Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
The Benefits of Mud
A homily preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC on August 17, 2014.
Text: John 9:1-41
When I was in college, I spent a semester abroad in London and traveled most every weekend. On one long weekend, I went to Ireland and took the train to the west coast of the island to a little village called Spiddal where all the signs are still in Gaelic and folks speak that language as much as they speak English. I set myself up in a B&B just outside town and figured I’d walk the mile or so back into town for supper at a place I’d noticed featured traditional Irish music each night. Just after dark, I left the B&B and by the time I reached the end of the driveway, I realized there was a problem. It was pitch black and there were no streetlights. There were no other houses between my place and the village. There were no cars on the road. I literally couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I was young and stupid enough to be traveling without a flashlight, so I figured I’d just feel my way along the road’s edge to keep on the path. While unsettling, I was making out OK until, about half-way on the journey, I heard someone behind me. It didn’t help to turn and look because I couldn’t see anything. But it was clear that it was a man—and he was whistling, that eerie kind of whistling you might imagine in a horror movie when you know what’s about to happen, but the unsuspecting person who ridiculously decided to walk a mile in pitch black with no one even knowing where she is doesn’t have a clue. Well, the whistling was growing closer and I still couldn’t see even the hint of a light from the village; so I picked up the pace, still trying to feel my way along the side of the road as a guide. My heart was pounding and the mystery man was gaining, so eventually, I moved into what I imagined was the middle of the road and broke into a full-on sprint. In the dark. I was terrified. It probably only took a matter of minutes, but it felt like an eternity before I finally reached the edge of town and the sweet relief of light. When I collapsed onto a bench, out of breath and in tears, I waited…waited to see who or what had been following me. After a few minutes, he emerged. A man on a bicycle—probably about 75 years old—amiably pedaling away and whistling to keep himself company, oblivious to my terror.
In the dark we imagine all sorts of things, often the worst possible scenarios. Our deepest fears well up within us and we can’t help but acknowledge the deep insecurity of our lives, the fact that we are vulnerable and that we aren’t in control of the universe and that there are things we don’t know, don’t understand. To be “in the dark” means that we cannot see—can’t see the way forward, can’t see a way out, don’t know where we are, and sometimes, that we cannot even see ourselves, our own hand in front of our faces. What are the things in our lives that keep us in the dark, that keep us from seeing? Preconceived notions about the way things are, prejudices that blind us to others, fear of change, old patterns and habits of seeing and thinking, depression, anxiety, and despair, ignorance, selfishness, cynicism and skepticism. When we are out of some communication loop, we may find ourselves “in the dark,” and more than ready to assume that someone is trying to hide something from us for some dark purpose. The truth is that we all have “blind spots,” those areas in our lives or relationships that we struggle to see with any semblance of clarity.
This past week, we have seen so many tragic examples of the “blind spots” that continue to plague human relationships. The killing of Michael Brown highlights the painful reality that, when encountering a black or brown male body, what many people “see” is a criminal, a threat, instead of a beloved child of God. The decision made by a Tampa church to cancel Julion Evans’ funeral the night before the service once it was discovered that he was a married, gay man, reminds us of how prejudice can blind people to compassion. The suicide of Robin Williams reminds us that there are people whose despair blinds them to any possible hope; it also reminds us that there are those suffering all around us whose pain may be invisible to us, but absolutely real. The ongoing wars and atrocities in the Middle East and all over the world are daily reminders of the ways that the human family cannot see its sisters and brothers as human beings of sacred worth and dignity, but only see the “other” as an enemy to be destroyed.
In our Gospel story today we see that this kind of thing is nothing new. When the man who had formerly been blind is brought to the leaders of the religious establishment, the response is simply stunning: do they rejoice and give thanks to God for the man’s healing? No. In essence they put the man on trial. (What, an act of love, affirmation, and new life getting put on trial? Really? That never happens anymore!) The first response of the Pharisees is to focus on the fact that the healing had been done on the Sabbath—that the rules had been broken. Another response is simple disbelief: the man must be lying—he must not have once been blind. Finally, it becomes clear that the focus of the proceedings is to figure out who is a sinner—and the ultimate verdict is that both the man who now sees AND Jesus are sinners. The result? The man whose life has been changed, whose darkness has been turned to light, who stands as a testimony to the possibility of radical, healing change is driven out of the community. It seems ludicrous really, when we stop and look at what happens in this story. But if we quickly decide that we would never respond to such a wonderful miracle as the Pharisees do, we might hear Jesus saying to us “If you say ‘we see,’ you reveal your blindness.” We all, to some degree, need to check our eyesight.
If we look to Jesus to help us out on this, we need to be prepared for things to get a little messy. Because a very basic truth we learn from our story today is that, between blindness and sight, there is mud. Mud…Imagine God gathering up the dust from the ground, having a vision of a new creation, and forming the mud and clay into the shape of a human being. Remember the Israelites tromping through the mud of the parted Red Sea, making their way from slavery into freedom…See Jesus using mud to transform blindness into vision. Mud is that messy stuff of creation, freedom, vision, and new life. It is an integral part of crossing over from one place to the other. Mud can be the hard conversation that needs to happen to get where we need to be in a community or in a relationship. Mud can be the tragedy that finally opens our eyes to the truth of a deep injustice, or need, or pain. It can be the uncomfortable place we find ourselves in at work or in a love relationship that urges us to figure out what God might be trying to do in us or for us. Mud can also be a playful, creative place in which we are trying something new. Mud is whatever it is that helps us see in a new way. Sometimes we find ourselves in the mud by forces outside our control and sometimes we choose to wander into the mud. But either way, the question is whether we humbly submit to the mud. This is what the Pharisees can’t do. Jesus offers the Pharisees (and us!) the opportunity to gain new vision through the messy, painful, process that follows the miracle: The proverbial mud in the story is the willingness to suspend our disbelief just long enough to catch a glimpse of the radical change that God is always bringing about. Mud is the anxiety-producing dirty work of dealing with our own discomfort that the rules have gotten broken—and being open to the possibility that it will all be OK. Mud is the journey inward where we meet our own fears and prejudices and begin to recognize that until we are transformed by love we will continue to create scapegoats and cast God’s children out of our lives and our faith communities. // The Pharisees struggled to submit to the mud, to let go of what they knew, of what they took for granted, of their need to assign guilt. And, in that struggle, remained in darkness, unable to see the beautiful truth of what had happened right in front of them. In their blindness, they didn’t even realize that they needed new vision.
Today, through this story, we are reminded we all need new vision. Preconceived notions, prejudice, fear of change, old patterns and habits, depression, anxiety, and despair, ignorance, selfishness, cynicism and skepticism, conspiracy theories... We all have our “blind spots” that knowingly or unknowingly keep us in the dark—and then, knowingly or unknowingly, we hurt each other. And I don’t think it is an accident that Jesus uses mud to bring about the new vision that we all need. Mud is made from dirt, humus in the Latin, the root word for “humility.” New vision requires humility, recognition that we have missed some things, that our perspective isn’t the only perspective, that we don’t see as God sees. Humus is also the root of the word “human” which is what we become more of as God grants us the ability to look upon others, the world, and ourselves with more Christ-like eyes. It was out of the humus that God created us…and it is with mud that Jesus does the work of new creation, the humanizing work of opening eyes. It’s not always a miracle cure—as we see with the religious authorities in our Gospel. But when we humbly ask God to use the “mud” of our lives to shed light on our “blind spots,” when we humbly submit and allow God to do something new in us, then the world becomes a little more human, a little less broken, a lot more loving. And that is what we all need.
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