Lectionary Readings: Year A – Fourth Sunday in Lent – Laetare Sunday

I’ve always been pretty good at math. When I was still in high school, one of my friends had difficulty with geometry, and so his mother hired me to tutor him. It soon became apparent that he couldn’t remember any of the things he needed to remember that would help him with geometry. But this same guy could recite to me the facts and figures of nearly every NBA athlete active that year. He obviously had the ability to remember. When I asked him why, he said, “I guess it’s because I have always believed that math is hard.” He was blinded by, and guided by this belief in how hard math was, rather than his own, clearly, excellent ability to recall facts.

Some people are born physically blind – like this man in the Gospel today – and others deal with blindness that is learned, that is chosen, or in some cases, accepted.

In fact, today’s Gospel starts out with one form of blindness. The disciples see this man born blind, and ask Jesus, “Who sinned so that this man was born blind?” Think about the implications here. For them, the universe was a cause and effect reality, guided by a vindictive God who likes to punish people for their sins. And the disciples want to know, was it this man’s parents, or was it the man himself that caused God to make him blind? If the disciples had stopped for a moment, they would have realized that they were asking Jesus if this man’s sins – before he was ever born – had caused his blindness. They had learned to see every abnormal condition as a punishment from God. In truth, it was they who were blinded by their own prejudices.

Now, it’s true that sometimes other people pay for the consequences of our actions, or that we ourselves pay for the consequences of our own actions. But this is not what was going on. Jesus tells them, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re just looking for someone to blame.” They were trying to make it easier to understand why the creator of the universe would allow someone to be born with what they considered a defect. In this particular instance, Jesus says, this blindness was so that God’s glory could be revealed to those who would believe. And, he says, “We should be looking for what God can do. We shouldn’t be looking for why bad things happened. We shouldn’t be looking to assign blame. We should be looking for opportunities.” You see, looking for people to blame, or deliberately blaming other people for bad outcomes is a sort of blindness too – it blinds us to a hope of future possibilities, because we are stuck trying to shape the story so that we look good, or so that we can understand it all.

But this prejudice is not the only blindness in the Gospel. As soon as Jesus healed this man, the people who knew him, who lived in the village with him, they all started to say, “Is this really the same man?” Some of them thought so, and others said it was just someone who looked like him. 

I know everyone is familiar with Superman, and his alter ego, Clark Kent. One of the late night television shows did a spoof on this once. Clark Kent is sitting at his desk at the Daily Planet, and he takes his glasses off to rub his eyes, and someone yells out, “Superman! Wow! When did you get here!” And Clark puts his glasses back on to look around for Superman, and the person goes, “Huh? Where did he go? He was just here!” Clark gets wise, and pulls his glasses off again, and the person yells, “Oh! There you are!” What follows is Clark Kent taking his glasses off and on, with people seeing Superman, and then suddenly blinded to his presence the moment Clark puts his glasses back on. They thought Clark kind of looked like that Superman guy, but obviously, Superman didn’t need glasses, so it couldn’t possibly be him. They doubted what was right in front of them, and so they were blinded to reality.

Just like this spoof about superman, a formerly blind man being able to see was enough to confuse the villagers about who he was. It was enough to make them doubt reality – because who ever heard of a blind man getting his sight?

In many ways, this interaction with the villagers is a symbolic representation of this man’s transformation. He was born blind, he has his sight restored, and people doubt it is him. He has to look the people in the eye and say, “No. That’s me! I’m that guy!” This once blind man was changing right before their eyes.

Think back to a time when, perhaps, you started to remove bad habits in your life. You probably lost friends and acquaintances, because they would look at you, and who you were becoming, and they would say, “It’s like I don’t even know you any more. I barely recognize you.” Those things in you that were changing for the better made them doubt that they could remain friends with you, because they did not yet see the good that you were turning to. And, they doubted that those things were really better than what you were leaving behind.

Sometimes our blindness is purely fear. Think of this man’s parents. When the Pharisees questioned them about their son, to prove that this man really was their son, and really had been born blind, the parents only say, “Yes, this is our son, and yes he was born blind.” But, they stopped short of saying how he had received his sight back, because they were blinded by the fear of being kicked out of the synagogue. They were blinded by the possible retribution and vengeance by those in power if they were willing to stand up for what Jesus had done for their son. They feared losing the comforts and convenience of being a part of the group, they feared being ostracized, and so they failed to see the right thing to do. Which was standing up for their son, and standing up for what Jesus had done for their son. That is a blindness that results in inaction.

But perhaps the biggest display of blindness we see in this Gospel is what we see in the actions of the Pharisees. The Pharisees keep questioning this man about how he could see, and each time he tells them that he sees because a man named Jesus opened his eyes. And after the second time, this man asks why they are so adamant – do they want to become Jesus’ disciples? That statement really ticks them off. They claim that they are disciples of Moses, but they have no idea where this Jesus fellow even comes from. And that’s where this formerly blind man transforms even more. He stands and boldly denounces these men, and questions how it is possible for those who are teachers of the law to not know anything about Jesus, a man who has healed him. If the Pharisees were mad before, they are livid now. How can he, a nobody, a nothing, a person without influence, a person without much education claim to teach them, the very teachers of the law? And so they threw him out of the synagogue. They didn’t just kick him out for the day, but they threw him out of the community of faith, for daring to suggest that Jesus was doing the work of God, and that Jesus was not, in fact, a terrible sinner, a nobody, a person without influence. They were so blinded by their arrogance, their feelings of superiority, that they rejected the idea that Jesus could have any truth to share with them – simply because they had never heard of Jesus.

But that’s not the only thing we see. When Jesus reveals himself, this formerly blind man comes to see Jesus for who he really is – the Messiah. And Jesus says, “I came to give sight to the blind, and to prove that those who claim to see are blind.” And the Pharisees say, “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that we are blind?” To which Jesus responds, “Yeah. You are. And it’s because you claim to know it all that you have proven you know nothing. You have proven that you are blind.”

A few years ago, I was following a woman on Social Media, a person of some importance in her field, with quite the educational pedigree. A discussion – a debate – started over a post she had made, with people coming on to comment about just how terribly wrong she was. One young man got on, and brought up research by Dr. So-and-so, quoting that Dr.’s research, and thereby proving just how stupid this woman was, since she didn’t understand anything – did she even really have a Ph.D.? The woman responded politely that this young man had misinterpreted the passage he was quoting, and reiterated her position. The young man took that as further proof to fan the flames that this woman was incompetent. Until one older gentleman stepped in and suggested that the young man remove all of his posts, and step away while others still had any good will left for him. You see, the passage this young man had quoted was from this woman’s doctoral thesis, and she would definitely know whether he had misunderstood what she meant when she wrote it. If ever anyone was blinded by arrogance, it was this young man. This woman had some truth to share, but he couldn’t stomach it, because he had never even really heard of her – a fact that was most obvious as he didn’t even know her last name, or any of what she had published. But he was so arrogant that he challenged someone on something that they had literally written a book on.

There’s a lot of blindness in this Gospel passage. It starts with a man who is literally blind, but who gains his physical sight from Jesus. And then he is confronted by people who are blinded by doubt, by fear, and by arrogance. But he has no fear about proclaiming the humble truth about Jesus and what he knows that Jesus did for him:
“I once was blind, but now I see.” 

After he had been kicked out of the synagogue, Jesus found him. His spiritual eyes are also opened, and he sees the true identity of Jesus, and he believes. This formerly blind man is the only person in this Gospel passage who comes to see, not just with his eyes, but also with his heart. He is the only person, at the end of this gospel, who is no longer blind – in any capacity.

This Gospel passage is about the Truth of who Jesus is. And it is about spiritual blindness – things that might keep us from seeing and understanding – who Jesus is. Even though we are here in church, and even though we already believe, we can shut ourselves off to the transforming power of Jesus in our lives when our eyes are not fully opened.

This Gospel begs us to sit with the questions presented to us in this story. It asks us to contemplate the possibilities that we are blind in areas of our lives: Are we blinded by prejudice, like the disciples? Are we blinded by doubt, like the villagers? Are we blinded by fear, like the man’s parents? Or are we blinded by arrogance, like the Pharisees who felt they knew more than the author and perfector of life itself?

It doesn’t matter where we are in our journey of faith, we can always come to see more and more, and through God’s amazing grace, we can always say, “I once was blind, but now I see.”

[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on March 15, 2026.]