Fourth Sunday of Lent, A March 22, 2020
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
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It’s all about the lighting. Photography, the mood in a restaurant, the football field at night, the choice of entertainment. Light can make or break any one of these things. Indeed, how many people are right now staring at the thousands of flashing colored lights that make up a computer screen or a television?
The lights we use say a lot about who we are. Even the lack of light becomes a defining characteristic – being blind dramatically changes the way you interact with the world. Just ask the man from the Gospel who survived by begging because, without the supports our modern age offers to the blind, it was impossible for him to earn a living. And yet, it was precisely his lack of light, his blindness, that enabled him to see the only light that matters, Jesus Christ.
It is said that a crisis does not build character, it only reveals it. What kind of light does this crisis shine on your life? All the time, money, and energy you used to put into professional or local sports? The time and money spent in restaurants or at theaters or the many other outside opportunities for entertainment. Even more importantly, what are the lights on your screens saying about your life now?
I know the temptations so many of you face in the midst of ordinary stress and isolation, much less now. I know the false relief offered by unlimited access to the unnatural lights of the internet. Christ knows them and how those false lights can blind you. Do not yield! Go to the one who made Adam from the clay, the one who uses his divine clay to remake your eyes, to open them to his light. Confession is still available to most of you, do not neglect this sacrament! It is how Christ’s healing touch is applied to your soul.
And consider carefully what this time, this temporary blindness to many things we’re used to, teaches you about the light and darkness in the world. Paul is writing to the Ephesians, who used to be pagans. They converted to Christianity and now Paul is trying to teach them what that means for their daily life. There are many things – slavery, impurity, violence, idolatry – that were considered normal and natural and good when they were pagans. A whole lifetime of living that way doesn’t simply go away. It takes time – and grace! – to shift their affections, to purify their minds, to learn how to walk, to live as children of the light.
This forced stripping away of everything superfluous in our lives gives us a chance to look at life in a new light like the Ephesians. There are many things in our culture that are not Christian. Things you think are normal and fine but are not. If you think you are the exception, you are fooling yourself. I’m no exception either. Everyone is the product of their culture to some extent. It takes years of deliberately trying to live for Christ and not like the world; thousands of hours in prayer and study of the faith; countless humbling and humiliating moments of being corrected by people who may be no better off than you, but are right at that moment.
Consider our comfort with impurity even if we don’t practice it – notice that Paul specifically says it’s shameful to talk about what people do in secret; that includes dirty jokes and clever memes Then there’s our attitude to the poor and the immigrant, our sense of humor, our automatic loyalty to whichever political grouping is most comfortable, our general wastefulness and excess; The very principles of our economic and political system are not products of faith. There are varying levels of Christian influence in each of these, but none of them are wholesale fruits of living in the light.
“The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.” This cuts both ways. It means we won’t lack what we truly need, but it also means we won’t want things that aren’t from the shepherd. Are you sure you live like someone who wants nothing more than what the Shepherd gives? Are you sure you want the Shepherd himself, even if it means losing everything else?
Now is the time to re-evaluate all of that. Paul says, “try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.” How many of us simply assume we know what is pleasing? That was the mistake of the Pharisees. They grew up in a culture very much influenced by the Mosaic Law, the Law of God. Yet they allowed their cultural assumptions about the Sabbath – not a living, dynamic faith – guide their actions. Do you really try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord, to be a child of the Light?
Now is the time to do what Paul says, “Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them… everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.” Take time each day to seriously shine a light on the works of your life and of the world around you. No assumption should be safe; There is nothing to lose. If your life-long assumption about living the Catholic life is correct, this kind of scrutiny will only confirm it. Much like the hygiene precautions we’re taking now. If you’re not infected, all these steps to avoid getting and spreading the disease will only protect you more. And if you are infected, if you are stuck in the works of darkness, this kind of extra care will save you; the hygiene saving your life and others, the spiritual scrutiny saving your soul and others.
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” Get up. Get out of your pajamas and turn on the light. “Go wash in the pool of Siloam.” Take your showers and wash your hands. Renew your baptismal washing by careful self-examination, by acts of contrition, and by going to confession. I’d rather die of the virus – or anything else – than let you die without the sacraments just as Christ would rather die by crucifixion than leave this man blind on the Sabbath, the day God completes his creation and manifests his love to us.
If the world crucifies us because our actions shine a light on the darkness of their cultural assumptions, so be it. Death is serious, but for those who are faithful, it is not permanent. The way you see Death, like everything else, is all about the lighting. You and I are children of the light. It’s time to act like it.