>>It’s become kind of routine for me that when I am out with my friends now, having dinner in a restaurant, I have to pull out my cell phone and turn on my flashlight so that I can better see and read the menu. It’s driving me a little crazy. I think I’ll have to get some reading glasses.  

Well, friends, today the reading is all about seeing clearly. Jesus put clay, we’re told, on the man’s eyes. The man washes them and he’s able to see.  

The lesson is one that we’ve heard many times, and we know that part of living in God involves allowing God to draw us from darkness into light. And part of our journey through Lent is a time for reflecting on those things that keep us somehow in the dark. We ask our merciful, loving God to shine that divine light into every corner of our lives, our souls, our minds, our hearts, so that in everything we do, we act as Christ.  

However, going from blindness to sight is only part of living a life in God. And so today, in the first reading, we’re given another understanding or insight from that Book of Samuel. We’re reminded not to judge from appearances and to recall that man does not see as God sees.  

And so, if we look back on the first reading, Jesse presents his seven sons to Samuel, wanting one of them to be chosen as king.  

But Samuel sees that the future king is not among them. And he asks, Do you have any other sons? And that’s when Jesse brings his youngest son, David, who’s been out tending the sheep. And God tells Samuel, “That’s the one to anoint as king.” And everyone is shocked by this. But the story reminds us that God allows Samuel to see in David what God himself sees.  

Friends, while the Gospel reveals the importance of allowing our loving God to open our eyes and to rescue us from the darkness that we live in. This first reading makes clear that following God involves not just seeing, but seeing in a particular way. Seeing as God sees. So what I’d like to suggest is that when we must make difficult choices in life regarding others or complicated situations that we’re in, let’s not simply give a quick and shallow glance and make convenient decisions.  

We also choose sometimes when we’re doing that, those things that are in our best interest. Let’s not do that. Rather, when these situations arise, let’s pause in those moments and honestly ask ourselves if God were viewing this person, if God were viewing this situation, which God is, what would God see? What would God do?  

And once we’re able to figure out what God would see and what God would do. That’s when we need to ask for the grace to embrace the answer that we have received and act on it.