I don’t know why, but human nature is consumed with building ourselves up and tearing others down.
Part of the reason why Christianity, as Jesus taught it, is so at-odds with the world is that Jesus was all about building the ‘other’ up, and willing to be torn-down himself.
That’s the Way of Christ. It’s the Way of the Cross. It’s the Way of Lent.
It absolutely startles me that when the disciples see a man, afflicted with blindness from birth, their first thought is about sin.
Did HE commit a sin?
What, at birth? In the womb? He committed some horrific sin as a zygote and was therefore punished for life?
Are they joking?
Or, did his parents sin?
As a father of two young daughters, I don’t even want to ask the questions that follow that line of argument.
They see a man who has never seen a flower, a sunrise, the sea, his parents, or the place he called home – and they start wondering what he did wrong.
They aren’t reflecting on their OWN sin, of course. It’s not a “oh-gosh-I’m-not-living-the-way-I-ought” sort of moment.
It’s a “oh-the-poor-slob-I-guess-he-got-his-due” sort of moment.
And it’s at this point in the encounter that Jesus shines a Light on the Way as he lives it. He doesn’t look at him as a sinner, he sees someone to lift up.
And so the Son of God, Prince of Peace, Lord of All, and Creator of the Stars of Night, reached down into the dirt of the ground, spit into his own hand, and slathered a paste onto the man’s eyes.
He didn’t just look on him with sorry pity. He touched him. He got down in the dirt.
He heals him.
He lifts him up.
Because that’s what Jesus does.
Now, I know that this story of giving sight to the blind, like all the stories of Jesus giving sight to the blind, is about God giving spiritual sight to all of us who are spiritually blind. It’s about God showing all of us the way with new eyes, and a fresh look onto the Universe that God made.
But, that also means that Jesus comes to us. And digs in the dirt. And spits in his hand. And slathers us with paste.
So that our new eyes may behold the Light of the World.
I can’t shake the poetic links to God digging in the dust of the ground in Eden, and giving us his breathe that we might live. God lifted us out of the earth in the Beginning, and Jesus is still in the business of lifting us up. And opening our eyes. And bringing us Life.
And, as the Way of Jesus, it is meant to be our way too. There are a lot of broken lives out there that need picked up. Whole countries of lives, in fact. Japan. Libya. Sudan.
Let’s not look on people like they’re poor slobs, and wonder at how blessed we are. Let’s reach out – into the dirt – if we have to. Let’s dirty our hands. And let’s bring the Life that Jesus brings.
hi,
thanks so much for this – been trawling through commentaries wanting to be inspired for Sunday’s sermon, and now after reading your blog, I am! thanks! bless ya!
🙂
Ruth – you’re so welcome! I’m glad it’s of use, and I hope your sermon on Sunday is GREAT! Peace.
Thanks for your words – a quiet voice I needed in my busy pastoral day.
By the way -You are getting spammed – by Cheap Coach Bags (Mar 25th) – just an ad for another website/bog/rip-off posing as a comment.
+Peter
Thanks +Peter! (Bishop of…?)
(And reporting/ deleting Cheap Coach Bag postings is like playing whack-a-mole!)
Thanks so much for this jog – I’m with Ruth. You have just sparked my creative juices and imagination!
Thank you for a reminder of what Jesus really cared about — versus what we get obsessed with: who sinned, what went wrong, whom can we reliably cast out of our company. Grace is so much better — even as it’s so earthy, as you rightly point out.
I appreciate your mention of Libya, Japan and Sudan. How many thousands of people are trying to find their way back to some sort of normal life as they literally dig out of the dirt and wreckage. Did they do anything to deserve that? Born sinners?
Broken nails, smashed houses, hearts awash…
Thank you for the stooping down to raise up metaphor. Somehow, I never thought of this blind man as seated. But why should he not have been as Bartimaeus was, seated and begging until Jesus raised him to the dignity of full humanity, able to give, a new and abundant life.
i love this. thank you for writing it and sharing it with us.
Hey thanks. Was struggling to get a focus for the message and your thoughts helped a lot
Mostly due to this posting’s prominence on Text Week, this has been the single most viewed and commented on posting I’ve ever done – by far.
If this posting was helpful to you, comment back with a link to your sermon text or audio tomorrow. It would be a great blessing to be able to see/hear what different people did with this text.
Sabbath Peace!
I can have some sympathy with the disciples. They’re at least struggling with the difficulties of their law-laced religion. I think they are genuinely provoked by the thought that the innocent baby was born in original sin. They know that the standard recourse of the teachers will be to ‘sins of the fathers’. They ask the question because they perceive injustice. To that extent they have compassion on the man before them.
Jesus, I think, sees that they are ready for a lesson. Focus first on compassion, then interpret the law. Narrow sabbath laws take second place to the foundational law of love. So, yes, let’s get real. Mud, spittle, stooping down.
The Pharisees are locked in blindness because they love the law (= their institution) more than its purpose. It strikes me that the blind beggars of Israel probably survived to adulthood on the intuitive, compassionate donations of those who thought less about the Pentateuch and more about the person.
Thanks David. Nice insights. I do agree that Jesus is making a statement of the blindness of the religious institution of his day. And, I do think that Jesus thought they were ready for a lesson.
I’m less persuaded that the disciples were struggling with “original sin” and injustice. I think part of the punch of this text is that the disciples are actually more blind than the man who was physically blind.
But, I’ll let your words work on me…Maybe I’m so colored by Mark’s portrayal of the disciples that I read it into other places where it isn’t there.
Thanks for this post, it was helpful in unravelling teh story. you asked for a link, who sinned?
OK, the link didn’t work
http://apearldownunder.blogspot.com/
Thanks for that “Pearl”! Your day of preaching is probably finished, and mine is just about to start. Good to know that connections in ministry really span the world.
Pax.
Thank you for a beautifully expressed reflection.
I tend to agree with David that the disciples, though also blind, were asking a question that they probably all had been thinking since they were first instructed with simplistic explanations about suffering. We come from a different time and so it’s hard for us to accept this as a valid question. I am also sgrappling with Jesus’ comment that the person was bprm blind so that God’s works could be revealed which leads me to the larger issue of people being born spiritually blind. If the Pharisee’s had accepted Jesus, I think Christianity would have stayed Jewish – In other passages Jesus indicates that they don’t get it because they aren’t meant to get it. The blind man had to answer the Pharisees multiple times – and each time he had to testify, his own understanding became more clear. It also helps me be patient with my own spiritual blindness – especially about things I’m not supposed to know (yet?)
Again, thanks for your help with this passage though – beautifully written