(Thursday) Psalms 37:1-18 * 37:19-42; Job 16:16-22, 17:1,13-16; Acts 13:1-12; John 9:1-27(Friday) Psalms 31 * 35; Job 19:1-7,14-27; Acts 13:13-25; John 9:18-42
The Gospel of John on Thursday and Friday are so closely tied together (at least for me) that I have conflated the reflection into one day.
Jesus heals the "blind man from birth" today, of course, on the Sabbath which just pisses off the Jewish authorities who are stalking him, waiting for him to make "a mistake" so they can ding him on it. Aren't they annoying? Why can't they see what is going on? Why are they lost in the minutiae of their rules and regulations when something HUGE is going on right under their noses?
I walk away with two things from this long healing story in John's Gospel. One, that on one level, this could be about Jesus opening the eyes of all people who never really saw life before, never really appreciated the world before. This metaphorical aspect of this story goes to the root of the Gospel message: not seeing and then being able to see. How can we order our lives so that we actually do see?
And second, I wonder about rules and regulations and minutiae and how people can nit=pik at you till you are sick to death of them. Sure, I understand the importance of order and structure, I am not a complete anarchist after all. But when those become paramount in our lives, when they take over our lives, I think we lose something. We no longer are capable of seeing the big picture....the old adage comes to mind "losing the forest for the trees" or the other trite one "tripping over dollars to save pennies". They may be trite, but they hold a kernel of truth in them that this Gospel brings to the fore: are we missing Christ in our lives, Christ in the world around us by our focusing on things that are, truly, unimportant.
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Copyright 2008, John F. Dwyer. All Rights Reserved.
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