
And even after they heard the story, they still said, well, you were born totally in sin, in other words.
But we're pretty good, aren't we? We're still perfect.
Now, sin was thrown around a lot in this scripture reading and was a major focus of the people we hear called Pharisees.
But they never thought it was about them.
They always thought it was about the other.
So it's a good idea to first think of what is that definition of sin that we use? And oftentimes we think it's just avoiding things we shouldn't do, that God gives us certain commandments. As long as we avoid them, we are free from sin.
But I was reminded this week something I had been told years and years ago about a good way to look at a definition of sin.
And the simplest definition, the one that any good Jew would have understood at the time, was missing the mark.
That's all it is.
And it's easy to think, well, what's the mark?
It is living in and revealing the presence of God's love back to the world.
It's really that simple.
Now, I've got an illustration for you that I think will make some sense about missing the mark.
I've got a good friend who is a really good golfer.
She's won several club championships at the course she belongs to, and by and large, she can beat me every single time we play.
And it is not unusual for her to shoot in the 70s fairly consistently.
Well, a little over a year ago, we were playing, and our foursome, I think we were on the third hole at Curry west, and she was on the green.
Say, this is her ball, okay? Right here.
The head cover I put down is the cup, and she's going up to putt.
She gets down, and she looks at where her putt is supposed to go. She focuses on the mark.
She gets up to hit her putt.
It goes over there.
The worst putt I've ever seen anybody make in history.
And my first remark to her was, oh, you kind of missed your mark, huh? Because I had to rub it in a little bit.
But the weird part of it is she knew the mark. She knew where she wanted to go. It was blatantly obvious to her, yet she didn't even come close to hitting it.
Well, we're all facing the same target, right? We're all facing Christ's love that's always in our midst, that's constantly being revealed to us. We're looking right at it. But what happens to us?
Oftentimes we'll miss the mark.
Even though we know it's there, even though we're looking at it, we miss the mark. That's what sin is.
It's that simple.
And what makes that definition different than simply following a rule is that the mark oftentimes calls on us to be active, to look at someone who is hurting or suffering and to reach out to them, to be loving toward them, to care for them.
Sometimes it's seeing things like poverty and being generous.
Sometimes it's looking toward people who are marginalized, who are scapegoated, who are put on the outside.
They're made the enemy, and we know they're not.
And we know we're called upon to love them, to be good to them, to befriend them, to stand in front of them at some time.
That's the mark we're trying to hit.
And when we don't get there, that's what sin is. That's what it's about.
Knowing the target, looking at it, and doing our best to go right at it.
