March 15, 2026
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Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-8; John 4:5-42
These readings show us
that God views the world differently the way humans do, and we are invited to
see as God sees. We first glimpse this when we hear that story of the call of
David who was deemed insignificant by his family. The prophet Samuel scrutinized
the older brothers and determined that the youngest, the one almost forgotten,
was the one who would lead them forward. The Gospel then shows us the story of
the blind man who comes to faith and achieves greater consciousness.
The coming to sight story
begins with real human experience. Jesus takes dirt from the earth, spits into
it and makes clay, reminiscent of the Creation story in Genesis. Jesus
re-enacts that he is aware of God’s original plan in Eden and he recreates this
man with fuller sight. He then smears it onto the man’s eyes and instructs him
to wash in the pool of Siloam. The man continues his evolving process of coming
to full sight.
The human reactions to
his evolution produce great ambivalence. Some neighbors disbelieve, his parents
are cautious to speak, and some Pharisees concluded that the one who healed him
could not come from God. It is quite rich that so many people stayed in the
conversation with the man. At first, it was an interrogation, but that it
developed into an authentic dialogue about wanting to understand. The people
move from condemnation to inquiry to possible conversion.
Think of the
conversations that you have had at home when you have formed your children in
the faith and they no longer attend worship services. Or that someone in the
family that staunchly adheres to one political party comes to see the world
through the lens of a different party. How does this happen that people brought
up with the same formation come to see differently. What a mystery this is! It
causes bewilderment. We wonder what we did wrong. How did this happen? How do
people see things so differently? Sometimes, we wonder, “How can someone I love
so much be so blind to what is happening in the world? How can they hold such
beliefs?” We have the same conversations as we heard in the Gospel passage.
What is this Gospel
trying to teach us? We have responsibility for our own formation. We have to go
down to the pool of Siloam to wash our eyes and gain sight. It teaches us that
faith is a process. It is something that grows with trust, through questioning,
through doubt, and it is often experienced alone. It can be a cause of tension
that leads to separation from some and acceptance by others. We search for
reasons. We want answers. Jesus assures us that the questions are important for
our full coming to faith because he asks: Do you believe in the Son of Man? We
respond: Show me who God is, and I will believe. When Jesus reveals who he is
we can respond in full worship.
Jesus wants us to see
that he proposes a radically new perspective on life, and he gives us an
alternative perception to the consciousness of the dominant culture around us.
He invites us into a more inclusive way of things and into a metanoia, a change
of heart, in which we can see God’s work in action all around us. He sees an
evolutionary world created by love and for loving. God stands ahead of us in
time beckoning us forward. God works in our lives by inviting us to take our
next steps in growth and to accept the loving, all-embracing consciousness of
God. God’s love unites all humanity, and we are united to Christ by entering
into communion with all people. We continue to evolve as your sight becomes
clearer. At the end of the day, all we can do is to stand tall and worship.
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