Fourth Sunday in Lent 2012

18 March 2012 4th Sunday of Lent – Cycle A Princeton, NJ

If you take time this summer to vacation at the Jersey Shore and head to Cape May Point you will likely find
a number of people combing through the sand and the stones looking for a particular treasure. They will
spend hours shifting and sorting and separating out the unwanted pebbles to find choice pieces of quartz
that have been polished over time by the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware River. Often the
best pieces are then cut and further polished and sold as local gems, called Cape May Diamonds.

So you may ask what does that have to do with this fourth Sunday in Lent and the gospel of the blind man
being healed? The connection has to do with the fact that this Sunday is the second of three Scrutinies. The
Church provides that if the parish has Catechumens who will be fully initiated into the Church at the Easter
Vigil, that we celebrate the Rite of the Scrutinies on the third, fourth and fifth Sunday’s of Lent. This is the
reason we use the optional readings from Cycle A during these weeks, as they contain key baptismal
themes. Last week we heard the story of Jesus and the woman at the well – offering us the theme of the
‘Living Waters.’ Next week we will hear the theme of death yielding life in the story of Christ raising Lazarus
from the dead. And this Sunday the readings for this second Scrutiny focus on our eyes being opened to the
Light of Christ.

So what do the scrutinies mean to the Elect (those who will be baptized at Easter) as well as to all of us?
The answer is found by looking at the derivation of the word ‘scrutiny.’ The word has French and Latin roots
and literally refers to one who ‘searches through piles of rubble in the hope of finding something of value.’
And so, the Church calls for the Elect to review what is broken and rubbish within them in order to illuminate
the good. But even though the Rite of Scrutinies specifically apply to the Elect – it doesn’t mean the rest of
us get to look the other way. Besides supporting and praying for the Elect, all of us are called to use this
time to look through our own personal piles of garbage.

Like picking through all the stones and pebbles washed up on the beach searching for those small pieces of
polished quartz, this is the time in our Lenten journey that we need to take an honest and internal look at
ourselves. We need to shift through our hurts and wounds and addictions in searching for the parts of us
that we keep hidden. Lent is a time for us to uncover and bring out of our shadows all that we are: weed and
wheat. It is the time to illuminate the darkness and open our eyes to that part of us that we don’t want to
see, and that we don’t want others to see. It is a part of us, fueled by our egos, which we fear and often
hate.

This enlightenment happens when we allow the ego to die so we can be led by the Spirit. But it is the ego
that gets in the way of us examining ourselves. For it puts us in the place of self-power where we think our
position is right and we measure all else against that. Since the ego loves status quo and hates to change, it
prevents us from looking at our shadow-shelves. Author Wayne Dyer once said, “you are either a host to
God or a hostage to your ego.”

But don’t get me wrong – unlike the search for the Cape May Diamonds, the goal of performing ‘scrutiny’ is
not to just necessarily search out the ‘good’ – for as Jesus once said, ‘only God is good.’ And it is not
necessarily about keeping all the rules – look how Jesus goes out of his way to cure the Blind Man on the

1 Deacon Jim Knipper

Sabbath, breaking Jewish Law and enraging the Pharisees. It is all about the process...the act of
scrutinizing, for that is where God’s grace is received. It is about making the time to examine our lives. For it
is in the weeds, the pebbles, the wounds and the pains where God meets us and God rejoices in us and God
heals us thus allowing the Light of Christ to break forth from our darkness onto all.

God doesn’t hate this part of us. Just the opposite – God simply uses our problems, our shortcomings, and
our sin to lead us closer to God! But to do that, we have to come out of the shadows. That is what Christ
was asking the followers and Pharisees to do in today’s Gospel. He wanted them to put their arrogance and
egos and judgment of others aside and to have blind faith, like the man healed. This second Scrutiny is all
about having our eyes opened, like the blind man, so that we can be aware of the light of Christ that dwells
within us.

This was the same light that Peter, James and John saw when they went to the top of that high mountain. It
was there that they saw the Christ transfigured, radiant in light. And this is the transformation that Lent is
calling us to. Not the same miraculous glow seen by the apostles – but still Christ’s light emanating from our
darkness. I know you know people in your lives who are like that. People who, no matter what is happening
in their lives, they are open and present and giving off the light of Christ to others.

I remembered the first time I met my friend Joan Brock. The moment she walked into the room and greeted
me, it was clear that the light and love of Christ was present. In the mid 1980’s Joan was happily married
and mother of a beautiful young daughter. And within a period of two years she lost her sight to a
degenerative disease and then lost her husband to cancer. Blind and a mother of a six year old she headed
back to her hometown of Bakersfield California with a life that was literally, physically and emotionally in
darkness.

Daughter of a minister, Joan writes in her book, “More Than Meets the Eye,” that she never lost her faith in
God as it was always part of her life growing up. Joan quickly reached out of her darkness with the love and
support of her family and her new husband and wrote her life story which was later made into a movie for
TV. Today she travels on the lecture circuit telling her inspirational life story. Like the blind man, Joan has
great faith, for in her blindness she clearly sees and gives off the light of Christ to all those present.

That is Joan’s story – what about yours and mine? We still have half of Lent before us. Plenty of time to
accept the challenge of the Scrutinies. Plenty of time to shift through the garbage of our lives. And indeed,
plenty of time to look at the shadows of our lives – for it is there that an encounter with our ever loving God
awaits you.

2 Deacon Jim Knipper

Fourth Sunday in Lent 2012

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