Fourth Sunday in Lent

1SM 16:1B, 6-7, 10-13A | EPH 5: 8-14 | JN 9:1-41

Discussion Questions

1. Have you ever felt like or acted like the Pharisees in this Gospel?
2. What is the most difficult thing about seeing others as Jesus does?
3. Are you able to empathize with the outcasts in your world today? Do you see them? Miss them?
4. What characteristic of Jesus found in this Gospel is the most powerful to you?

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Live Connected – Simple Ways to Keep the Message Alive During The Week

• Put the Scripture Focus in a place where it can be seen each day
• As you watch TV or drive somewhere, be aware of who you see and your thoughts
• Make note of how the TRUTH has revealed Himself more fully in today’s Gospel

Attitude/Heart Change

On my knees, I ask Jesus to illumine my heart to see others through the lenses of understanding and compassion instead of judgment and hostility

Action/Life Change

To consider people in my life where I need to look beyond the appearance of the person into the heart of the person.

The Fresh Eyes of Pop Vocalist Billie Eilish

“You seem to be overwhelmed.”

Jesus Always Sees

With fresh eyes
With eyes void of cataracts
With his heart

Scripture Focuses

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned;”

“He put clay on my eyes, and I washed and now I can see.” So some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.”

Truths of the Truth

An illness or disability is never God’s punishment for sin. Blinded eyes are not sinful but blinded hearts just might be.

Jesus

• Empathizes with the blind man’s loneliness and isolation
• Has a touch that is good and beautiful
• Misses no one, discounts no one, ignores no one
• Was a person for others

Pharisees

• Locked into a law cannot see what is good and beautiful-the Truth
• Resist Jesus and his invitation to see a new perspective
• Only see with hostility
• It is their great sin