Lent 23

Posting the brief meditation I gave at an Emmaus event this past weekend while I reflect further on the stunning grace found in the utterly ordinary.

John 9:1-7
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

A couple of weeks ago, I taught a confirmation class on the means of grace, in general, and on the Sacraments, in particular. When talking to the kids we covered the classic definition of sacrament..that is, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. And while the classic definition is great, it didn't help them really understand this abstract concept of grace, so we talked a bit more and came to understand grace as God's self-giving. It's God showing up. And when God shows up, things happen. When God's grace enters into the picture, you can count on healing, reconciliation, growth--in a word, change.

And so it was with the man blind from birth. I can imagine that he was just hanging out, doing his normal thing. He was a beggar. Not a beggar for healing. Just a beggar. And then Jesus walks by, in the midst of conversation, and he decides to do for this man what he didn't even know to ask for. Jesus spit on the ground, mixed it around a little, basically made a mud pie, spread it over the man's eyes, and told him to go wash up. And when he did, he could see. I can imagine that was pretty surprising for him. One minute, he's trying to make ends meet, and the next, Jesus has come on the scene, rubbed a little mud on his face, and now his whole life has changed. I can imagine, also, it must have been pretty surprising to the onlookers, to see something as ordinary as a fistful of mud become a means of God's grace.

While the sun has come out and dried the ground a little, two nights ago, a group of women gathered in a church while it was raining outside. Many, if not most, were entirely clueless about what they were getting into. And if my experience of the Walk is any indication, many may not have been so thrilled about walking blind into the experience--a feeling, I'm sure, which was complicated by arriving at a soggy, muddy camp. I know when I left my home in Greenwood Thursday afternoon in the rain, I had to talk myself into being excited about the idea of a church camp which I was certain would be covered in mud.

It's a little funny because in a different context, I have spoken fondly of mud. Those of you from Charleston--and perhaps all of you--will know what I mean when I describe pluff mud. You know that sick, sour, sulfur, bad-egg smell that comes from the water's edge. But I must tell you, since I moved away, that smell has become one of my favorite things. When I go to Charleston for a visit, that smell, that sour mud, that's the smell of coming home.

So when we gathered on the soggy soil on Thursday night, maybe we were coming home then to. You see, we asked God to show up. You asked God to show up. And God showed up. God showed up and called the gathered few and invited them, and all of us with them, into his midst. I guess what I mean to say by saying all of that is this: grace is both ordinary and extraordinary, extraordinarily surprising. Grace is what takes concrete floors and folding tables and turns them into a home. Grace is what takes the seemingly small words of human beings and makes them move all who hear. Grace, the healing, saving, wonderful, self-giving grace is what opened the blind man's eyes.

It is amazing what the ordinary may turn into when in the hands of Christ. That's what we find at the table. At first, the elements of bread and wine are surprisingly ordinary. But in the hands of Christ, what we experience here is the very presence of God, something surprisingly wonderful. When the blind man encountered God's unlikely, ordinary, and yet amazing grace, his eyes were opened. And so too, at this table, may our eyes be opened in the breaking of the bread. Amen.