Sermon Sunday March 15, 2026
Fourth Sunday of Lent
Have you ever paused to reflect on a moment when you truly changed your mind? Not just a fleeting opinion, but a profound shift in how you see the world. Perhaps you once held a belief tightly only to encounter something or someone that revealed a deeper truth. It’s a rare and humbling experience, isn’t it? As the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw wisely observed, those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. And yet in our stubborn humanity, most of us resist such change.
I recall a speaker who once said that most people do not change their mind, they simply die. He used this to argue why immortality and our current flawed state might be perilous. But what if change isn’t just possible but essential to our spiritual growth? What if is the very path to seeing God more clearly? Let us turn to the timeless wisdom of Plato’s allegory of the cave found in his work, The Republic, to illustrate this idea. Imagine prisoners chained in a dark cave from birth, their heads fixed so they can only gaze at the wall before them. Behind them burns a fire and puppeteers parade objects that cast flickering shadows on that wall. These shadows, mere illusions, are the prisoners entire reality. They name them, debate them, and build their lives around them, mistaking echoes for voices and silhouettes for truth. But one prisoner breaks free. Dragged into the sunlight, his eyes burn with pain. At first, the real world overwhelms him. Vibrant colors, solid forms, the sun itself as the source of all light and life. This journey is
agonizing, painful ascent from ignorance to knowledge. He realizes the shadows were but a pale limitation of the true forms, the eternal and changing realities beyond the cave. Philosophically, this allegory speaks of epistemology, our quest for true knowledge. It warrants that enlightenment demands courage, for it shatters comforts and exposes illusions. And when the freed prisoner returns to the cave, eager to share this revelation, he is met with ridicule and disbelief. His eyes, now adjusted to the light, falter in the darkness. The others see him as a mad man, as a blind beggar. They cling to their shadows, unwilling to risk the pain of change.
This ancient tale resonates deeply with our gospel reading for today from John chapter 9, the healing of the blind man. Here Jesus encounters a man who is blind from birth and his disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” Jesus replies, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. He was born blind so that God’s mighty works may be revealed in him. With mud made from spittle and earth echoing God’s creation of Adam, Jesus anoints the man’s eyes and sends him to wash in the pool of Salom, meaning scent. The man obeys and his sight is restored. But this miracle ignites controversy. The Pharisees, guardians of the law, interrogate him, fixated on the Sabbath violation. They see the shadows of rules, but miss the light of the world standing before them. Notice this irony. The men born blind progressively sees more clearly. At first, he calls Jesus the man called Jesus, then a prophet, and finally encountering Jesus himself, he declares, “Lord, I believe.” and he worships him. His physical healing mirrors a spiritual awakening. He parallels Christ’s himself sent to reveal God’s work, rejected by his own, yet testifying boldly. Meanwhile, the Pharisees with perfect physical vision remain spiritually blind. They claim to see yet refuse to change, clinging to their imper interpretations. Jesus declares, “If you were blind, you would not have sinned. But now that you say we see, your sin remains.” Their blindness is willful. A refusal to escape the cave of self asssurance.
Friends, this story confronts us in our present age, in our nation, in our city, in the quiet corners of our own hearts. Are we like the prisoners, fixated on shadows, fleeting pursuits of power,
pleasure, or possession that distract from eternal truths? In a world of division and distraction, where social media casts endless illusions and echo chambers reinforce our biases, do we dare admit our blindness?
The first step to true sight is humility. Acknowledging that we do not see the full picture that our perceptions may be clouded by comfort, fear, sin. Our human journey illuminated by God’s word is precisely this. A pilgrimage from shadows to light, from partial sight to divine revelation. Jesus, the ultimate philosopher king who escapes the cave, returns to us not with force but with invitation. He heals our spiritual blindness, revealing the fullness of reality, a life of purpose, joy, and fulfillment in him. But like the freed prisoner, this transformation may bring pain, letting go of old ways, facing disbelief from others, or enduring the glare of truth. Yet the reward is immeasurable. As we humbly follow Christ’s revelation, we begin to see as he sees the dignity of every person, the sacredness of creation, the hope beyond suffering.
Where is our blindness today? In relationships strained by unforgiveness, in priorities skewed toward material, in a faith grown stagnant, we pray for the grace to change our minds, to repent, which in Greek means metaninoa, a change of mind and heart. May we, like the man born blind, wash in the waters of grace and emerge seeing clearly. And may we, like the philosopher, return to our caves to share this light, even if met with resistance. For in changing our minds towards God, we change everything.
Amen.