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!

Based on John 4:5-42 - Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well | Third Week of Lent

Last week we were talking about snakes — about having to take a direct look at what’s killing us in order to live. Remember that story from the Hebrew scriptures? The people look at the bronze serpent. Jesus connects that story to himself in conversation with Nicodemus. If we want to live, we have to look honestly at what is killing us and collaborate with God in the work of healing.

But this week we have something that seems almost opposite: an unnamed woman (what is it with the unnamed women in these books?) meeting Jesus in broad daylight. No obtuse questions from her.

So here’s a thought experiment: Take a moment to think about this scene and ask yourself: where do violent, authoritarian images of God show up in it? They might not appear directly in the text. Sometimes they show up in the assumptions we bring with us when we read.

For generations this story has often been preached as if Jesus is exposing a sinful woman. But the text never actually says that. That interpretation has been layered onto the story.

And there… you can already see our interpretive habits at work.

In reality, a woman having had five husbands and now living with someone who is not her husband likely reflects systemic vulnerability in the ancient world. It could point to widowhood and being passed off to brothers or other family members. To divorces entirely out of her control. These are social structures she would not have had much if any say in, in most cases.

There is another possibility as well, this one literary:
After Assyria conquered Samaria, several foreign groups were resettled there. Each group brought its own religious traditions. Jewish writers sometimes described Samaria as having five religious “husbands.”

If that is the case, Jesus may be speaking in the language of religious history rather than personal scandal.
Notice what happens next. The woman immediately begins discussing theology. She is not being shamed. She is a capable, sharp theologian participating in a serious theological conversation with another capable, sharp theologian.

Now, we often hear that Jews and Samaritans did not associate with one another. But that leaves out some very important details.

Samaritans were not strangers to Jews. They shared ancestry. Both communities came from the traditions of Israel. The division emerged when returning Judeans rejected those Jews who had remained in Samaria and intermarried with non-Jews.

Womp-womp-womp. We're just mad over something that looks like issues of purity.

Turns out they are not actually strangers at all. This is less like two unrelated groups avoiding one another and more like a very old family feud — the kind where everyone still knows plenty about everyone else and probably talks more than they would like to admit.

Which helps explain why the woman immediately asks Jesus a theological question:
Which mountain is the right place to worship, Mr. Jewish Jesus Smarty Pants? Mine, which was also probably one of yours (ancestrally speaking) at one point? Or yours, which was also mine (ancestrally speaking) at one point? It is theological hair-splitting. And she probably knows it.

Jesus gives her a straightforward answer: neither. The location does not ultimately matter. Worship is not about geography. And apparently she finds something compelling in that answer, because she runs to tell others about what she has just experienced.

Now here is where something fascinating happens. Did you know that authoritarian, violent images of God literally prime our brains and bodies for violence?

As in, literally. Dr. Andrew Newberg’s research shows that when people encounter authoritarian or violent narratives about God, fMRI scans show brain activity in regions associated with threat and aggression.

In other words, the stories we tell about God shape how our bodies prepare to respond to the world.

Which makes it worth noticing something: Many of the assumptions we bring to this story are not actually written into the text. They have been added through interpretation, tradition, and sometimes translation.

So ask yourself: what kinds of images of God have shaped those interpretations? How often have we inherited stories about God that assume shame, punishment, domination, or exclusion — even when the text itself does not necessarily say those things?

When those interpretations go unexamined, they train our bodies to live in a posture of fear and violent response rather than empathy, care, and love — the very things that make relationship and communion possible.

And that becomes a real problem for us as baptized Christians.

Because if empathy, justice, equity, and love are suppressed in favor of violence, suddenly we are all about the name of Jesus but not the way of Jesus. Those authoritarian stories about God are doing more than distorting the text. They actively block the kingdom of heaven from coming near.

Just think about that for a moment.

Last week we talked about those snakes in the wilderness and the bronze serpent. The people had to look honestly at what was killing them in order to live. Jesus connects that story to the cross. If we want life, we must look honestly at the individual and systemic realities of what put him there.

This week we are invited to look even more closely — at the interpretations and narratives that may be keeping violence alive in our own traditions.

But the story also shows us something beautiful. Two people meet and instead of variations on domination, they choose dialogue, honesty, respect, care and dignity. Maybe even a little humor. And that is exactly the environment where what Jesus calls living water begins to flow.

There is also a subtle literary echo here, too. In Hebrew scripture, wells are often places where relationships begin.

Rebecca meets Isaac’s servant at a well. Rachel meets Jacob at a well. Zipporah meets Moses at a well.
Wells are meeting places where something new starts.

So while this meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is probably not a romantic one, it is still the beginning of a new relationship — one grounded in equality, respect, curiosity, and care, maybe even some good quality teasing and laughter. And from there it spreads quickly from two people outward into an entire community.

Violent images of God spread quickly too.

But they shut down empathy. They make connection and meaningful relationship nearly impossible. They keep people divided in ways that serve oppressive systems rather than the flourishing of human community.
It is actually a remarkably effective strategy for taking over a powerful tradition: infect it with authoritarian and violent imagery and watch everything disintegrate from there.

Which means we have work to do: We need to notice when violent images of God appear and actively dismantle them. We need to remind one another that the stories we tell about God shape the way we live in the world.

And if violent images of God prime us for violence, then truthful images of God must train us for something else entirely.

Empathy. Justice. Equity. Accountability. Peace. Love.
Which is exactly the command Jesus leaves with us: Love one another as I have loved you.

with joy,
Pr. Sam

Copious amounts of this reflection have been informed and inspired by the work of Dr. Andrew Newberg  (most especially his work around violent images of God and what happens in human brains), as well as this particular Rethinking Faith podcast with Dr. Shaleen Kenrick.