Rev. George Miller
Feb 27, 2022
John 9:1-12
It was one of those days, a miserable Monday. The kind of day in which you have much on
your mind, much on your heart, much on your “to-do-list.”
The kind of day in which a wise person knows not to make any major life choices
or engage in delicate dialogue. Just
wait for bedtime to come around so you can fall asleep and start anew.
In order to make it through Miserable Monday, I broke it into small steps
interspersed with mindless tasks.
After a troublesome phone call in which the best laid plans had gone
astray, I came to a task that had been put off for a while- fertilizing the
front yard
For weeks bags of topsoil and compost sat on the driveway, while fertilizer
waited in the laundry room, taunting me each time I washed clothes.
On this blah, drab day, I stepped outside with the various bags, bucket, shears,
and shovel, went to work mixing the compost, soil, fertilizer.
At first, real dainty-like with a trowel, then just going in bare handed,
taking globs of this mudlike mixture of manure, dirt and nitrates, placing it
around the mimosa bush…
…and something changed.
It was akin to diving underwater, being submerged in the ocean.
Having my hands in the dirt, working with the earth, did something.
It was like a reset, a mood switch, a sense of clarity and calm that had
not been there seconds before.
Is this why people like to garden?
Is this why my Mom spent hours in the yard planting marigolds and growing
green peppers?
Is having earth up to your elbows one way to diminish some of the blahs?
For that moment, yes.
Afterwards, while washing my hands, not all the dirt came off. Dirt was under my nails.
There was a meeting that night, so I worried, not wanting folks to see me
with unclean hands.
Then realized- “Who cares?”
Any sensible person who saw my fingers would think “Oh, he must have been
gardening.” After all, we live in an agriculture
community.
Having hands that showed some kind of earth-related task should not be a
sign of shame or need for an apology.
A side thought- is the fact that our culture is no longer land based one
reason why so many feel disconnected and depressed?
What’s been lost by living in such a way that not many are connected to
the earth we walk upon?
Earth, soil, change- those are some topics we’ve talked about for years.
If you recall, one Hebrew word for “earth” is “nahalah,” meaning God’s
inheritance. Genesis 2 shows God
creating us by digging into the soil.
John 1 states the God who creates came to us in human form. The rest of the Gospel has images of
wilderness and rivers, mountains, and seas.
There are also images of inclusion, welcome, and being made well.
Today’s scripture takes all those themes and brings them together in a
visceral tale of a man made to see.
This man had not just been having one of those days- he’d been having one
of those lives. Since birth he was blind;
begging to survive.
What does Jesus do? He spits onto
the dirt, makes it into mud, spreads the gunk onto the man’s eyes, and then says
“Go- wash in the pool of Siloam.”
Just as God said “Go!” to Abraham.
Just as Jesus said, “Pick up you mat and walk,” Jesus says “Go. Wash.
Submerge yourself in the waters.”
Which the man does. Once blind,
but now he sees. He has fresh sight.
An encounter with Jesus can do that.
Just ask the women at the well, the man by the pool, the many on the
mountains, the disciples in their boat.
But this encounter is rather different, and yet the same from the other
signs.
Like the woman at the well, just like the man on the mat, Jesus meets an
outsider, someone not allowed into worship, someone who’d be ignored and blamed
for his own situation.
But instead of engaging in graduate-level conversation, or asking questions,
Jesus gets dirty, and he gets down.
In a culture in which it is all about being clean and unclean, in and
out, everything having its time and place, what Jesus does in unheard of.
He spits. Not an image you’d think
of when the word “rabbi,” “Son of God,” of “perfect and without sin” come to
mind. It’s probably not a genteel act of “pardon me.”
Jesus spits. He spits enough to
make mud. And the earth he spits into is
not referred to as “nahalah” but as dirt.
Dirt- meaning anything and everything from feces to breast milk to
decayed food could be there.
Jesus hocks a loogie into a much trod upon mishmash of stuff, then
proceeds to wipe it over the man’s eyes.
Who does this stuff?
Apparently, Jesus.
Why? How?
Is this some ancient herbal recipe?
Is this some magic mud?
For today, we’d like to suggest that none of that matters, and that none
of that is the point.
For today, think of this- Jesus is not above getting down and dirty for
us.
Just as God in Genesis 1 was willing to dig into the dust to breathe life
into us,
Jesus has no problem stooping down, with a hand full of spit and spackle,
and do what needs to be done to show Agape Love.
Today’s story is powerful because it defies so many images of how we
think high holiness is supposed to look like.
Instead it shows us how Jesus Christ, Son of God, God With Us, Emmanuel,
is willing to get his hands muddy if that’s what it takes to bring
wellness.
Today’s story shows us how Jesus does not hesitate to get his fingers gobbed
with gobbly-gook if it means bringing new vision.
Today’s story shows us that Jesus does not mind having dirt under his
nails if it welcomes one more person into the community and allows them to be
part of the worship life.
In John 6, Jesus says that anyone who comes to him, God will never throw
out in the trash.
In John 9 we see that Jesus himself will get trashy if it means bringing
one more person into the family of God.
Jesus digs his hands into the dirt, and the man’s life is reset. His day goes from drab to fab.
Jesus gets all gooked up for the Gospel, and the man goes from blah to being
an evangelist, telling the people “Though I was blind, now I see.”
When studying the Gospel of John, theologians say “Don’t focus on the
signs that Jesus does, but what the signs say and teach about God.”
For today, let the sign of this man’s sight be a lesson that the God in
Jesus is not distant or far away, or too dignified to get dirty.
Let the sign of today’s lesson be a lesson that says the God of Jesus is
willing to get down in the dirt for you.
That there is no place, no situation so unclean, so messy, so filthy, so
dirty, that God will not be there.
That just as God got God’s handy dirty to make you, God will get dirt
under God’s fingernails to save you and to give you sight.
That’s how much you matter.
That’s how much you are worth.
That’s how much you are loved.
For that, let us say “Amen.
