First Reading 1 Samuel 16:1–13
1 The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” 2 Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the LORD said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ 3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” 4 Samuel did what the LORD commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” 5 He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. 6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed is now before the LORD.” 7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” 8 Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” 10 Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen any of these.” 11 Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” 12 He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The LORD said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.
Psalm Psalm 23
1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. 2 The LORD makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. 3 You restore my soul, O LORD, and guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake. 4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Second Reading Ephesians 5:8–14
8 For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light — 9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; 13 but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Gospel John 9:1–41
1 As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7 saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. 8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” 18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” 25 He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 28 Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out. 35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” 38 He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
JESUS AND THE MAN BORN BLIND
Recently, I ran across a “fascinating list” that carried this intriguing title: “Great Truths About Life That Little Children Have Learned.” I’m not sure, but I may have shared these “Great Truths” with you before.
(1) “No matter how hard you try you cannot baptize a cat.” (One of my brothers can testify to this one!)
(2) “When your mom is mad at your dad, don’t let her brush your hair.”
(3) “Never ask your 3-year-old brother to hold a tomato… or an egg.”
(4) “You can’t trust dogs to watch your food for you.”
(5) “Don’t sneeze when somebody is cutting your hair.”
(6) “School lunches stick to the wall.”
(7) “You can’t hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.”
(8) And “Never wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts… no matter how cute the underwear is.”
Now, it’s virtually certain that the children learned these “great truths” and came to these bold new insights after some dramatic eye-opening experience in their own personal lives. Like I said one of my brothers tried to baptize a cat and learned from that experience that this just isn’t a good thing to do. The point is clear: A dramatic personal eye-opening experience can give us new insight, new perception, new vision.
Here’s another thing kids know, mud is good. Whether squished between the toes, splashed up from a big puddle, or patted into inedible but unforgettable “pies,” mud attracts little children as quickly as cupcakes and puppies. And I think I can speak for all of us when I ask, who isn’t looking forward to the Spring softening of hard, unyielding ground after the wetness, and at times frozenness, of this past Winter? There’s something elemental, even primeval about mud. We instinctively recognize that moist, mushy earth is a sign of fruitfulness, fulfillment, and fun.
However, if we don’t have melting snow or spring rains to make solid ground into malleable mud, then we have to get water from some other source. In this week’s gospel text, John’s detailed re-telling of Jesus healing of a man who had been “born blind,” that water source comes from our Savior’s own saliva.
Jesus spits on the ground and “made mud with the salvia,” an action that would delight children, but was a symbol of uncleanness and pollution to the reigning religious authorities. Blood, sweat, spit, all bodily fluids were considered not just to be unattractive, but were deemed absolutely abhorrent and ritually unclean. Spittle in the Jewish culture was considered to be a pollutant, and even today, in our culture, to spit on someone is the ultimate sign of contempt.
But when Jesus encountered the man who was “born blind,” an individual who had been “blind from birth,” someone who had never received the gift of sight, He responds by spitting. I was thinking about this the other day and it occurred to me that we cannot know for sure whether this man had nothing in his eye sockets, just a cavernous hole, or whether his eyes were born deformed and defective. Nothing in the text lets us know. However, think about it from this perspective, the fact that Jesus’ action recreated the first act of creation, where God creates materiality out of mud, suggests the former, but this is only speculation. I find Jesus’ action in this miracle interesting.
What isn’t speculation is that “in the beginning” God created the cosmos and the earth. Upon the earth the first priority was water in order for life to emerge. It was only after a stream of water rose up from within the ground and watered “the whole face of the earth” (Genesis 2:6) that God gathered together the moistened dirt and “formed Adam” from the clay. Adam was, you could say, the first “mud pie,” made from the creative touch of the divine on clay; that simple combination of dirt and water, resulted in nothing less than the first human being. Facts and speculation in this case clarified, Jesus’ action has been variously and diversely interpreted.
Some scholars suggest that Jesus was symbolically increasing the blindness of the man before he goes to wash in the pool of Siloam — adding another layer of darkness to the man’s sightless eyes by packing on a mud wall before he has all darkness peeled back and the light shines in. But the Pharisee’s insistence that the gift of sight to this “blind from birth” man was unprecedented, and his response to their inquiries concerning his restored sight, that “never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind,” seems to convey that this man’s blindness was more profound than simple sightlessness. Jesus’ mud ball action suggest, as I’ve already proposed, that this man didn’t just have blind eyes, but that he had no eyes. Jesus didn’t just “heal” his blindness, Jesus quite possibly created sight — giving eyes to one who had been “born” without eyes. Jesus’ act of combining creative moisture with the dirt of the earth to make miraculous mud was a recreation of the first act of creation. God created life from clay. Jesus created sight from sightlessness. It was a wholly new action. It was a divine action. It was an act that was utterly inexplicable to the religious authorities. Consider too, the importance of the chronology of this story.
The healing of the man born blind follows the story of the woman at the well, and occurred just at or after the Feast of Tabernacles. In Jesus’ day, the Feast of Tabernacles, which was like a Judean Thanksgiving, with pilgrims bringing offerings of freshly harvested dates, pomegranates, grapes, figs, and olives, began at the Pool of Siloam with a joyful musical procession called Simhat Beit HaShoevah or The Rejoicing of the Water-Drawing. During the ceremony, a designated priest, surrounded by jubilant worshipers, would draw water from the Pool of Siloam and carry it in a golden pitcher up the hill to the Temple altar. A blast of trumpets would announce his arrival. The high priest would then pour the Siloam water into one silver basin while wine was poured into another. To the accompaniment of flutes, the priests would sing “Hallelujah.” This celebration was based on the Isaiah 12:3 passage: “With joy you shall draw water out of the wells of salvation.” Jesus is now that well of salvation.
The healing power of the Pool of Siloam is mentioned in the writings of the earliest pilgrims. In the 6th century AD, a Piacenza pilgrim wrote: You descend by many steps to Siloam, and above Siloam is a hanging basilica beneath which the water of Siloam rises. Siloam has two basins constructed of marble, which are separated from each other by a screen. Men were in one and women in the other to gain a blessing. In these waters miracles take place, and lepers are cleansed. In front of the court is a large man-made pool and people are continually washing there; for at regular intervals the spring sends a great deal of water into the basins, which goes on down the valley of Gethsemane (which they also call Jehosaphat) as far as the River Jordan. (Trans. J. Wilkinson) The place Jesus sends the man to wash is significant to this story as well. But none of this should surprise us.
When we consider what we’ve learned from the Bible, it shouldn’t be unexpected that Jesus, who embraced and encouraged children throughout His mission time, also knew that mud was good. Jesus got baptized in the muddy shallows of the Jordan. He called His disciples from the murky bays of the Sea of Galilee. He spoke from boats anchored on the shores of the dark and gloomy depths of the sea. Jesus, it seems, never hesitated to mix the powers of water and earth throughout His ministry.
When Jesus spat and made a poultice of salvia and dust, creating a salve that saved a blind man’s spirit and provided him with his first experience of sight, Jesus continued the Creator’s creativity and embodied the essence of divine creativeness. Yet as with everything that God made good, “mud” had also taken on a bad reputation.
In recent history the doctor who helped set the leg and sent packing Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, Dr. Samuel Mudd, brought about the curse, “your name is mud!” In Jesus’ day the excretion of saliva combined with dirt making mud would have been a highly unclean event. Mud was bad, and by association so was everything associated with any dirt and water combination. But there’s another way to use mud.
Ironically the only way to describe all of the nay-sayers, doubters, and chortle merchants questioning Jesus’ actions and the healing He had brought about, uses another “mud” term. The Pharisees, doubters and attackers who berate the healed blind man can only be seen as “mud slingers.” They’re individuals who cannot see the miraculous healing power of God, but can only see the basic elements of dirt and spit, the basic facts of a blind beggar and a Sabbath day afternoon. All they can see is dirt and disobedience. They refuse to see what the healed blind man can see, a whole new world. Jesus lived and ministered and healed among mud-slingers; people who doubted and disputed His abilities and His capabilities. So must we, His disciples, live and minister and heal among the mud-slingers.
In the “Harry Potter” genre of children’s books some of the “pureblood” wizard families proclaim their superiority over those who unexpectedly are born with wizarding gifts in non-magical families. Those pure blood wizards assert that those not from wizarding bloodlines are “mud bloods.” They’re seen as inferior, dirty, polluted, impure. It’s a children’s book lesson in the ridiculousness of discrimination.
The truth is that we’re all “mud bloods” — we’re all children born from the creativity of God upon the mud bank of the first squishy shore of creation. Mud is our common mantra. And mud is our makeover. Why do women use mud facials to remove impurities and toxins? Because of the cleansing, restoring, curative powers of mud. Even spit is a cleansing agent, as every antique restorer knows. There are enzymes in spit that remove grime without destroying what’s underneath. Saliva acts upon lipids and proteins that dissolve dirt but doesn’t harm the paint. Spit is restoration. Godspit is divine restoration and purification. That’s why in the Greek Orthodox Church, when you bless someone you spit on them. And after baptism, to “open the child to God,” the priest spits on his left hand and touches the child’s ears.
God promised His chosen people that one day He would send them a Servant, the Messiah, their Deliverer. How would they know when the Servant had arrived? According to prophecy, He would “open blind eyes” (Isaiah 42:1, 7). We’re all born blind, detached from the “Light,” in the dark. Remember: the sins of the parents weren’t to blame for the blind-from-birth man’s condition.
Jesus’ announcement on the “Feast of Tabernacles” that He is the “Light of the World” is His call for us to come out of the darkness and come back to the light eternal. Or as we read in 1 Peter 2:9: “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” The majesty of God revealed in this one man’s story is the restoration of the sight of all humanity through our willingness to come to the One whom God “sent” and to be washed, cleansed, and restored, and forgiven by the “Living Water.” The anointing with clay and saliva is the finishing of God’s creation of us . . . making us again whole through the salve and salvation of Christ.
There’s something else we need to take notice of in this text. The words “Siloam” (John 9:7) and “Shiloah” (Isaiah 8:6) as well as Shiloh (Genesis 49:10) are related, and indeed have morphed together through time. Shiloh (“Until Shiloh comes”) is the name Jacob used for the Messiah who would come from the tribe of Judah. Shiloah was a reference by Isaiah to the Messiah, a spring of “gently flowing waters,” rejected by the people. Shiloah was also an earlier name for the pool of Siloam which was filled peacefully by water that rose from an underground conduit. John tells us that Siloam means “Sent,” and the Messiah was the “Sent One” as we too, as the disciples of the “Sent One, live in a state of sentness.
Jesus told the blind man, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,” the pool that symbolized the Messiah. In other words, Jesus sent the blind man to Himself. “Go wash in the pool of Siloam, of Shiloah, of Shiloh.” Wash away your blindness in the “Living Water,” and seek your salvation in me. The cure for our blindness is the same as the cure for the man born blind: “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam;” “find yourself in me;” “cleanse yourself in the Living Waters.” Or in the words of the Psalmist (Psalm 36:7-9): How excellent is your loving kindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house; and you shall make them drink of the river of your pleasures. For with you is the fountain of life: in your light shall we see light. In other words, Jesus, the Living Water, the Pool of Siloam, can turn your every Sheol into a Shiloh. If I might, I’d like to leave you with one final thought from our gospel text for this morning.
Notice that when the disciples see the blind man, they see something to discuss, but when Jesus sees him, He sees something to do. The disciples want to debate the truth; Jesus chooses to do it… and be it. The disciples want to give their energy to words. Jesus puts His energy into action. My point is this: when it comes to reaching out to others, it’s not enough to talk about it. What pleases God is when we do something about it. This is one of the lessons Jesus is trying to teach us.
Amen