David and the Man Born Blind

God chooses in the strangest ways.

Jesse had seven sons, and one of them was to become the King of Israel. So, when he hears that the Prophet Samuel is coming to Bethlehem, he lines them all up.

He’s sure that Samuel will choose Elian, for his is the oldest, the tallest and the best looking. He’d make a fine kind. 

Not so fast, God whispers in Samuel’s ear. You might be impressed with him, but I have looked in his heart and he’s not the one.

So Samuel brings the second oldest, Abinadad. His name means nobility. And Shimeah, whose name means the famous one. And Nethaneel, who they called “a gift from God.” And Radii, the conqueror and Ozem, whose name means “strength.”

But God chose none of them, and Samuel turns to Jesse and asks “Are these all the sons you have?"

Well, Jesse says, there’s the youngest and he is our tending sheep. And you guessed it. God chose him to be King of Israel. The runt of the litter.

——

In the same way, today’s very long Gospel begins with everyone believing that the man born blind is the biggest sinner in Jerusalem. For why else would God make someone blind, except because he was a sinner? He is an unworthy, unclean beggar in their sight. But of all the people in Jerusalem: the Pharisees, the scholars of the law, his parents, the Jews… Jesus chose him.

And he’s a not particularly bright or articulate blind man either. I love his testimony, the second time they call him to the stand and demand to know if Jesus is a sinner. “Did you hear him?” they ask. He says simply: 

“I don’t know if he is a sinner. The only thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.” ‘And if God does not listen to sinners, and he made me see, how can he be a sinner?’

At which they become enraged:

"You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?"

And then they throw him out.

And then, our not too bright, but honest once-blind-man sees Jesus again, who comes to the point of the story:

”Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He asks him.

"Who is he, sir,” he answers, “that I may believe in him?”

And Jesus says the most beautiful words of the Gospel. He says four words to the once blind man: "You have seen him.”

And he says: “I do believe.”

For, in the end, we don’t need all kinds of fancy words. We don’t have to be the ones with the best reputations or the coolest names. We don’t have to be the best looking or the tallest or the strongest.

We just have to be chosen. As you have been. In all your littleness and imperfection, to know the Son of Man and to worship him.

Caring for the Sparrow: A Mission Homily

Be not afraid. That’s what Jesus tells us in tonight’s Gospel. Be not afraid.

Indeed, he says it three times, as if he thinks we might not believe him. And he may be right, as we live in a world that sometimes seems thick with fear.

We are afraid of growing old or getting sick or losing what makes us happy. We fear for the safety of our children, the direction of our country, and the well-being of the earth itself. We fear strangers and those who think differently from us; we fear being misunderstood, judged, or canceled. And beneath all these fears lies a deeper one: the fear that we are alone, that no one truly sees us, that our lives might pass without meaning.

And because he became a man like us in all things but sin, the Lord Jesus knows our fears; he has felt out fears and still he says, “Be not afraid.”

Which is why we observe Lent each year, a time to learn not to be afraid of the Cross. A time to learn to open our arms upon whatever crosses the Lord might send us and to know that they are but a sign of his love for us.

Which is what Jesus is talking about when he asks us to think about the sparrows, the cheapest little birds in the bird store…and yet “not one of them falls to the ground without God noticing it.” 

Wasn’t it nice to hear the old story about Saint Francis preaching to the birds again? I love how he calls them his brothers and sisters and thanks God for their wings, their feathers and their freedom. And the birds, the story goes, just patiently perched there and never flew off until Francis had finished. (Please remember their patience if you’re tempted to leave before the end of this homily!)

For this story of the little birds is not just a cute Hallmark moment, it is a profound insight into the heart of God, a heart which loves every creature, even the little ones with feathers.

And he calls us to do the same.  Just as God cherishes the birds and the turtles and the trees and even every man and woman on the earth, so should we. If God attends to the fall of a sparrow, we should not be indifferent to the ways in which life—human or non-human—is wounded, neglected, or destroyed.

That’s a pretty good lesson for Lent, the season in which we examine not only our private sins, but our habits of relationship—with God, with one another, and with the created world entrusted to our care.

Is that what we do?

Or do we sometimes forget the small, the poor and the overlooked—as if their falling realer doesn’t matter? Do we live upon the earth as stewards, or as consumers? Do our choices reflect reverence, or convenience?

Pope Francis once wrote that “Our relationship with the environment can never be isolated from our relationship with others and with God.” In other words, care for this world and everything in it is a concrete expression of discipleship. It is how paschal love takes flesh.

Jesus concludes the Gospel with words of astonishing intimacy: “Even all the hairs of your head are counted.” If God attends to such detail, then nothing, and no one, is beneath our care.

Not the sparrow.
Not the stranger.
Not the earth itself.

Lent prepares us to see thus way. It teaches us to fast from indifference, to give alms in the form of mercy and restraint, and to pray ourselves into the mind and heart of Christ.

So today, Jesus says again: “Be not afraid.” Be not be afraid to live gently. Be not be afraid to care deeply. Be not be afraid to love in ways that mirror the Father’s own attention to the smallest of things.

Not a single sparrow falls to the ground outside God’s care, and yours.