Tue Mar 10 11:54 AM

"Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and gather together, all you who love her: rejoice, you who have been in sorrow: exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast" (Isaiah 66:10)

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So, we're having steak today. We bought four servings at HNEC's annual steak & beast & bake, froze two: they thawed in the fridge overnight, now are on the kitchen counter aging further with tenderizer. Our dinnerTime is usually one or two o'clock, yesterday it was three o'clock, someTimes it's not until after Linda's five o'clock evening news, at six or seven o'clock. Seeing that we had breakfast after three o'clock coffee, about four o'clock, I'm thinking dinner today may be noon or one o'clock.

To go with, I opened my last bottle of red to let it air for a couple of hours, am sitting here with a couple ounces of sniff 'n sip. Last bottle of red: why should I leave this choice bottle for others to toast my Life Well Lived at some future gathering? It's really good. 

War: I hate war, FDR's dog Fala hated war. But if someone had gone to war with Hitler a few years earlier, incalculable human suffering and millions upon millions of deaths could have been avoided, so I'm leaving judgment of this one to the historians. If you can't go to war with people who hate you and whose declared intent is your total annihilation, that's pretty naive and only pushes the problem down the road to grow and expand and prepare until it's their call and not yours.

war photos from the Middle East

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Yet another long one, here's our gospel reading for Sunday, Lent 4. In some quarters Lent 4 is known as mid-Lent Sunday or Rose Sunday or Refreshment Sunday or Laetare Sunday or Rejoice Sunday. Years ago the Pope set Rose Sunday to ease for one day the heavy penitential sense of the season. Rose colored vestments could be used instead of purple, there could be flowers, refreshments were served, there could be music. The tone of the day was to be set by the first word of the Introit to the Latin Mass, Laetare, Rejoice:

Laetare Jerusalem, et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam: gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis: ut exsultetis, et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae.

John 9:1-41

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” 

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Jesus turning the religious Certain Truth garbage cans of the day upside down and dumping them out.

And I love that the man born blind is so gutsy sarcastic in his dealings with the Pharisees. 

Religious authorities are suspect anyway, in their Certitudes, and deserve to be challenged. Putting them in their place was a specialty of Jesus, even if they never "get it," and indeed, they never do.

A bright glare marks Tuesday here on St Andrews Bay but Life is Good.

RSF&PTL

T90