Christian Art | Blind Lead The Blind | King James Audio Bible
Luke 6: 39-42 – Week 23 Ordinary Time, Friday (King James Audio Bible KJV, Spoken Word)
Overlapping with Sunday Week 8 Ordinary Time, Year C
39 And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?
40 The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.
41 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
42 Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.
We are called to self-knowledge by Jesus. It can be strange to realise that we have been looking at life, and other people, through the filter of our own prejudices, our own mental baggage, the accumulation of our individual and less than perfect history. Our experience, good and bad, and the impact of our experience constitute in large measure the glasses, the spectacles, through which we see the world and regard other people. These Gospel verses ask us to take off those glasses and to consider them objectively – to consider as objective what had become subjective – and to look again without those glasses, to see the world and other people anew.
This is the beam in our own eyes, which distorts our capacity truly to recognize others, which is to say to see Christ in others. Indeed, we may be assured that when we see another human being and we do not see Jesus Christ in that human being, then we are blind and there is the beam in our own eyes; our bad experience has drawn us away from God, occluding our true sense of our fellow human beings, rendering us blind. Jesus alerts us to this condition, so that we may counter it, reminding ourselves always to look with the eyes of love, and to see Christ always in our fellow man.
Jesus lived with us as our master. He taught us both through what he had to say and through his manner of living. There is a model of perfection here which we may follow. This is a way of humility. Jesus humbled himself by dying for the sake of our sins on the cross. Jesus humbled himself by becoming human, then he nailed the sign of our salvation to the cross. If God can make this staggering leap of humility, to become like us, and one of us, who are we possibly to refuse God’s call?
Concluding Prayer | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
Lord Jesus Christ,
who when the whole world was shrouded in darkness
mounted the wood of the cross
as the innocent victim for our redemption,
give us always that light
which will bring us to eternal life.
Who live and reign for ever and ever.
King James Audio Bible | Endnotes
Blind Leading The Blind
The Gospel contains a powerful message about leadership, discipleship, and self-awareness. The parable of the blind leading the blind warns against following those who lack insight and understanding, and reminds us of the importance of seeking guidance from those who are wise and knowledgeable.
Throughout the Bible, we are warned against false teachers and leaders who seek to mislead and deceive God’s people. In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet warns of the dangers of following false prophets, saying: ‘Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.’ (Jeremiah 23:16)
In the New Testament, we are warned against false teachers who seek to lead us astray. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15: ‘For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.’
In addition to warning against false leaders, the passage in Luke also reminds us of the importance of discipleship. Jesus tells his disciples that they are not above their master, and that they should strive to become perfect, just as their master is perfect. This idea is echoed throughout the Bible, with many passages emphasizing the importance of following in the footsteps of Jesus and striving to become more like him.
One such passage is found in 1 Corinthians 11:1, where Saint Paul writes: ‘Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.’ This idea of discipleship is further emphasized in the book of Ephesians, where Saint Paul writes: ‘And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’ (Ephesians 4:11-13)
The passage in Luke also reminds us of the importance of self-awareness and humility. Jesus tells his listeners to first remove the beam from their own eye before attempting to remove the mote from their brother’s eye. This message is echoed throughout the Bible, with many passages emphasizing the importance of self-examination and repentance.
In the book of Proverbs, we read: ‘He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered’ (Proverbs 28:26). And in the New Testament, the apostle John writes: ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’. (1 John 1:8-9)
Christians have commented on the passage in Luke, offering insights and interpretations. Saint Augustine said: ‘The blind cannot lead the blind, but the clear-sighted can. The disciple is not above his master, but he who is perfected shall be as his master. Do not therefore desire to be a teacher, but rather to be taught.’
Saint Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria, was one of the Apostolic Fathers—Church leaders who lived in the generation following the apostles. His letters were written on route to Rome under Roman guard, and they reflect the mind of a man facing imminent death with confidence and clarity. His impending martyrdom adds a striking authenticity to his call to steadfast faith, humility, and obedience [ … ]
Psalm 54 is a plea for divine assistance in the midst of adversity. This psalm encapsulates a moment of distress and danger in the life of the psalmist, who seeks refuge in God’s unwavering strength and protection [ … ]
We process. Glass exhibition cases, old reliquaries. A forearm here; here a nun’s fingertip. In chapel, at a glance, there are the usual faces. But they all stand to attention. Jonathan breaks from the procession to – fire the organ with oomph and dignity: Ride on! ride on in majesty! The angel-squadrons of the sky look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching sacrifice. When we’ve done the readings, the Arch holds that tree in his hands to deliver the homily. He rocks quietly on his feet, some few seconds, as if balance defeated it. A way you might affect as the Spirit moves… Copying. Then he says: ‘Our palm fronds may seem to us today rather dry. I mean this not in a literal sense, but by the standards of those who originally lined the roadways in order to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, as they proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, who would be clambering up and ripping their palm branches fresh from off the trees. I think perhaps also our faith is somewhat distant from that of the people there on that highroad into Jerusalem, and something of our sense of the meaning has shifted in vividness from what it was then. And of course the expectation of all those many people is markedly different, but in many important respects the same. There are the same essential qualities to all our faith in God, which springs complete from our humanity, and that is one and the same in value for all of us, and time is consistent on this point. So then, let us renew the fullness of Catholic faith, and let us ask the Lord’s blessing as we embark upon our Holy Week. ‘Our Lord enters into Jerusalem in order to refresh us. He is to die in order that we may have life. There is a living reality here, both spiritual and as entangled in the joy of our daily living. We have Ladies’ Day where I grew up. They still have it, and they close the roads off, and little children parade, dressed-up like spring brides. When I was a boy, there was a May Day festival, and there was a May pole on the field, with the people dancing, like Morris dancers might be one way of visualizing this if you’ve never seen it, with their ribbons tied onto the top of the May pole, and they would weave around each other, dressing the pole, which is what we called it. It was like a dance with red and white and blue ribbons all hung off of the top of the May pole, which stood there all year, only like a telegraph pole, but it was concreted in, and then there was a slide, and swings – one baby-swing and two you could have a go at – terrible health and safety but that’s what it was in those days. ‘There was a round-a-bout – we used to run it round and round to try to get it off its central axis. It were rusty as anything and creaked like mad – on concrete. And climb up where it was all greased up at the top. Ruth, who was big as the next four of us, used to sit there sucking on the lollipops we nicked for her from Raddies, and she’d direct matters. We were trying to destroy it, and get it to dislodge from its central axis, and fly away – roll off into that farmer’s field, which he only ever kept for silage, but we never succeeded. There was a car someone had left there so we spent forever smashing that up, until someone who lived in one of the houses there took exception to our doing that, so he put thick grease under the door handles and gave us a right talking to. ‘It would only be a few stands, hot-dogs and things like that. The man selling the hot dogs would have his records on full blast. There’d be a couple of set-up stalls. Air-rifles – that sort of thing. But we all had them, and we all went shooting, of course, if not with twelve bores then with smaller gauge. Or pay a pound – I have no idea how much it was in actual fact then – it might have only been a few pennies – and we’d get all that time smashing up the crockery the man would put up for us to smash on the dressers. That was my particular favourite thing to do at these festivals, by the way, in case you were wondering. You got a little bucket of so many cricket balls. ‘I dread to think what went into those hot dogs. Probably EE rules would forbid it now. But it was a fair mix in those days. A lot of young people then were C of E. We’ve done a lot to hang onto our young people, which is a tremendous encouragement when you consider how things are, while in recent decades the Church of England hasn’t been so successful. People still want it on feast days and what are essentially now civic celebrations. It’s strange to see, though, how all the little stands there people have are run by the police and people like that along those lines. There’s no May pole. That was a sort of faith that ran and ran beneath all the theoreticals of it in the 1960s and the 1970s and into the 1980s. The May pole isn’t there now in the particular place I’m thinking of. Considering May poles were officially suppressed hundreds of years ago – as a part of the protestant reformation. One or two of you are probably thinking I’m remembering things from that time! ‘I should have liked to say that those processionals were so hardwired into us, that even after the last thirty years, when I became a bishop, they are still with us. They were […]
