1 Sm 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a / Eph 5:8-14/ Jn 9:1-41 or 9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38
There was a great boat race between a Japanese company and an American company. The Japanese won by a mile. So the Americans hired an analyst to figure out what went wrong. He reported that the Japanese had one person managing and seven rowing, while the Americans had seven managing and only one rowing.
“Aha,” said the Americans who immediately restructured their team: Now they had one senior manager, six management consultants, and … one rower. In the rematch, the Japanese won by two miles!
After further intensive consultations, the Americans fired their rower! Reality was staring them in the face, but they just couldn’t see it.
We are all blind to many things, and we’re much the poorer for it. We rarely see how much people love us, and how much God loves us; we see only a fragment of our gifts and only a few of the possibilities God lays out for us; we catch only glimpses of the marvels that surround us, especially the marvelous people we take for granted. So much joy, so much comfort, so much excitement, missed because we’re blind to half the goodness around us.
And just as sad, we don’t see half the things in our lives that are broken and need fixing: the relationships, the marriages, the children, the lifestyles. We don’t see them; so we can’t fix them. And so our sadness continues on and on.
Why are we blind to so much? In part, it’s fear. Very often we’re afraid to look at what may be broken or what may be a dead end because we fear it can’t be fixed, we fear we have no alternatives. That’s why battered women stick around and tell themselves, “It’s not so bad.” It IS bad, but they won’t look, and sometimes we won’t look — for fear.
But there’s more than fear here. Our values can keep us blind. Our culture tells us it’s a waste of time to take time every day to remember who we are, to look at ourselves, one another, and our world — the good parts and the not so good — and see a little more clearly. “Don’t waste your time,” says the culture. So we stay blind and busy, and we wonder why life doesn’t get any better.
Jesus reached out to the man born blind and helped him see for the first time. In just the same way, he reaches out to us, calling us out of the dark and into the light. Listen to what he’s saying: “You have no reason to be afraid of anything you may ever see. Our Father loves you dearly, and has already given you everything you need to become your complete self.
Open your eyes and give thanks for what already is, and for what can be.
Open your eyes and take his hand which has always been right there.
Open your eyes and take heart, for you are truly blessed! You’ll see that, if you look!
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