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| Messy symbols...mud, ash, rocks. |
A Lent 4 – March 30, 2014
Text: John 9:1-41
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas
+ INJ +
Grace and peace be with you, from
God our Father and his beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
It seems to be fairly universal
that there exists in families a certain kind of folklore, if you will, about
certain members of the family. That is to say, there are stories that get
passed around in our families about certain family members – or sayings that
get passed through the generations. We hear these stories over and over until
they gain a sort of legendary status – or we use these sayings ourselves
because we grew up hearing them used.
So here’s one from my family: One
of my great-grandmothers (whom I never knew) - when she was faced with something
particularly messy, she’d say, “Well, this is one mell of a hess!” As I said, I
never knew this particular great-grandmother, but I’ve heard others in my
family use this phrase and so it has stuck with me, all these years.
And when I read today’s gospel
lesson about Jesus smearing mud on the blind man’s eyes, it’s exactly the
phrase that comes into my mind: “Well, he’s made one mell of a hess, hasn’t
he?”
The first mess made by Jesus is an
obvious one: the mess made by mixing saliva and dirt to make mud, and then
wiping it on this guy’s face. It’s kind of icky, really. Would you want this
kind of thing smeared on your face, especially if it was made with spit? And
the blind man doesn’t ask to be healed, so it’s not like he knows this is
coming – think about it, too – he can’t see Jesus making the mud, see Jesus
coming at him with a handful of mud.
So he’s standing there, hearing
people talk about him – hearing people ask Jesus whose sin it was that caused
his blindness – and all of a sudden, Jesus is smearing mud on his face and
telling him to go wash. And when he does, he can see.
So that’s the first mess.
The second mess made by Jesus is
more of a theological mess. There was a common strain of thought that any kind
of suffering, hardship, or illness was brought about because someone sinned.
That’s why Jesus’ disciples pose the question to Jesus: “Who sinned, this man
or his parents, that he was born blind?” For them, it was cause-and-effect:
someone sinned, so this guy was born blind.
And then Jesus turns that thinking
on its end with his answer to them: “He was born blind so that God’s works
might be revealed in him…” and then he shows them God’s works, right there, in
front of them, by making one mell of a hess with some spit and some dirt and
removing the man’s blindness. He
declares himself to be the light of the world, and he gives this man light –
for the first time in this man’s life, he can see light!
As the story continues, it only
gets messier. People want to know more, and so they begin asking the formerly
blind man what has happened. Again and again he gives his answer, he gives his
testimony to the power of God at work in Jesus Christ.
Then we find out that Jesus has
healed on the Sabbath, which is a big no-no, and the Pharisees get involved.
They want to know what’s going on here, so they ask the formerly blind man what
has happened. Again, he gives his answer, he gives his testimony to the power
of God at work in Jesus Christ.
The Pharisees then ask the man’s
parents, who obfuscate by saying, “He’s of age – ask him!” And so they return
to the formerly blind man, trying to get to the bottom of this – calling Jesus
a sinner, calling the formerly blind man a sinner, ramping up the conversation
more and more, making a bigger and bigger mess of things until the formerly
blind man basically says – Hey! I don’t know about the theology! I don’t know
who’s a sinner here and who isn’t. What I do know is this: He opened my eyes.
And surely that is the work of God being done in our very midst.
And they kick him out.
We then have this beautiful scene
of Jesus, ministering to this man who was born blind – this man whom he has
made to see – this man who has testified about the works of God. And it is the
formerly blind man who sees – with his eyes – but also sees with his heart. He sees
the truth of who Jesus is and what Jesus is doing. He sees Jesus doing the work
of God among the people of God.
And it’s messy – this work of God.
It sometimes looks or feels like one mell of a hess. Sometimes the messes are
quickly cleaned up, and I’ve seen God at work at those times. Sometimes, the
messes are there for a while, and I’ve seen God at work in those times too,
those messy times – the times where my great-grandmother might come in and say,
“Well, this is one mell of a hess.”
It takes a patient trust to endure
the mess, doesn’t it?
“Patient Trust” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Above
all, trust in the slow work of God.
We
are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We
should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We
are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And
yet it is the law of all progress
that
it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and
that it may take a very long time.
[And
so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—
let
them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t
try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that
is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will
make of you tomorrow.]
Only
God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give
Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and
accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.[1]
===
That
last phrase is rough – accepting anxiety? Ugh. But the phrase before that one
is what gets us through, every time…”Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that
his
hand is leading you…” His hand is leading us, my brothers and sisters –
when we are blind and when we can see; when we are faltering and when we are
certain – his hand is leading us.
Amen.
+ SDG +
[1] - See more at:
http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/8078/prayer-of-theilhard-de-chardin/#sthash.jGkghVGo.dpuf
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