William H. Willimon, in his commentary on our Gospel lesson for this morning, offers an interesting lens through which we might view this text. He says, and I quote, “How do we see?… What we see seems to be connected to some sort of template in the brain. When sensory images are fed in through the optic nerve, the brain sorts through its collection of previously experienced images, makes matches, fits what we see into a pattern, and we are led to say, ‘There it is That’s a tree…’ If you have seen one tree, that enables you to see them all.
And yet, what does the brain do with things that don’t fit into previously experienced patterns? What if our vision is out of focus? What if our vision is limited by what we expect to see?” End quote. [1]
[1] Pulpit Resource, Logos Productions Inc., Year C, 2007