Posts Tagged ‘John 9:1-41’
Blind See – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
One of my friends sees as I don’t. He walks into a room and immediately senses things in others and in me to which I’m oblivious. Sometimes he says: “Don’t you see?” and I reply: “No, you’ve got to tell me. I can’t see.” That’s hard to say, to realize being in the dark while another can clearly see, to discover and experience limitation in the light of another’s ability.
In today’s gospel story, Jesus walks along and sees a person who is blind and who doesn’t ask for help. Jesus doesn’t ask what he wants. Jesus comes and opens his eyes. In response, a flurry of questions by the neighbors and the leaders: How did this happen? Was he really blind before? Who is Jesus? They struggle with question upon question, arguing, accusing, reprimanding, and rejecting. This community is stumbling, groping in the dark, trying to escape the truth that one born blind now sees because of Jesus.
As the community struggles and stumbles, this person grows to see even more. He is honest about limits: “I don’t know where Jesus is. I don’t know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” He also comes to know Jesus. First, he says “the man called Jesus” touched me. Then “he is a prophet.” A bit later “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Finally, again face to face “Lord, I believe.” First, he receives literal sight, and second, insight, awakened to Jesus. Read More
Don’t You See? – Br. Luke Ditewig
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John 9:1-41
One of my brothers sees in a way that I don’t. He walks into a room and immediately senses things in others and in me to which I’m oblivious. Sometimes he says: “Don’t you see?” and I reply: “No, you’ve got to tell me. I can’t see.” That’s hard to say, to realize we’re in the dark while another can clearly see. To realize a limitation, one we didn’t even know about, in light of another’s ability.
In today’s gospel story, Jesus walks along and sees a person who is blind. The man doesn’t ask for help. Jesus doesn’t ask what he wants. Jesus goes to him, makes mud, puts it on the man’s eyes and tells him to go wash. The man does and returns healed, able to see. Read More
Least, Last, Lost – Br. James Koester
This homily was preached at St. Barnabas’ Anglican Church, Ottawa
1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5: 8-14; John 9: 1-41
Back in the days when my time was more my own, I used to watch a fair amount of television. My favourite shows came on in the evenings; things like Falcon Crest, Dynasty and Dallas. You might remember them. Each week I was glued for hours on end to my television as episode after episode played out. One of the shows, Falcon Crest, I think, a character named ‘Father Bob’ turned up every so often to minister to the needs of the family. When he would come on, I would wonder to myself what it would be like to minister to the fabulously rich, the enormously powerful and the incredibly beautiful.
Perhaps it is because of God’s wry sense of humour that that young twenty some year old priest who wondered about ministering to the fabulously rich, the enormously powerful and the incredibly beautiful now stands before you as one who has taken the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience. Wealth, power and beauty, or “Sex, Money and Power” as the title of one book puts it, are not quite my stock and trade. Read More
Surely, we are not blind, are we? – Br. David Vryhof
John 9:1-41
Imagine the gift of being able to see for the first time. Imagine the experience of emerging from years and years of darkness into light, of being able to see things for the first time as they really are, not just as you had imagined them to be in your blindness. Read More