‘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.’
