The Lord is my Shepherd. Psalm 23:1
Lent 4, Year A
God is my Shepherd. After years of looking for God when ‘all hell broke loose,’ striving to love God as people rejected and disrespected me, and serving God in good and bad times, I have learned to count on God. God has provided resting places, met my needs, and was at my side in dangerous situations and toxic relationships. Experience taught me to trust God to be merciful, bestow blessings, and give good things all the days of my life.
Jesus described God’s shepherding in this way:
If a shepherd has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost. Matthew 18:12-14
God is our Shepherd and we are God’s sheep. God searches for, recovers, and rejoices when lost sheep are found. What is your experiences of God? During Lent, when you consumed food or beverages you gave up, forgotten to pray, gave up on read the Bible, or failed to do a good deed, what was your experience of God? Each of the people in today’s reading from John (9:1-41) are sheep belonging to the Shepherd. Listen as I retell this Gospel and ask yourself which experiences with God resembles ones you had?
Jesus and the disciples encounter a blind beggar at the entrance to the city. Jewish religious law directed people unable to earn a living (the disabled, orphans, and widows) to beg in central areas. The same laws directed people with means to give money, food, and clothing to beggars. By obeying this rule beggars demonstrated their trust in God and givers demonstrated God’s mercy. When you’ve been in need, did you demonstrate trust in God by seeking help? You have means, what are you doing to address the needs of unhoused, food insecure, or isolated members of our parish?
The disciples asked Jesus whose actions, his parents or man’s, caused him to be born blind? The disciples’ question is one you may have asked when you heard a girl’s school in Iran had been boomed on the first day of the war. Does God use disease, disability, and death as punishments? Jesus, refused to connect suffering with personal sin. The Shepherd, does not blame the sheep for getting lost or being injured by wolves. God does not blame us for being who God created to be. Jesus healed the man born blind to demonstrate how God deals suffering.
The man’s neighbors and the people who saw him begging were astounded. They wondered whether he was the same person they had seen and known. Has this happened to you? Has an extraordinary event disoriented you? The man responded to his confused neighbors and the perplexed bystanders,
I am the guy who was born blind. I was minding my own business begged at the city gate when a guy named Jesus put mud on my eyes and told me to wash. After I washed off the mud, I could see. John 9:9-11
When you’ve described an unusually occurrence, did the people listening humor you? Did they nod their heads in a manner that signaled they did not believe what you were saying?
The religious authorities brought the formerly blind man to court because his healing took place on a Sabbath. They questioned him and his parents. Neighbors gossip and strangers’ comments prepared them for their court appearance. The parents gave simple and director responses.
The man stated the facts: I was blind; I was begging; a guy put mud on my eyes and told me to wash; after I washed I could see. The parents and man applied lessons learned from experience. What have gossiping neighbors and the malicious chatter of strangers taught you? When asked what he thought of Jesus, the man simply said, “He’s a prophet.” When talking with people who disagree with you, do you argue, debate, and leave in frustration? When you’ve listened to them, provided simple and direct responses, and withheld judgment what happened?
The religious authorities did not get the responses they wanted. Sadly, their vocations had devolved. Instead of guiding people to God they were determining when people had turned away from God. Have there been times when your role as spouse, parent, sibling, friend, or worker devolved causing you act in ways that were more hurtful than helpful? The need to control and certainty made it impossible for the religious leaders to accept the man’s healing or remember religious law permitted actions to save and preserve life on the Sabbath. When have religious traditions prevented you from accepting changes in the church? I lived in my parents’ home in the first few years after ordination. When calls came for me to the house people asked to speak with Mother Broderick. My mother responded, “this is the real mother Broderick speaking, who are you calling for?”
The man got smarter and wiser over time. He used the confusion of neighbors, astonishment of strangers, courage of his parents, and insistence of religious leaders as life lessons. He replied with clear, concise, and clever testimony during his second court appearance.
I gave you the facts, but you rejected what I said. Why do you want to them hear again? Do you want to become his disciples? John 9:27
Here is an astonishing thing! You wonder where Jesus comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, God listen to one those who believe, serve, and obey God’s will. Since the world began no one has opened the eyes of a person born blind. If Jesus were not from God, he could do nothing. John 9:30b-34
With God’s help are you using challenges, struggles, and losses as life lessons?
The Gospel reading, closes with a confession and truth. Jesus checked on the man and the religious leaders. After the man was put out of the synagogue (excommunicated), Jesus asked, is it well with your soul, do you believe in the Son of Man? The man responded, yes! I believe, but I’ve never met the Messiah. Jesus told him, I am the Messiah. Over joyed, the man worshipped and praised God. What events or experiences moved you to praise God? Have you confessed and glorified God after being disappointed by the church or wounded by a church leader? Next Jesus checked in with the religious leaders. Speaking to the leaders who insisted on serving as ‘judge and jury,’ Jesus said
I came into this world for judgment so that those (like this blind beggar) who do not see may see, and show that those who see (who judge and abuse power) are made aware of their blindness.
Jesus identified a hard truth we are dealing with today. Many religious, political, and social leaders who should be guiding us, are blind. They are blinded by their misuse of power and need for control. How ironic that people (immigrants, elderly, or disabled) without power or abused by people in authority are more willing to accept help. Help empowered by God’s mercy. What are your experiences of God? Are you ready and willing to be found, healed, strengthened, and restored by the Shepherd?
