Seeing Clearly
A Homily for the 4th Sunday After Trinity
They say, "A picture is worth a thousand words," and there is some truth to this. Images and pictures can communicate more complex and significant truths than words. Studies have shown, time and time again, the superiority of visual memory over auditory. In other words, we remember and retain what we see more than we hear. They say laughter also helps increase memory because humor makes us work harder to get the joke, and that extra cognitive effort embeds it in our memory. That's why people (some people anyway) can rattle off joke after joke! Today, Jesus, as the master teacher and communicator, again chooses to speak in parables. Like last week, his main audience is the twelve apostles. He's not excluding other followers, seekers, or even the Pharisees but speaking primarily to the twelve upon which the New Testament church will be built.
So, in quick succession, Jesus employs two of his most vivid word sketches: The Blind Leading the Blind and a person with a log stuck in their eye! They are humorous and outlandish for effect because Jesus intends for his hearers to remember what he is teaching. He knows that the apostles and every subsequent member of Christ's church will need to know and understand their master's teaching. But first, what truth is our Lord illustrating and hoping to embed in the souls of his hearers through these two parables? The verses prior give us the answer.
JESUS said unto his disciples, Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.
As I've noted, Jesus is teaching the people on a mountainside. He's preaching his famous sermon on the Mount, and he's turning every aspect of this on its head, inverting every aspect of what it means to be a person made in the image of God. He's masterfully contrasting the kingdom of God with the kingdom of this world. He's saying, "That which you think is right is wrong. You think your actions are acceptable to God, but they are falling short. You claim the wisdom of heaven as your guide, yet you are being catechized by the world."
My friends, the world says mercy is weakness, and what benefits me by being merciful to others? Jesus inverts this saying, "Be merciful as your Father in heaven also is merciful." The world says you are the judge over others. More than this, you are a judge, jury, and executioner! Jesus says, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned." The world says to harden your heart, despise and exile anyone who offends. But Jesus says: "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." The world says, what's mine is mine; get your own. Jesus says: "Give, and shall be given unto you." The world says, okay, give, but only if it benefits you in the end, and never give too much. Jesus says: "For with the same measure that ye mete withal shall it be measured to you again."
Jesus has just raised the bar starkly contrasting the only two ways a person can go in this life, either following the ways of the world and the religion of men or following the Kingdom of God. This is not a choice to be taken lightly. It's a matter of life and death, of God or the Devil, of the Kingdom of Heaven or the ditch. If we desire to follow Christ into glory, then we need to make sure we can see. Because we must see clearly to receive the kingdom of heaven and take others with us.
"And Jesus spake a parable unto them saying, Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both go into the ditch?" Do we need a seminary degree or PhD in theology to answer this question? No, of course not! A blind person cannot lead another blind person without plunging into trouble. First, a blind person can't see where they are going. Second, the blind one being led can do no better. Therefore, both will, in the end, fall into the ditch. Who is this blind leader, and who is the blind being led? The blind leader is any person or thing that cannot see nor desires to walk in the ways of Christ. It was the Pharisees in Jesus's time and false teachers in our day. Societal, industrial, economic and academic structures and social crusades as well. It's all of the above and more. We could sum this up under the header: The way of the world, meaning the fallen creation and its ruler, the Devil, at enmity with its creator.
This fallen world is a tenacious and relentless catechist offering the easy path to self-flourishing, purpose, and fulfillment. It props up a pretend world without trouble, confusion, or violence, selling a false vision of "the good life" without having to put in an ounce of effort to achieve it. If this was true and the world was the way, the truth and life wouldn't Jesus have told us? Would he have claimed to be the way if worldliness truly was the path to salvation? Would Jesus have invited the Devil's tempting if both agreed? Why did he choose the harder and more difficult path of holiness, abstention, and sacrifice? And would he call us solely to himself to receive redemption, comfort, mercy, grace, fulfillment, and one day glory if there was another, a better, way?
Jesus, concluding the parable, says, "The disciple is not above his master, but everyone who is perfect shall be as his master." The blind one being led is a metaphor for anyone who needs leading—which, by the way, is everyone! So, who are you following? Who is your master, your teacher? As I've already stated, the world is teaching us as we swim in the cultural waters of our time. The catechetical orthodoxy of this secular age is relentlessly shaping and molding hearts, minds, and actions on the most fundamental categories of human flourishing: matters of anthropology, sexuality, marriage, family, vocation, friendship, and, most importantly, worship. The secular calendar (lower time) keeps filling up with days, even months, of celebrating human depravity. And Christians, with divided allegiances between secular and liturgical time, struggle to order their lives according to God's higher time of feasts and fasts.
It wasn’t that long ago when most Christians would never conceive of missing Holy Days of obligation. Employers would have expected every Christian employee to attend Good Friday service. There have been times when the normative Christian life was ordered daily by prayer: Morning Prayer before leaving for the day’s duties and evening prayer before bed. Sundays were but the first of seven days in which a Christian entered the presence of God. But this cultural moment makes, for some, worshipping the Lord of their salvation for one hour on a single day a challenge. My friends, secular time will always seek to displace the higher time of the church because the world, its ruler, intensely desires your worship and must blind the beatific vision of God to have a chance of receiving it.
The world is a master marketer because it knows how to scratch the basic, natural itch and material desires in us all: a perfect body without discipline, access to more resources, possessions, wealth, fame, acceptance, prestige, importance, better connections to get to where or what I desire, offering a life with meaning and purpose, endless fun, eternal youth, relevance, and an endless horizon of opportunity. The best possible earthly version of me without recourse, regret, or effort. Be careful because you are no greater than your master. You won't be able to overcome the one you're following should you realize you've made a mistake and try to stop the journey they're leading you on.
More than this, the student always becomes like their teacher. We're either being mastered by the world or mastered by the Lord. Therefore, our guide has to be able to see Jesus, have his mind, and speak his words. The individual Christian does not have the entirety of the Lord's mind, nor does a single parish or denomination, but it is the church, the great tradition whose apostolic origins have guarded, stewarded, taught, and disciplined with the mind of Christ.
This is why the church matters because the church throughout her many generations- united in apostolic doctrine and the right administration of the sacraments while maintaining historical-biblical practices for life and worship- is the collective mind of Christ given as a clear-eyed guide to lead us into the kingdom of God. My dear brothers and sisters, we have been given a good guide, a loving Mother, the church, and we need to trust her and let her cure our blindness by gently turning our eyes from the world and fixing them solely on the beauty of our Lord and the goodness that he is. Only then will we be able to see clearly and lead others to the same. Sometimes, we have to remove the log in our eyes before we can help others remove the dust impeding their sight. Kingdom clarity often demands self-examination; that's what Jesus' second famous parable is about. But we're far more interested in examining others.
Yes, Jesus warns that he who would dare judge another's spiritual condition should first examine his own inner state. Because what we sometimes see in the outward appearance of others says nothing about the true state of their hearts. But this parable isn't primarily concerned with how we look at others but how we are to examine ourselves. Self-examination should uncover our failings and sins. And if we're going to harshly judge anything, then let us harshly judge our sins, taking them seriously and dealing with them strongly, not managing but killing them. The grace of being confronted with our sins is the spirit's compulsion to repent and seek forgiveness; knowledge of sin should drive a Christian to find mercy. The log of sin is removed from our eyes when we face our wrongdoing and return to Jesus, who restores the eyes of the soul through his forgiving love.
The one who has been forgiven of sins sees with eyes wide open, a gaze filled with compassion and grace. This is the disposition from which we gently point out the splinter in our sister's eye through the eyes of having received compassion and forgiveness ourselves. Then, and only then, can we lead the blind into the same healing we have received to restore their sight; two who were blind, restored by the graces of Christ given to his church on earth, to open our eyes and guide us into glory. Amen+
