1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
Only You can Revoke It: Your Irrevocable Christian Identity!
Few days ago, I received a video clip about a famous French fortune teller and seer. A French journalist went to interview him, and this is what transpired:
Journalist: sir, is it true that you can predict the things that will happen in the future?
Seer: Yes, sir, I can predict the future with 100% accuracy.
Journalist: The journalist gave him a dirty slap and asked him: did you see this slap coming?
Seer: writhing in pain, the seer did not respond.
Quite often, it is difficult to understand God’s doings because we expect him to carry out his activities in spectacular and extraordinary ways. Even in our twenty-first century, the spectacular and the extraordinary is still very attractive; more attractive than the ordinary. The so-called prophets and evangelists of our time attribute the rare and not the common and everyday to the activities of God. We have not brought the ordinary and every day to God’s domain. Today, God answers the question of how God chooses human beings to work for him and confers identities on his children. Instead of an elaborate celebration, exact vision and description of his choice, God meets human beings in a human way. The story of our first reading shows this: armed with his anointing oil and God’s mandate to provide a substitute for Saul, Samuel descended to the household of Jesse in search of the Lord’s choice to anoint him king over Israel.
As soon as Samuel saw Eliab, Jesse’s first born, his comeliness and height, there was a breakdown in prophetic transmission and the mission given him by God because Samuel thought that Eliab was God’s chosen King, to replace Saul. There was a need for a new vision from God: “[God said]: ‘Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.” Handsomeness and height have become measures that were not common, but signs of extraordinariness. Even today, tall men and women are sought after as people specially endowed. Lots of short people make up for their height deficiency through the use of high-hill shoes and marriage to tall men, in the case of ladies.
The human heart, which every human being possesses, without regard to height and handsomeness, is God’s yardstick, not extra-ordinary appearances, in the determination for the conferment of identity as God’s elect. A human being is not reducible to appearances, but the contents of the human heart determine human destiny. Possessing the right heart, God instructed Samuel to anoint David as King over Israel: “Then Samuel, with the horn of oil in hand, anointed David in the presence of his brothers; and from that day on, the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David.” In fact, the “spirit of the Lord” is the sign of belonging to the Lord, a sign of identity and destiny as a child of God. In the case of David, a sign that he was the chosen instrument of God to reign over his people Israel. Yes, God chooses whomever he wishes to make them whatever he plans for them.
If it were not for the quick intervention of God, making it known to Samuel that Eliab was not his choice for the kingship of Israel, David wouldn’t have been chosen because human way of seeing would have obstructed God’s choice, God’s candidate, David; Eliab would have been King of Israel instead of David. As a matter of fact, because Samuel listened to the voice of the Lord telling him that Eliab was not his choice for the kingship of Israel, Samuel waited for the arrival of David from shepherding his Father Jesse’s flock before anointing him King of Israel. The gospel of this Sunday brings us the same possible blindness or obstruction to the acknowledgement of God’s activities among human beings for lack of faith – the story of the man-born-blind.
If the Samuel listened to the voice of God and did not make Eliab King overIsrael, that was not the case with the Pharisees in today’s gospel – they refused to listen to the testimonies about the Son of God. Three characters dominate our gospel reading today: Jesus, the man-born-blind and the Pharisees. The healing of the man-born-blind stirred up an identity and faith debates. While the Pharisees debated the authenticity of the miracle vis-à-vis the identity of the personality of Jesus, whom they considered a sinner for not respecting the Sabbath, the man-born-blind turned protagonist and proponent of the prophetic identity of Jesus Christ. As far as the man-born-blind was concerned, only prophets could heal not sinners. Jesus, on his part, facilitated the revelation of his identity as the “light of the world,” through the healing of a man-born-blind.
Unlike Samuel who was able to listen to the voice of God asking him not to anoint Eliab as King of Israel, the Pharisees in today’s gospel weren’t listening to the testimonies about Jesus Christ, given by the man-born-blind. Despite the fact that the magnanimity of God, displayed in the restoration of sight to the man-born-blind, an enabling grace for the discovery of God, so that the unbelief and darkness of the Pharisees might be eliminated, the Pharisees contested, all through the gospel reading, the Prophetic and Messianic identity of Jesus. The man-born-blind eventually became the only believer who worshipped Christ as God, at the end of today’s gospel. The story of the gospel picked with the Pharisees’ claim that they were not blind, with Jesus asserting their spiritual blindness.
The lesson from our readings is the recognition of God in all occurrences. To believe a testimony given by a man-born-blind, in a culture that believed that such a man is a sinner, was practically impossible for the Pharisees to accept; yet, that was what Jesus chose to do. The special people of the day were not God’s channel for the communication of his message and his will, especially the Pharisees because God chose other meanings to reveal himself to human beings. The self-righteousness of the Pharisees blinded them to the works of God, hence they were unable to recognize God in the healing of the man-born-blind. Unfortunately, you and I, even today, we often contest the message of salvation and the teachings of the Church, just like the Pharisees. We often forget the miracles of our lives as occasions to testify to the blessings of God in our lives, unlike the man-born-blind who stood his grounds against the Pharisees to problem the Messiahship of Jesus Christ.
The good news is, according to Paul in the second reading, Jesus Christ has offered humanity a new identity as his sons and daughters through the death and resurrection of Christ. The era of darkness and sinfulness is over with. We have been transferred to the kingdom of light and righteousness. If we believe what Paul says, it follows that each one of us is God’s medium for the manifestation of his greatness and love. We have all become God’s channels of graces, blessings and righteousness. In other words, the extra-ordinary manifestations of God are now replaced by ordinary ways of encountering God; goodness and love should become common place among human beings because we are all God’s children. There is no longer any need to wait for the extra-ordinary, the everyday lives of all of us should be the occasion for the encounter with God. Spiritual blindness occasioned by lack of faith, incredulity because some are not good enough to communicate the will of God should become a forgotten way of seeing and doing things.
Above all else, our second reading teaches that there are no more prophets, kings and Pharisees, there is only the children of God, the new light of the world. Our baptism has made us all prophets, kings and priests. This new identity that we possess, thanks to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the greatest gift that we have received from God. What is more, only you can revoke it, your irrevocable Christian Identity. In the moments of our lives, when we allow appearances to becloud our Christian judgment like Samuel in the first reading, we should remember the importance of the “heart” and not “appearances.” The times when we consider ourselves superior to others, and think that God only communicates through superior people and not inferior people, let us remember that we are all Children of God, without exception. When we are tempted to criticize others because corruption and sins of all kinds pervade our society, let us remember that we are the light of the world, and when we do the things that are expected of us as Christians, things will be better; so, the other is not the problem but me, because the other cannot be who he or she should be, unless I become who I ought to be – a Christian, a child of God through my actions.