Fourth Sunday of Lent

15th March 2026

Reflection with readings below

The gospel of John is full of signs. They are signs that invite to see beyond what has just happened.  Jesus wants us to see the signs as a stepping stone to understanding something fundamental about the kingdom  of God. At Cana we are invited not just to see that water has been turned into wine, but that generosity and transformation are key characteristics of God’s kingdom. In today’s story we are invited not just to marvel at the healing of a blind man, but to question our own ability to see. Our ability to see determines our ability to engage with the ways of the kingdom of God. 

It seems to us curious that anyone would think that blindness would be a result of sin – particular the sin of a parent – where is the justice in that? But what do we mean by sin? 

A starting point might be to understand sin as that which separates us from God or which separates us from our fellow brothers and sisters (and the two are interlinked. To love God is to love our brothers and sisters; to love our brothers and sisters is to love God). Nothing separates Jesus from God, and nothing separates him from his love for this fellow human. In that love, God’s glory is to be revealed.

The man does as Jesus directs and as he washes at the Pool of Siloam, finds that he has been healed. However it is a change of circumstances in which others do not seem able to rejoice. They don’t seem to feel that he is deserving of healing, and keep questioning him – and then question the validity of his healing: maybe he wasn’t really blind in the first place! Not surprisingly the man born blind is getting somewhat annoyed. He has been healed, he is grateful to Jesus for what he has done. He understands Jesus to be a prophet who has through the power of God healed him. He senses that Jesus is closer to God than the Pharisees. 

When Jesus seeks him out, his faith in Jesus as the promised messiah is completed.

Jesus declares his mission –  that he has come “that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” It seems clear that the Pharisees whilst their eyes see – indeed pry – they are the ones who are blind: blind to God’s presence and purpose. The response of those Pharisees who hear Jesus, is ambiguous but maybe some who were unable to see the truth now come to understand their blindness and repent accordingly.

In response to the line in Amazing Grace, “Once I was blind but now I see”, Nadia Bolz-Weber said, “Once I was blind blind, now I see badly!” I think in her answer there is a lot of honesty. We are not good at seeing clearly. We are often struggle to see what it is that is obstructing our vision.

When I buy a coffee, am I blind to the low pay received by the barista? Am I blind to the poor price paid to the coffee grower? Am I blind to the vulnerability of coffee growing areas to the impact of climate change?

It is easy to be blinded by a prevailing expectation that a cup of coffee should be cheap; the belief that free markets always ensure fair prices; the common understanding that climate change is a future – not a present – worry. We only see badly. Like the Pharisees, we don’t look beyond the norms we have grown up with, to see what God might really be wanting.

And it is not just in buying cups of coffee, but in so many other parts of our lives that we are – perhaps unwittingly – going along blind and indifferent to the plight of our brother and sisters and so failing at the same time to love God.

The Pharisees are surprised when Jesus suggests they cannot see: they are surely inherently good people, following the laws of God. And I am sure each in their own way did love their chosen neighbour and did in their own way love God. Yet they are blind to so much. The culture and system in which they live perpetuates this blindness, this inability to see what is separating them from all their neighbours, from the expansive eternal nature of God.

This can be true for us. Our blindness to the suffering of neighbours – both human and creaturely – happens because we are trapped in a culture and system that is inherently unjust and unsustainable. Simply paying for a more expensive, fair trade, coffee or recycling all our plastic, will not at scale restore justice or ensure sustainability. We need system change – salvation – so that we can live in harmony together with all our brothers and sisters, in harmony with God. 

This radical transformation – this healing of our blindness to the – is what Jesus declares and offers to us. How will our lives be if we accept his healing? 

1 Samuel 16:1-13

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah. 

Psalm 23

1 The Lord is my shepherd; *
I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures *
and leads me beside still waters.

3 He revives my soul *
and guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.

4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil; *
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; *
you have anointed my head with oil,
and my cup is running over.

6 Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, *
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Ephesians 5:8-14

Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, 

“Sleeper, awake!  Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” 

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 neighbours 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.”