Last Sunday's Thought: Spiritual Blindness and the Journey to Spiritual Insight

‘I come to you, O Christ, blind from birth in my spiritual eyes, and call to you in repentance: you are the most radiant light of those in darkness.’ The words are those of the special hymn or kontakion of the Eastern Orthodox Church for the ‘Sunday of the Blind Man’, which is celebrated on the sixth Sunday of Easter, shortly before Ascension Day. The gospel on this Sunday is from John chapter 9, which is a different healing of a blind man than in today’s gospel. In John’s story of the healing of the blind man, Jesus states that ‘for judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind’ (John 9:39). His statement makes it clear that the discussion concerns not just physical blindness but blindness that is of a different, spiritual, order.

So what is spiritual blindness? St Paul tells us that human beings can only understand spiritual truth as the Holy Spirit gives them understanding (1 Corinthians 2:15). This gives us ‘the mind of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 2:16). The simplest definition of spiritual blindness is therefore the absence of the Holy Spirit which alone gives us understanding. The danger of being led by a spiritually blind leader is obvious, and is pointed out by Jesus in chapter 15 of Matthew’s gospel: ‘If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into the pit’ (Matthew 15:14, Rheims NT), that is will be led to damnation. The remark was particularly damning, because the spiritual leaders of the day regarded themselves as ‘guides to the blind’ (Romans 2:19), and took great offence at the idea that they themselves might be blind (‘What? Are we blind too?’ they ask Jesus in John 9:40).

This scotosis or unrecognized spiritual blindness is deeply damaging to faith. It can lead one to the sin of hypocrisy, the failure to cast the beam out of your own eye because you are so busy casting out the mote in your neighbour’s (Matthew 7:4; Luke 6:42). The Prophet Isaiah predicted exactly such a deadening of vision and hardening of hearts: ‘He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts…’ (Isaiah 6:10; John 12:40). As Paul says, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day’ (Romans 11:8).

So spiritual insight can be resisted. Henri Nouwen’s Creative Ministry (1971) discussed this problem of spiritual blindness. For Nouwen, the darkness, or the blindness which prevent new insights are: a wrong supposition, false pressure and horror of self-encounter. The wrong supposition is the idea in teaching that giving is greater than receiving and the feeling of students that they are only receivers, which causes resistance to learning. Both teachers and students need to be valued for what they can give. ‘Many students could be better students than they are if there were someone who could make them recognize their capacities and could accept these as a real gift. Students grow during those moments in which they discover they have offered something new to their teachers making them feel not threatened, but rather, thankful. And teachers could be much better teachers if students were willing to draw the best out of them and show their acceptance by thankfulness and creative work.’

          There is also a false pressure from society that grades, degrees and rewards are decisive for the future and the pursuit of a successful career. ‘This false pressure of society which forces us to pay undue attention to the formal recognition of our intellectual accomplishments, tends to pull us away from our more personal needs and to prevent us from coming to insights into our own experiences that can form the basis of a creative life project.’

         The third obstacle is what Nouwen calls the ‘horror of self-encounter’, that is the fear of confronting our basic human condition that we all must die naked and powerless. It is the recognition that we all share this weakness and powerlessness that can help teachers and students free themselves for real learning. ‘Only in the depths of our loneliness, when we have nothing to lose anymore and do not cling any longer to life as to an inalienable property can we become sensitive to what really is happening in our world and able to approach it without fear.’

         Nouwen concludes that true teaching and learning involves both a ‘conversion’ and a ‘conversation’, which is aimed at discovering the source of one’s own existence. It fosters the creative dynamics of mutual learning. It must offer a safe and fearless space in which, free from judgement, one can lay aside defences and come to new insights. Such a teaching process is liberating because it nurtures inner growth and the freedom to face the realities of life.

         For Nouwen, true preaching is an extension of such a safe and fearless space, one which touches the life experiences of both listeners and preacher. The spiritual test of the preacher consists of his ‘willing[ness] to [offer himself] and make his own suffering and hope available to others so that they too can find their own, often difficult way… No preacher can bring anyone to the light without having entered the darkness of the Cross himself.’

By making available one’s own life experiences, with its ups and downs, the preacher begins a dialogue with the audience which may enable them to come to new insights. Exactly such a new insight was gained by Bartimaeus when he called out persistently ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ ‘I come to you, O Christ, blind from birth in my spiritual eyes, and call to you in repentance: you are the most radiant light of those in darkness.’

Last Sunday’s Thought: how camels – at least metaphorically – can pass through a needle’s eye

A narrow, low gate off the Via Dolorosa

There can be few gospel passages that have attracted quite as much discussion as Jesus’ remark that it is ‘easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (Mark 10:25; Matthew 19:24; Luke 18:25). There is, for example, a discussion board on the subject published by one of our national newspapers, apart from discussions on Christian websites and elsewhere. The expression itself has passed into our language and thus an article such as that written earlier this year by Desmond Tutu, formerly archbishop of Cape Town and Bettina Gronblom, chief executive of Not Just for Profit, asserting that ‘camels can pass through a needle’s eye’ seems counter-intuitive.

         There is a splendidly illustrated children’s story by Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen called The Little Gate, which shows how a heavily laden camel had to rid himself of a fine saddle and all his load in order to crawl through a low and narrow gate; but there is a difficulty with the image: who ever saw a camel crawl on its four knees? The answer is, I believe, no-one has, because it can’t. So the difficulty with the story is less the problem of the gate – whether or not there was a narrow, low gate at the entrance of Jerusalem or not, such gates do exist in the Holy Land because we have photographic evidence of one such gate off the Via Dolorosa – than the problem of the camel. The story is a typical exaggeration for effect by Jesus, but it exists in variant forms both in the Babylonian Talmud (where it is an elephant that cannot pass through the eye of a needle) and the Holy Qur’an (Q.7:40, where again it is a camel that cannot pass through an eye of a needle). It is likely that Jesus was using a proverb cast in the form of a hyperbole, the origins of which are now lost. And the remark is almost certainly authentic rather than garbled because it is stated in similar form in all three synoptic gospels. According to Origen, it was also to be found in the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews.

         Origen’s account of Jesus’s meeting with the rich man is particular from this source is particularly interesting in its wording:

         ‘The second rich youth said to him, “Rabbi, what good thing can I do and live?” Jesus replied, “Fulfil the law and the prophets.” “I have,” was the response Jesus said, “Go, sell all that you have and distribute to the poor; and come, follow me.” The youth began to fidget, for it did not please him. And the Lord said, “How can you say, I have fulfilled the law and the prophets, when it is written in the law: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’, and many of your brothers, sons of Abraham, are covered with filth, dying of hunger, and your house is full of many good things, none of which goes out to them?” And he turned and said to Simon, his disciple, who was sitting by Him, “Simon, son of Jonah, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”’ (Origen, Commentary on Matthew, 15:14).

         Now what is particularly interesting here is that Jesus gives a direct application of his teaching. From this it becomes clear that it is not wealth itself, or even the acquisition of wealth, which he is attacking. It is the uses to which wealth is put – for example, what in modern parlance is called ‘conspicuous consumption’ – rather than charitable giving: ‘your house is full of many good things, none of which goes out’ to ‘your brothers, sons of Abraham, [who] are covered with filth, dying of hunger’. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, in Jesus’ teaching, means doing something and not simply having pious thoughts. The gospel is about trying to build the kingdom of heaven on earth here and now, and not waiting until we reach heaven, when there will be a settlement of accounts. (This is the point of Jesus’ story about the rich man and his failure during his lifetime to help the beggar Lazarus lying at his gate: Luke 16:19-31.)

         If we accept at least the possibility that there were small gates for people to pass through after the main gates of the city were locked at night to keep enemies at bay, gates that were narrow and less than 5 feet tall, gates which you had to stoop down to and squeeze through in order to gain entrance to the city, then it would obviously be impossible for a fully grown camel to slide through such a small opening. What becomes intriguing is that the rich and powerful of those times might be reluctant to use such passageways because they would have to stoop over in order to get through and they were too proud to do so – they might consider it beneath their ‘position’ or standing in their community. Just as in the image of a camel laden with goods being unloaded before an attempt was made for it to pass through such a passageway – successful or not – we thus have an image of the rich man having to strip himself of all his possessions – to be just like any other person – in order to pass through the narrow gate. Wealth in the sense of possessions was an obstacle. Status in the sense of pride was an insuperable barrier: only a man bending over, or even on his knees can pass through the narrow and low gate to enter the kingdom of God. Humility is indispensable. And was this not what Jesus did, ‘though he was rich yet for [our] sakes he became poor so that [we] through his poverty might be rich’ (2 Corinthians 8:9)? Paul uses Jesus’ example to inspire in the Corinthians – and in all of us – ‘the gracious ministry of giving’ (2 Corinthians 8:7).

         As Desmond Tutu and Bettina Gromblom argue in their article in the Financial Times earlier this year, ‘at issue is not the rate of interest or the size of the mansion we inhabit. What matters is that we understand how we should behave to one another: namely, following the Golden Rule, that we should treat others as we would have others treat us… We cannot worship money and our self-interest alone – it leaves us with a hunger that can never be satisfied by acquiring more goods… What is important is finding the balance between greed and having enough, and defining what a joyful life means to us.’

Last Sunday's Thought: Mourning police officers killed in the line of duty

This last week has been a difficult time for the police service in Britain. The murder of two unarmed – as it happens, female – police officers in the line of duty has led to a great deal of public mourning. The Christian faith, which sometimes seems beleaguered in what at times appears like a post-Christian society – has been found still to possess the right language to encompass those with little or no faith in three acts of remembrance in relatively quick succession: the service on National Police Memorial Day (30 September), held in York cathedral and presided over by Dr John Sentamu, archbishop of York; and the separate services held for the two murdered police constables, PC Nicola Hughes, 23, and PC Fiona Bone, 32, in Manchester Cathedral. Each of these services has been well attended by police officers of different ranks from various parts of the country, who have come together to show their loyalty and commitment to those who have fallen in the line of duty.

The Church of England offers funeral services for the faithful and those with no faith in every parish in the land. It is rare that such services receive media attention unless the deceased was in public life. An extraordinary, and very moving, aspect of these funerals and the orations of the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Sir Peter Fahy, for each of his murdered police officers, was that ordinary people were commemorated for their ordinary life of service because they were killed in an act of ‘savagery of the jungle’ as the Roman Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury expressed it. Our unarmed police are our last line of protection against such evil.

         Another striking aspect of this public mourning was that Sir Peter Fahy, unusually for a Chief Constable or other official in public life, talked openly about his Christian faith and how he responds to a crisis of such proportions. ‘Greater Manchester Police is a family and to have lost two colleagues this week in awful violent circumstances has just been devastating for the whole force and a very, very dark day… I think a lot of us feel passionately that policing is a vocation. It is a calling. I feel that in terms of my own faith but I know a lot of officers that don’t have a faith, but feel exactly the same – that it is a vocation, that it’s not just a job and I think that's almost what you go back to in difficult times and difficult circumstances that how unfair something may feel, how inadequate you may feel you do actually rely on that you’re doing your best, and that this is your vocation’, Sir Peter said in an interview on BBC One’s Songs of Praise.

         How refreshing it was to hear a Chief Constable talking about his value system and how he seeks to sustain it in his work. ‘The chance for me personally to be able…, every day, to have bit of quiet time, pray, think about your own values, your own sense of vocation, and to examine your own conscience I think is really, really important… We know a lot of people would like to express their feelings at this time. It’s mainly really for their colleagues and for members of the force but, no doubt, there will be members of the community, local people, who will want to use a vigil, whether they have a faith or not really, just to be there… It is that sort of human need to express emotion to be together… for me personally and a lot of people of faith, prayer is important... you do often feel so helpless, so praying for the dead officers, praying for their families, becomes your own reaction, your own expression of hope really for them, at a time of great need.’

         To refer to the police force under his command as a ‘family’ and to talk about his own private life of prayer at such a time is a great Christian witness in contemporary society when too often Christians feel that they have to negotiate away their own principles in public discourse. Not that Christians have ‘the answer’, for there is no answer except prayer on such a ‘very, very dark day’. Yet if many people pray together at such a time, and people who do not normally pray do so out of respect for their dead colleagues, then Christians believe that such prayer is a force for good in its own right. As the archbishop of York said: ‘we should never forget the work of our police service in our society, protecting citizens, preserving the peace and serving others in difficult situations. It is right that we pay tribute to their heroism and sacrifice in the line of duty. We should be proud of our police and honour those that have fallen.’

         Police officers need to pray because a strong life of prayer is their best encouragement and source for guidance. There is a marvellous anonymous prayer of a police officer which needs to be remembered and used as often as it is needed:

Lord I ask for courage
Courage to face and
Conquer my own fears...
Courage to take me
Where others will not go...

I ask for strength 
Strength of body to protect others
And strength of spirit to lead others... 

I ask for dedication
Dedication to my job, to do it well
Dedication to my community
To keep it safe...

Give me Lord, concern
For others who trust me
And compassion for those who need me...

And please Lord
Through it all
Be at my side. Amen.