Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons 19th March 2023

Christ and the Pauper

Fourth Sunday of Lent

A question to ponder on!

The gospel of this Sunday, John 9: 1-41, which is the healing of the man born blind, is not an easy gospel to understand, and requires a bit of effort on our part. In one sense the long version is by far the better reading, there the nuances and shifts of the whole affair come at us in different ways, and it ceases to be just a 'simple' tale of a healing but something much, much more. How so?

The very first thing that strikes me in this story is the fact that the blind man gives no indication whatsoever that he wants to be healed, and should give us the clue that he is not the whole metaphor and symbol here. The man's own reply to questioning by others makes this clear : '…they said to him, "[So] 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."'(Jn 9 : 10,11) That in itself should be a marker pointing out that there is more here than just a healing. In fact the real focus turns towards Jesus and what he says in response to the opening words of this passage, where his disciples ask him about the nature of the man's blindness, was it a result of the man's sin, or something his parents did? In other words an equivocation of physical disability by the disciples with some form of Divine punishment.

Please do be careful with this text, for Divine wrath is not an unequivocally Jewish idea, other religious traditions, and indeed some extreme forms of Christianity can tend towards this type of assumption. Nor is it, or has been a consistently defined theology in the Hebrew Scriptures, God's punishment on us in terms of sickness, disaster or some curse was much debated throughout history and often rejected, so one problem with our text and how we see it ourselves is tremendously pertinent, this because it deals with the realities of disability and prejudice-something at the heart of our cultural discourse at the moment! We need to have the humility of Jesus as Christians to ask: 'are these metaphors in John too anti -Jewish (note the way in which we can exclude the Jews in this story as 'blind' to Christ here)? And, how do we actually deal with disability when this kind of story is about a healing, coming back to a wholeness that many of us cannot ever achieve, for those with permanent disabilities will not be fully healed. You and I as age takes its toll will find that out all too easily! How do we deal with illness, and indeed sin are we too being punished?

Focus on what Jesus says and does

So already the questions as we engage with this text pile up! I won't bore you with too much scholarly exegesis, but I can point you to an excellent article: 'Out of the Darkness: Examining the Rhetoric of Blindness in the Gospel of John' by Jennifer L. Koosed, published in The Disabilities Quarterly, Winter 2005. For those who want to chase it up, I recommend it. In it she writes about this particular gospel amongst others, pointing out that we clearly need to avoid a literal interpretation of the text, and as I suggest, take the focus off that simple action of Jesus healing a blind man-to examine what Jesus then teaches, and as others have pointed out, to connect it with Chapter 10 where the fuller meaning of what Jesus is really doing, saying, hinting and pointing at becomes much clearer.

Koosed tells us all this in a powerful sentence, deserving of our mediation: 'John's Gospel is highly symbolic; a healing is not just a healing. Instead, when Jesus brings broken bodies into wholeness he is foreshadowing resurrection, both the general resurrection of the dead and his own resurrection. In a sense, he is giving people a foretaste of the world to come by enacting the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth in the here and now'! Our brokenness is not punishment, it is part of the pieces that make us who we are coming to completion!

Conversion, acceptance and hope

If we take that all this as part of our reflective prayer during the week, then the title of this mid-lent-Sunday also becomes part of our inner preaching, for we shall discover this gospel is truly a 'Laetare' proclamation! We are called to rejoice, because somehow in the nursing and mothering images of the Holy One, also found in the mothering of Christ, we will, as is taught and shown in such gospels, know how and through whom in the end we shall be fed,healed, be consoled and be satisfied. It is then we shall all truly be healed and one!

However I want to tie up a few loose ends, and it is necessary. I am only too aware how these days we have to be so sensitive to disabilities, and `I am not entertaining any woke ideas, but rather trying to uphold and take on board our call to 'metanoia' and understand we are all disabled. Because of this fallibility it is with true compassion and care for all that we are called out by the healing Christ to live as `Catholic Christians who know and 'see' in different ways. The blind man is used as a metaphor linking us to the types of blindness in our own lives, and in a sense Jesus is pointing out physical blindness as no punishment or sin, but simply as a fact of life! But the hidden message is that certain other forms of blindness are the result of our own actions and thoughts.

Koosen helps us by pointing out in this story the fact that Jesus makes a distinction between literal blindness, external sight- visions absence, 'I am blind', and a metaphorical blindness which is an inability to understand or perceive or not wanting to at all. In John 10:21 the chorus says clearly; "These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?" Doesn't that sound all too familiar?

But I wanted to end my reflection by suggesting that this is not essentially about blindness at all, much more of a way in-to better encounter Christ, and acknowledge we are all disabled by sin, and not always by physical problems! In this gospel as is pointed out in chapter 10, Jesus not only talks about inner and outer sight but hearing, listening, and of course touch as ways of perception.

We are all blinded and cannot work in darkness, but Christ is our true light (John 9:5) :Inner sight reveals what is given by touch, that wordless communication of our world :

' "He put mud on my eyes," the man replied, "and I washed, and now I see."(John 9 :15) and of course, we discover that all forms of hearing matter, which as we know can well be done by vibration which we feel and touch and then realise in smell.

John places all that before us with these words of Jesus:

'Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

"Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him."

Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you."

Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.(John 9: 35-38)

May we turn and wish each other joy on this part of our Lenten journey, but also hope in the resurrection which we will celebrate in a particular manner at Pascha. May we bless our mothers-but embrace God's mothering, all of us are called to share in-and may we learn more in order to care gently and sincerely,. without prejudice about any type or form of disability. Amen

Lectio Divina

Introit from the Roman Rite of Mass on this Sunday

Taken from Isaih 66: 10,11

Laetare Jerusalem et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eam; gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis, ut exsultetis et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae. Psalm: Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus.

NIV "Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her,
all you who love her;
rejoice greatly with her,
all you who mourn over her.
11 For you will nurse and be satisfied
at her comforting breasts;
you will drink deeply
and delight in her overflowing abundance."

Poem Prayer for Laetare Sunday
Fr Robert Gibbons
Wet clay
( On John 9:1-41)

Digging in the graveyard
My spade hit the mud and clay
Clogging the blade,
Making heavy the lifting up of rich brown earth.
Here we are, gathered in death
Not so much dust
But mixed clay, brought together
Adam's people, earthlings
Fired-up star dust.

The trouble is I have been blinded
Even though sight is mine
Ignorance-prejudice
have blanked out truth.
I have lifted my spade many times
But only seen mud.
Yet in the smelling of it
another world opens,
terroir, heimat, hierath,
somewhere I belong to
yet still am yearning for
a place beyond the stars
where I will be at home and whole
with 'Somebody' great and good and safe,
but do not know, yet glimpse.

Is this what the clay did
on the shut eyelids of the blind man?
Pressed by touch
he fell to creations start.
Dust to dust, dust again, dust remain?
Did he smell the Word-as-mud,
naming him beyond all ages?
Was it then another light came in his heart?
I think it was this
And more.
So let us rejoice and be consoled.

RPPG March 18 2023

Extract:

Out of the Darkness: Examining the Rhetoric of Blindness in the Gospel of John

Jennifer L Koosed, PhD.

Jesus' resurrection appearance to Thomas in John 20 is one such example. When Thomas questions and doubts, Jesus demonstrates to him that his resurrected body still bears the marks of the crucifixion. Thomas is invited to touch Jesus' wounds in order to experience directly the brokenness of his body so that he may believe. The brokenness of Jesus is redemptive and is not fully transformed in his resurrected body. The image of Jesus' resurrected yet still wounded body raises a question: Will people with illnesses or disabilities still bear the marks of those "imperfections" in the world to come?

In addition to the emphasis on the imperfect perfect body of the risen Christ, Jesus exclaims in this passage, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe" (20:29). Here, the connection in John between literally and symbolically seeing is broken. The tensions in the narrative between these two poles-whole bodies represent whole spirits, and broken bodies can contain whole spirits-are never resolved. Rather, they serve to destabilize each other and also redeem each other.

Our reflections have led us to the following question: Should metaphors such as blindness/sight and darkness/light be used at all? Not only do they exclude Christians with disabilities, but they also pervade anti-Jewish attitudes within Christianity. We do not presume to be able to answer this question definitively, but we do contend that a challenge for Christians is to value all physical types by not positing a stable and perfect body as the standard for human perfection. (This, of course, needs to be done without valorizing physical illness or disability, and without minimizing the potential desire someone may have to be physically healed.)

John 10: 1-21

(Read in conjunction with Sunday's Gospel)

The Good Shepherd and His Sheep

10 "Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

7 Therefore Jesus said again, "Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

14 "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me- 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father-and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life-only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

19 The Jews who heard these words were again divided. 20 Many of them said, "He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?"

21 But others said, "These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?"