Homily   Fourth Sunday in Lent - March 6, 2005

 

 

In the movie Dead Poets Society, John Keating is an English professor who uses unorthodox teaching methods to emphasize the value of individuality. In one exercise, he has the boys in his class walk across the quadrangle, challenging each to find a gait that distinguishes him from the others. Another time, he orders his students, one by one, to stand on top of his desk for a different view of things.  Seeing the world from a new perspective is what spiritual literacy is all about.

 

Graziano Marcheschi talks about how art helps us to see things differently:

 

You hear an old song and the face of a lost loved one suddenly appears, and in the space of the song the loved one grabs your loneliness by the collar and sends it out the door.

You stand before a painting and the peaceful landscape calls you in – or a scene of violent pain hold you in thrall – and for a minute that’s longer than eternity you enter the serenity, or you rage and grieve along with the picture’s tortured souls.

You read a piece of poetry and for the span of a minute – or an hour – you find a space to sit and listen to the sound a naked joy, or to stare into the face of unfathomable grief.

More than anything else, that’s what good art does:  not answer questions or set agendas, but create space – space to laugh, to mourn, and to wonder who and how and why we are.

 

It takes energy to be able to see. We need to work at it.  Without trying we see only grays and blacks.

 

The man who was born blind – the man that Jesus cured and gave sight to probably saw better than many even before Jesus’ action.

He put some energy into seeing – he wanted to see.

 

And Samuel in the first reading did just look – he perceived – he saw beyond the figures before him. He recognized in David more than other could. He could really see.

 

As we get closer to celebrating the newness of Easter we are invited to wonder how well we see.

 

“Vision,” according to English writer Jonathan Swift, “is the art of seeing things invisible.”  This gift belongs to those who can see the good hidden away in the kernels of setbacks, suffering, and pain.  It resides in those who never give up hope when less stalwart souls are ready to pack up their bags and go home. It stirs in the love of those who refuse to capitulate to cynicism on either a private or a public level.

 

Native Americans are particularly attuned to the spiritual practice of vision.  Their vision quests are journey undertaken by youth as a rite of passage or by tribal leaders for renewal.  The individual ventures into the wilderness alone, returning only when he or she has had a vision – a personal insight into a spiritual path or a revelation about the destiny of the tribe.

 

But vision quests are not just for Native Americans. We all need that practice.  Marcel Proust, the French writer suggests that we do not receive wisdom – we must discover it for ourselves after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us.

 

Perhaps in this Lenten journey we are about we need to be questing ourselves. We need to wonder what it is we don’t see.  We need to confront our blindness and search for sight.

 

Perhaps our blindness is that we don’t attempt to see new things or new ways – preferring the safety of sameness.

Perhaps it is a blindness of prejudice – being so sure about other people that we box them and restrict them.

Perhaps our blindness is from fear – not moving out of our own restrictions – not venturing out because of fear of difference.

Or maybe it is just a blindness that comes from laziness – I’ll open my eyes tomorrow.

 

The fact is that like the man born blind when we open our eyes we see the way to salvation. We see then what God created us for.

 

Lets use these remaining weeks of Len inviting the Lord Jesus to touch our eyes – and open them – so that we can see the way to resurrection.