Jesus teaches the Pharisees
39 Jesus said, “I have come into the world to exercise judgment so that those who don’t see can see and those who see will become blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard what he said and asked, “Surely we aren’t blind, are we?”
41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you wouldn’t have any sin, but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
Reflection
Have you ever had to unlearn something? It seems almost harder to unlearn information and behaviors than it was to learn it. For instance, for years I learned to use Apple computers and iOS , but when I had to learn Microsoft for a new laptop I was given, my brain just couldn’t grasp the new info. I kept trying to navigate this new situation, using the old information. It just wasn’t working and I was getting really frustrated and a little exasperated with the patient family members who were trying to help me see the difference and fix my mistakes. This is what happened to the Pharisees in their encounter with Jesus and the healing of the blind man. They were so entrenched in what they had learned, that they were unable to grasp the miracle of God that Jesus had performed. The Pharisees had become spiritually blind.
Like the Pharisees, we too spend our whole lives trying to learn and accumulate knowledge that will serve us in our everyday lives. We aren’t always as aware of our need to unlearn things that no longer serve us. So much of what we learn becomes muscle memory so that we aren’t even aware we’re thinking it, saying it, or acting on it. We’re just following blindly. But
when we begin to follow Jesus, all the knowledge that served us to survive in the world will no longer serve us. Our eyes have been opened by God’s unmerited grace and love. We now live in a new Kin-dom of God’s reality, where we follow the way of loving God, praying for our enemies, clothing and feeding the poor, visiting the imprisoned, welcoming the immigrant,
caring for the orphan and widow, seeking justice for the oppressed and loving our neighbor. With the help of God’s Spirit, we are transformed by God’s love to love others. We can no longer follow blindly the way of the world, in spiritual blindness, because Jesus has opened our eyes to see the way of love, mercy and compassion.
by Jeneene Reduker
For Pondering and Prayer
What do you need to unlearn to live in God’s Kin-dom and follow Jesus?
Prayer: Holy and Loving God, help us and remove our spiritual blindness by opening our eyes to see the way of love, mercy and compassion as we follow Jesus. Let the Spirit within us transform our lives to love others. Amen.
