Lent 4A 2026

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ The writer of the Gospel of John uses a method where an event poses a question, followed by a response in the form of an action. This, in turn, leads to a deeper teaching, often leading to a confrontation of some kind. 

In today’s lesson, a blind beggar is seen by the disciples, who wonder why he is the way he is. They want to place blame somewhere, but Jesus will have none of that. His explanation, however, is somewhat less than satisfying. “He was born this way so that the works of God might be made manifest in him.” Anyone who might want to write a theodicy on that statement is welcome to have at it. 

Right at the outset we have a reversal. The work of God is to be seen through a man who has been blind from birth. Juxtapose that with the ending of the story, where those who claim to have 20/20 vision regarding the works of God are told they are blind. 

How about us? Do we truly see or are we in some way blind to the works of God? After all, the answers we give just might make manifest whether we live in the wholeness we seek, or whether we continue to choose brokenness as our way of life, our very identity. 

We don’t have to look very far to find brokenness due to blindness. In our city, we have many who live unsheltered in part because our economy idolizes property as status, and the very real foundation of our wealth. Then we go further to confuse wealth with worth, and therefore those without wealth are in some way unworthy of its provisions and security. 

In our nation, we choose to see differences in language, skin color, age, gender, and a lot of other identifying attributes as ways of determining and maintaining superiority and that word “dominion,” which we use to serve ourselves by interpreting it as dominant rather than the responsibility to care for one another. 

That extends into the wider world, including the planet Earth and its resources. Have you noticed that when a tragedy occurs, and I’ll include chosen forms of violent action as tragedy, for they are just that to at least one party in the conflict, have you seen that some of the first concerns raised are economic? Oil prices. Inflation. Canceled modes of transportation. Vacation plans. All this while so many are faced with grief and loss while burying their children, other loved ones, and neighbors. 

Does anyone really understand what real peace, you know, that peace that passes all understanding, really looks like? Will we recognize it even if it stands right in front of us? Or will we dismiss it, like the Pharisees who dismissed the formerly blind man from the synagogue, because we don’t like what its appearance says to us? Or says about us? Truth often holds up a mirror, showing us our true selves in our own judgmental words.

Jesus asks the man if he believes in the Son of Man, then identifies himself as that being. I’ve struggled to understand what the phrase “Son of Man” means in John’s Gospel. Current sight leads me to believe that it is the identity of the One whom theologians, including Paul, have called the “Second Adam,” the one who, in some way, embodies all humanity, as well as its future hope.

As that foundational belief takes hold, I also believe that for too long we have blinded ourselves by our refusal to see not just Jesus in others, but others in some way present with Christ in the same way we believe ourselves to be. This drives home Matthew’s words, “as much as you do it to the least of these, my children, you do it to me.” And on top of that, as the body of Christ, the church, we also do it—whatever “it” is—to ourselves.
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Maybe when we truly see the many ways our self-inflicted wounds drive us far from the very things we say we seek, our eyes will behold the true peace we claim to long for. It’s probably still standing right in front of us.