Here's Mud in Your Eye

March 2, 2008
1 Samuel 16.1-13, John 9.1-41
Sermon by Carrie Eikler
Lent 4

Our Lenten Journey is halfway through. Over that past three weeks we have explored our own place in a rowdy caravan as we make ourselves through the wilderness, like the Israelites did so long ago. The broader theme for our worship through Lent has been “Out of the depths.” We have explored the ways we are deeply affected by the abyss of sin, injustice, intolerance, impatience. First we spoke about coming out of the depths and into the wilderness, where we looked at what we might do to prepare for continuing our ministry, both as a congregation and as individuals…an area that certainly has its temptations for taking the easy way, the path of the religious and social status quo. Two weeks ago we were invited out of the depths and into new birth where we might broaden our sense of how God works in our lives, so we might be born again by growing in compassion and love. And last week, we were encouraged out of the depths and into the open, where our spirits become receptive to the mysterious works of God, and as we confronted our own impatient and complaining spirits. We have been invited out of the depths…into the wilderness…into new birth…into the open.

This week we are invited out of the depths and into new sight. I love the image on the front of the bulletin this morning. In the heart of the earth, under the undulating hills, comes the mud that gives us new vision. It is such an involved picture as well. The hands aren’t just patting the mud on the eye, or carefully dabbing it on. The hands are holding open the eyes and rubbing the goopy stuff onto it. Slathering it on. What do you think? Are those eyelids resisting? Are they flinching? Is it like going to the optometrist and being the victim to one those annoying glaucoma tests? Do you know what I’m talking about? The kind where the puff of air explodes onto your eye? It seems like no matter how much I am prepared for it, how much I steady myself, it always, always makes me jump.

And I am ever visioning mud these days. This week Torin and I used the precious evening hours after Sebastian is put down for bed to pour over the seed catalogs we received, peering out through the swirling snow visualizing our garden in the back yard. We have been imaging the first green of spinach and peas, the bold purple and red of the eggplants and tomatoes, the playful vines of the orange squash. I can’t wait to dig in the dirt. I can’t wait for the spring rains to come and turn that dirt into mud. Not this mud we track in the house on those teasingly mild February days, but the mud that comes from the spring rains that nourish the newly planted seeds.

But then, when it comes to mud, it doesn’t seem as though Jesus is very particular. He spits, he stirs, its mud. No big deal, no miracle there. It is easy enough to make mud, but have you ever stopped to wonder, why did he do that? There are precious few times that Jesus chooses to use anything in his miracle making. We often think all that is needed is his touch, sometimes not even that. We often think he needs only to mutter the words “Be healed,” but sometimes he doesn’t even have to do that! Sometimes people are healed miles away from him without any contact, or utterance of words, certainly not any mud.

And isn’t mud a funny thing to use, anyway. That mud should bring clarity of sight flies against the contemporary metaphors we often use. To say something is clear as mud, of course, is used as an ironic play on words. For something to “muddy the waters” means to complicate matters. Sometimes we say that things are muddy, not clear, such as “his intentions are a bit muddy.” And I particularly love this variation on the word mud: muddled. Now I’m not sure if this word has its root in the word mud, but we certainly evoke the characteristics of mud when we use it : “I muddled through my work this week,” or “I am muddling through my taxes” or “I muddled through the Gospel according to John,” which is widely shared muddling, let me assure you. The only positive saying I can think of regarding mud is the age-old toast, “Here’s mud in your eye.” Perhaps not a biblically-inspired saying, but it infers something positive, hopeful, good luck, a blessing even. Perchance, if we wallow in mud for a while, we might see something new.

So, here’s mud in your eye. It might seem strange, but there it is, that’s what Jesus uses. But the story doesn’t stop with the mud and the man gaining his sight back, which might tell us something important. It’s easy to see the stories of the miracles and focus solely on those who are immediately healed. But often, if we delve into many of the miracle stories, we find that they aren’t simply about the miracle themselves, or about what Jesus did or didn’t use to perform them. They aren’t solely about the people who found healing from Jesus. These miracle stories expose something. They point to who Jesus is. They point to who we are. And more often than not, we aren’t the ones in the story who become healed. We read these stories in our woundedness, as people who long to be healed. As you experienced with our “congregational acting troupe,” and their Oscar-winning dramatization, there are lots of people involved in this story. There’s Jesus, the disciples, the blind man who becomes a seeing man, there are neighbors, there are religious authorities, there are parents.

If we look at the story beyond the first miracle, we might ask ourselves, who is it that is really blind? Who lacks vision? Who lacks perspective? At the end of the story, Jesus gives a clear as mud explanation that those who thought they saw everything clearly were really hazy in their perceptions on sin, on Jesus, on the poor, on the differently-abled, on Sabbath, on God. Jesus muddies the water for those of us who think we’ve got it down pat, whether its our understanding about God, or our understanding about the world around us, our air-tight ethics and philosophy on life, or our confidence in our superiority—and we each think we are superior in some way.

I have been revisiting the writings of the late Henri Nouwen, a prolific writer on Christian spirituality. Nouwen was a Catholic priest who taught pastoral psychology and theology at some of the countries most distinguished academic institutions. He wrote over forty books, was a sought out speaker and teacher. Apparently many days during the academic year, students would gather around Henri as he randomly opened the Bible, found a scripture passage, and would begin to speak to the scripture at hand--sometimes up to an hour he could speak in this impromptu fashion. To use our “muddied” language, Henri Nouwen was a “muckity muck” among the upper echelons of theological academia.

In his book In the Name of Jesus, Henri reflects on the threat that he faced, even in the midst of such comfortable notoriety and position. He said that after twenty years of being a teacher, he wondered if it brought him any closer to Jesus, and he realized he still had a long way to go. So Henri moved from Harvard to a L’Arche community called Daybreak, a residential community for people with mental and physical disabilities. He moved there to be a chaplain and a full community member. He went to find a renewed purpose in his ministry. In his words, “I moved from Harvard to L’Arche, from the best and the brightest, wanting to rule the world, to men and women who had few or no words and were considered, at best, marginal to the needs of our society.” (In the Name of Jesus) He continues, “The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking or disliking me had absolutely nothing to do with any of the many useful things I had done until then. Since nobody could ready my books, the books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction. My considerable ecumenical experience proved even less valuable….In a way, it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again. Relationships, connections, reputations [that I once had] could no longer be counted on.”

So for Henri, when the ivory towers of academia made way for the dirt roads of the community living, he was faced with a muddy reality—he was no less impaired than those who became his family at Daybreak. Sure, it may not have been so obvious – his limbs worked, his mind was sharp, his level of functioning just where it should be for a man his age. But he was aware of how his spirit at times had been blind, and he was in need of care as much as any of his community members.

Sister Sue Mosteller, one of Henri’s community members at Daybreak remembered the following at Henri’s memorial service in 1996: “People coming to Daybreak usually arrive in their jeans, carrying a backpack. Henri came in a caravan of cars, with friends accompanying him to his new home. The last thing to pull into the driveway was a moving van! He entered into our midst in a whirlwind and we, as a community, to suddenly have this well-known, well-loved celebrity in our midst, were shaken to our foundations! I believe that soon after his arrival, when Henri realized the intensity of the demands of life in community, he was shaken to the foundation of his life as well! We invited [Henri] to care for [a man named] Adam, and to learn Adam’s routine of care. Adam was to become Henri’s friend, mentor, and guide. We said, “Could you wake [Adam] in the morning and help him to get up, bathe him, dress him, feed him, and help him get off to work?” At first Henri was frightened because he had never done that for anyone before, but it soon became a very significant and important moment in his day. Adam was a man who was silent and who never read any of Henri’s books, but he taught Henri about presence, about giving and receiving peace from one another, and about compassion and care. Adam gave himself totally into Henri’s hands, offering himself in his poverty to be washed, dressed, fed, and cared for… Adam was a wonderful teacher.” (Seeds of Hope: A Henri Nouwen Reader.)

In our lives, we rarely have such opportunities to have such dramatic awakenings, to have our eyelids held open by the healer of all misperceptions and have them vigorously bathed in mud. But there are moments in every day and unconscious moments of decision making that ask us – “How are we going to see this situation?” “How are we going to judge this person?” “How are we going to move through this day?” We have the choice of taking the easy road where we can put our lives on cruise control, on the flat smooth asphalt of life (which if we admit it, is really only an illusion) or getting off to experience the muddy, and yes, often bumpy roads of the life that Jesus models for us.

But I don’t think this is easy, and I know I certainly haven’t bathed in the mud bath as much as I should. There is a lot at stake when we receive new sight, isn’t there? To live in darkness and to suddenly see light, colors, shapes, motion—it is a dramatic change. Those who thought they had the world perfectly in line with who was in, and who was out, what was sin, and what was holy, who was relevant and who was disposable…they had a lot to lose if they were to give up their spiritual blindness. We have a lot to loose too. So, no, I don’t think it is easy, and like in my sermon two weeks ago about being born again, I doubt it happens like this miracle story—where we are the blind man who automatically receives his sight. Rather we see what Jesus has done, what Jesus offers, and we are invited to dabble in the mud. While we may be like the religious authorities, or the doubting neighbors, we strive to be the blind man who is healed, putting on the mud, bit by bit.

Christian communities mark the beginning of Lent during Ash Wednesday with a marking of ashes on their foreheads. Our congregation did not hold an Ash Wednesday service this year, rather we participated with a neighboring church. During our waiting worship, I invite you if you feel led, to come forward and receiving a mark of mud on your forehead, a response to Christ’s invitation to receive the mud of new sight.
Can we take on the difficult new life, relinquishing our spiritual blindness? I pray that we can. We are invited out of the depths, into new sight.