The man born blind.... Well, the first blind man I ever knew was old
Joe McNamara. He lived kitty-corner from our house, where I grew up,
and he commuted by bus to downtown Oakland every day where he had a
candy stand. When I was I think in about the sixth grade, one of my
daily chores became, at five in the evening, to go out and meet him
when he got off the bus and escort him home. He was the first person
to teach me to play the violin and a few years later, when I was in
the seminary, I came home on a visit and I went to see Joe. He asked
me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, “a priest.” He thought
for a moment and, as people who are blind sometimes do, tilted his
head back and rolled it around and then came back and he said, “Well,
that’s a pretty good trade.” The next group of blind people I got to
know was in the 1960’s. I was serving as a chaplain to the California
School for the Blind in Berkeley. Actually, I married two young
couples. All four of the spouses were blind. They knew one another
well. They felt they could face life together well, which they did.
And the latest blind person I’ve come to know is Betty Rogers.
Betty’s mother, Gaby Lujan, lived in our parish and died a few years
ago. Betty lives in Michigan, but she comes and worships with us at
least a couple times a year. You may have seen her at Christmas time
when she comes up and reads Braille and proclaims the Word of God to
us. But this last December when she was here, she heard we were
thinking about possibly having a parish tour to Egypt and she got so
excited she couldn’t contain herself. She kept talking about her trip
to Egypt and the Luxor Valley, and her experience of the Sphinx and
the camels and the Pyramids and the ancient world history that she
had experienced first hand and could never forget.

I confess I have my blind spots. It’s not necessarily people who are
physically blind who have the blind spots. Betty has a clear and
exact vision and sight of the land of the Pharaohs, more than any of
us do. Those young couples saw each other clearly and saw one
another’s qualities, and were able to see their future together. And
old Joe McNamara, when I said I was thinking of being a priest, could
look and say, “Well, that could be a pretty good trade.” Sometimes,
it’s not in spite of our blindness, in spite of the darkness, that we
are able to see. Sometimes it is actually because of our blindness,
because of the darkness, that we see things more clearly. Two Friday
nights ago, we had that wonderful play of “Damien, the leper priest
of Molokai.” And, at one point, Father Damien looked out and, talking
about his beloved lepers, he said, “They come here in the evening and
go out on the lanai with their guitars to play and sing, and, in the
darkness.... in the darkness.... in the darkness they forget that
they are lepers.”

We all can confess that we all have blind spots. Let me suggest three
that we might have in common. The first one might surprise you. It is
the blind spot to our own goodness, to our own potential, to our own
promise. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of a history of put-downs
from others. Maybe it’s because of our own negative thinking about
ourselves. Maybe it’s because we are bombarded all the time by
commercials that keep telling us we are OK if you have a better car,
if you have a better home, if you have better clothes, if you have a
better body, if you have better teeth. Then you’re OK. And we end up
not seeing how remarkable, beloved, how precious, how blessed we are.
I confess I have my blind spots. But it is better that we see. It is
much better that we see.

The second blind spot that we might share in common is being blind to
the pain of the poor and the needy. Now, we know we are all called to
help the poor and the needy, and we do it in a wondrous way in this
parish. And I would say every last one of you is part of that. Every
last one of you is amazing and generous in reaching out to the poor
and needy. But we get very tired of seeing the poor and the needy,
and looking at pain. It’s hard to look at. It’s easy to miss. And
it’s very natural to look away. We drive on freeways that protect us
safely from not seeing blighted areas or people living in poverty.
And our media is limited to just a very short glimpse, really making
invisible the real pain and the real suffering that’s going on. We
might, for a few moments, see some scruffy protestors saying there is
a problem. Or then we see some politicians saying there is not a
problem. Or maybe we see a quick soundbite or a glimpse of the pain
going on in the world. But it is wedged between commercials for
eating at McDonald’s or commercials telling us to use Viagra. Our
tolerance for seeing pain is very limited. And we would just as soon
not see the non-US victims of the Iraq War, or the pain of the
victims of starvation in Darfur, or the victims of apartheid in
Palestine, or the victims of human-trafficking and sweatshops across
the country or the world, or the oppression of immigrants and
laborers in our own country. It’s much easier to look away, if a
topic comes up, to change the subject. It’s much easier to ignore the
suffering. I confess I have my blind spots. But it’s better that we
see. It’s much better that we see.

The third blind spot is the most obvious one, the most natural one,
the most automatic one, the most expected one. It’s a blind spot
toward people who disagree with me. If we disagree with each other,
especially if it is a strong disagreement, we want to ignore the
other person, avoid the other person, write the other person off, and
particularly in Church. I don’t know what it is. I have a few
guesses. But I think church-goers, Christian church-goers, Catholic
church-goers have more disagreements among themselves than any other
group around, or on the planet. Short of belief in Jesus, which we
share, and belief in the Eucharist, which we share, almost everything
else, we have two hostile, angry sides of every last issue, whether
you’re orthodox or not orthodox, whether it’s about social justice
issues and political solutions, whether it’s about war or capital
punishment or immigration, whether it’s about ordination of women or
married clergy, whether it’s about the place of gay and lesbian
Catholics in our midst, whether it’s the politics of abortion,
whether it’s the place of Fundamentalists and Progressives in the
same Church. And then, if it’s something really trifling, really
small, really unimportant, then we really get angry.... about when to
kneel, stand and sit in church or what style of music to have in
church or what kind of language. Should we say “thee, thou,” or “you”
and whatever? Blind spots and biases are easily divided into “You’re
too conservative” or “You’re too liberal.” Or “You’re not
conservative enough” or “You’re not liberal enough.” We need both and
we need to listen to one another, respect one another, learn from one
another and live with one another. Especially in the area of religion
and faith, we need both the conservative brand and the liberal brand.
We need the conservative brand so that our ancient traditions and
faith are not diluted by passing fads and fashions. And we need the
liberal brand so that our ancient faith and beliefs do not become
frozen and dead because they never adapt and they never face a real
challenge. I confess I have my blind spots, but it is better that we
see. It is much better that we see. Amen.