based on John 9:1-41 for the fourth Sunday in Lent

Earlier last week, with students, we ended up talking about theodicy. That big theological question: Why does God allow bad things to happen? But as the conversation unfolded, we started noticing something underneath the question itself. Because frankly… it’s not a very good question.

The question assumes a few things right from the start.
First, it assumes a kind of cosmic “sky-daddy” God who is actively controlling every single event in the universe. Many of us simply don’t see God that way. Second, it quietly assumes that when bad things happen there must be some explanation that fits a tidy moral system. Maybe someone sinned. Maybe God is punishing someone. Maybe God just doesn’t care.

Do you see how the question itself limits the world we’re allowed to imagine? It narrows how we think about God before the conversation even begins. And that is exactly what happens in the Gospel reading today.

When the besties (aka, the disciples) see a man who was born blind, they ask Jesus, “Who sinned? This man or his parents?” Notice what they’re doing. This isn’t really curiosity. It’s control. Another way of saying the same thing might have been: “Jesus, please confirm our current world view is correct."

But Jesus refuses the premise. Neither the man nor his parents sinned, he says. And then, instead of launching into a theological lecture, Jesus engages in magical creation: he kneels down and makes some mud.

Mud. Messy, sticky mud. Not even with just water, no, this time with spit. Regardless of the element that made the dirt into mud, we've now got mud-- the  very same stuff Genesis tells us God used to create the first human, the Adam.

Soil. Water. Breath. The ingredients of creation. And here they are again, right in front of everyone. No lofty theological debate. No philosophical defense of God. Just this nice little grouping of mud, a couple humans, and a good ol' rinse off in the local pool.

It’s almost as if Jesus said, “Well shucks… looks like the original pair didn’t quite come out right. Would you like me to fashion you a new set? Go on over and rinse them off, and see how these work for you.”

Creation story, happening again. God’s kingdom coming near through earth, water, consent, and action between two people.

Meanwhile… Everyone else is missing the entire show, in favor of intellectual debate and argument. “I was blind, and now I see” simply was not enough for these people. Instead, the neighbors argue about whether this is even the same man. The religious leaders interrogate him. His parents panic.

This man’s body becomes a battleground for everyone else’s ideas about how the world is supposed to work. The whole scene gets embarrassingly close to the logic we still hear today: “Well… what was she wearing?” You know, the kinds of questions we tend to ask when we'd rather assign blame and preserve the status quo, than face reality.

Every authority figure in this story keeps asking questions that reveal their preferred world view and attempts at control:

“How can a sinful man be from God?”
“Is this really your son?”
“Was he really born blind?”

They’re not looking at what is here and now. They’re trying to force this moment back into their tidy set of intellectualized preferences about how the world is supposed to work.

An excellent way to remain in power.

Systems of power stay in power by controlling the narrative, controlling what counts as truth, and controlling what we understand as reality. The less connected to our bodies we are, the easier it becomes to push ourselves into performing all kinds of oppressive and damaging acts.

Meanwhile, the formerly blind man sticks to his lived experience with a simple statement:

“I was blind. Now I see.” ...

Now, we are living in a pretty muddy moment ourselves (full transparency: have we ever not been living in a pretty muddy moment?).

And just to be clear: I’m saying muddy, not blind. Many people in the blind community rightly point out that blindness is not a good metaphor for ignorance or misunderstanding. So let’s not go there.

Mud is messy material. Mud doesn't stay contained really well. Mud spreads around one way or another. Gets under fingernails, ruins the Sunday best, etc.

But-- mud is also the material of creation. It's the stuff of the Kingdom of Heaven come near. Mud is not an intellectual argument about God- mud is the stuff God used to create us in God's image.. and then took on himself, incarnate in the body of Jesus.

And that's an important thing that's easily lost in this story John gives us. The kingdom of heaven doesn’t arrive through perfect theological explanations that check out. It arrives through spit, mud, collaboration between a couple people, and a rinse-off.

And in this whole story, only two people seem to recognize that this is the case-- and those two people also happen to be the only two people who had their hands in the mud: Jesus. And the unnamed formerly blind man.

The world will keep asking the wrong questions. The wrong questions are excellent tools for leading us away from where we need to be. They are perfect for helping to keep the status quo, to preserve those authoritarian and violent images of God that so easily keep us primed to pay that violence forward. 

But here, the author of John, through Jesus, shows us something else. The kingdom of God breaks through in a way that is absurdly accessible. Not through spirals of vast and winding intellectual argument (And do not get me wrong. I identify strongly with process theology, flirt with radical theology, and happily bathe in affect theory writing by folks like Brian Massumi and Erin Manning. I love a good intellectual spiral.). But-- what we see in this story is that the kingdom of God come near manifests through simple, humble participation. By joining Jesus in the mud, along with the rest of creation, getting ourselves dirty in the messy work of healing right here, right now.
Amen.

- Pr. Sam

Folks who were here in person on Sunday had a bit of mud painted on the back of their hand at the start of the sermon. Perhaps you would appreciate an opportunity to play in the mud, and pay attention to how it feels:

Reflection Practice

Place some mud on your hand(s).
Take a moment to notice what it feels like to carry the dust of creation on your skin. Feel it drying and cracking. Also notice how it doesn't stay put very well- it has a way of smearing about.
Consider where Christ might be inviting you to join the work of healing in this very muddy world, and how that might also smear about and bring others into the work.

Wash it off when you're ready. Some of the people at University Lutheran kept it on clear through to snack time after worship!

Ash Wednesday | Based on Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Holy Hilarious, Batman

Has anyone else noticed how ridiculous this scene is? I enjoy picturing Jesus talking to people with a sly smirk, eyebrow raised,

“Oh no— now, you, you don’t be like those people”

You know— the ones marching up and down the streets with their brass bands? Just playing a fancy kick each time they are about to do something? You know— those types.

The ones who …publicize, when they are going to make a major donation. OR- you know, the ones who get out there with their megaphones? Shouting about salvation?? Don’t be like those types, either…

AND— the people who make a big production about working soooooo hard on behalf of…people…— rather than, say, just getting the work done? Don’t be like THEM. Either.

And you know— WE are NOT like them. Not at all. We, about to smear ashes all over our foreheads and then go out in public like this……oops. 🙂

It’s not the Same as what Jesus was talking about— right?

I mean— It’s just LENT, right?
That famous season where everyone knows Christians do things like …

Fast! Give up coffee-or sugar— and then bonus points: BLOG about it!
Collect cash for people who need food— and make it into a competition! Announce the results!

DO NOT eat meat on Fridays!
Definitely keep ourselves a bit more serious here in church— it’s a serious season. No alleluias. No hosannas.
Maybe even just avoid any instruments at all- just chant. Only chant. Because it’s lent.

In fact— maybe give up anything that brings you joy- because its lent.

This is one of those places where not a one of us escapes Jesus’ ability to reach through 2000 years and multiple translations of scripture to give us a nice little loving and teasing slap in the face.

And— don’t think that any one of us escapes the critique—I must admit, friends:

There have been years even ritual-loving Pr. Sam over here has watched carefully to see how the person doing the ashing did the ashing— and let me tell you, some of these people out there are putting that stuff on with a trowel and I would have NONE of it on my face.

Thank Goodness, Travis knows what he’s doing. 

You know, As a kid, I hated Lent and its absurd requirements. To me, this whole concept was entirely foisted upon me. Friday nights spent doing absurd stations of the cross, and then caught up in these vegetarian spaghetti dinners (ok, admittedly, my first kiss did happen in the back stairwell at one of those dinners, but STILL)… on the whole, I resented all of it, and to me- it was in fact all a show. Why even be there, if I didn’t have a desire to be there. Why be told I was giving up sugar if I had no reason to be giving up sugar?

This is, I think, one of those fundamental places our Christian tradition easily goes wrong while trying desperately to do right by people. We land in productivity and shame-based actions in place of faith foundation.

There is a significant difference between a Lent foisted upon you, acted out because it is demanded of you, and a life rooted in lent because you find value in simple practices that help you renew your commitment to Jesus’ way of being people of integrity, people of justice, people of love.

And- don’t get me wrong here- bodily practices are not the problem. Jesus was a good Jew, he knew interiority and exteriority are not a binary. Both matter and work together and inform one another.

Our church elders, somewhere along the way, had the wisdom to know that an annual reminder that we are not immortals— that we too will die, and there’s no luggage rack on the hearse— would be a good thing for us to engage. Recalling that our smallness, despite our immense power, can help us re-orient to what matters, and who matters. To get back to that Christian commitment to the way of Jesus is important.

But wow oh wow, how easily we even manipulate these things, with hardly a noticing--or worse yet, trying to obfuscate the manipulation with overt seriousness that is rooted in false sense of ourselves. No?

So, the thing is, you have to choose your own focus for this season. As for me:

My prayer for us, this season, is that we might take ourselves far less seriously. That we might look at ourselves from the outside, and laugh at ourselves far more and enjoy that laughter, and even have some good playtime. That we might, in that joy and amusement, let the Holy Spirit in to do her work, too.

I’m going to pray that we might find and renew the strength of our collective and individual hunger for God and let it drive us right into the heart of our desirous, adventurous, explorative nature to grow and nourish one another and our world.

And- I'm going to pray that we might realize in new ways that lent is not a singular season at all, but an opportunity to check in on the foundation of our Christian life, inspect the cracks and crevices, see what maybe needs some TLC, giggle about our funny construction methods. Appreciate how God comes right on in and holds us together, good, mediocre, or downright poor.

And you know, I imagine, if we can do just that much… if we can sort of reach a little more deeper depth of soul in these kinds of ways?

We might discover yet another pathway that leads us back to that singular empty tomb, and a very full and alive communion composed not of “me” but of “we”— and that is the kind of resurrection treasure worth holding in our hearts, and celebrating come easter Sunday.  Amen?

with joy,
Pr Sam