Sermon for March 15th
Sermon for March 15th
Why mud? Why not some powerful command? Why not a touch on the forehead or just a pronouncement that the man was healed? Why did Jesus choose to use mud?
As I have mentioned before, the Pharisees were very keen on seeing the law upheld, at least as they interpreted the law. They had codes of law written to flesh out the Levitical laws, which were based on the Ten commandments. When it came to something like the Sabbath, they had figured out how far you could walk before it would be considered work. They had identified numerous activities that would exceed the work threshold and would therefore be unacceptable to perform on the Sabbath, even if those activities were necessary or even essential. The law was the law, and one should not transgress the law, regardless of personal cost. The law, as seen by the religious authorities, was the way in which the people could prove their righteousness before God and assure themselves of God’s love and fidelity. To do otherwise was a road to disaster, a disaster that their ancestors had experienced firsthand. There needed to be absolute compliance to the laws set forth to avoid another such disaster.
This is where the mud comes in. For Jesus to create mud with his saliva and dust would have required a certain amount of kneading. Under the laws of the Israelites, kneading, whether it was dough or mortar for bricks, was expressly forbidden on the Sabbath. So, in this moment, Jesus is not just healing on the Sabbath, he is doing something that is intentionally in violation of the law. He kneaded mud from dust and spit and then applied the creation to the eyes of this man. He is challenging the law in a very explicit fashion.
But that begs the question, Why? There are other places where Jesus clearly says that he did not come to abolish the law but to uphold it. So why does he challenge the law in some circumstances but upholds the law in others?
It is likely too simple a thing to say that Jesus either upholds or ignores the law. I think that Jesus, rather than being a part of the discussion surrounding the efficacy of the law, transcends any such discussion. His concern isn’t about rigidly following the law. His concern is whether one law is good or another works against the people. Jesus, as in all things, is about life. Jesus is about bringing forth God’s love. And when something like the law stands in his way, seeking to bar him from offering that love and life to another, he will challenge it and will do so as openly as possible. He wants the people around him to recognize that this discussion around law and about earning God’s favor through the law misses the point. The point is not about God’s favour or about right action. Chasing after those things succeeds in achieving the opposite. Acting in such a way results not in freedom, but oppression. It results in suffering, not an alleviation from suffering. Love needs to be free to act as love must act. And so, Jesus acts, not according to the law, but according to the more holy truth of love and by using mud to heal the man’s eyes, he is helping to demonstrate just how empty the law is, when it is not being animated by love and for the good of all people.
We see this play out in the world around us. We want to apply the law, not always for the sake of what is best, but because we want justice, or we want someone to suffer for the wrong we think that they have done. The law becomes a mechanism for justice and for control. There are many laws that have been generated for just that purpose. Yet, when we look at the Ten Commandments, the intent was never to control, but to set free. It was to give the opportunity for life and for groups of people to have the opportunity to thrive, when normally they wouldn’t. Jesus is challenging the law that takes away life and misses the purpose of law, namely, to protect and give guidance. He is challenging the mechanism of control that is so often leveraged against people, especially people who have little power in their day to day lives.
It is such a small act on Jesus’ part, but it challenges the status quo so deeply and forces us, two thousand years later, to look deeply at our laws and our assumptions around societal expectations. Are they life giving? Or are they meant to hold together a status quo that is good for some, but often ignores the cry of the oppressed?
In the end, Jesus, sends this man back into the world. The religious authorities, upon seeing the formerly blind man, are disturbed. They want to know where this man received his healing from and by what right he was healed. They double down on the very things that Jesus is challenging them about. They would rather see the man continue to be blind when his emancipation, in the form of Jesus, was standing right in front of him. They would rather that the law was upheld, regardless of the human cost or how it distanced them from God. They were not connected to God’s love in this moment, and their ears were deaf to the cries of those around them. Their ears were deaf to the words of their own prophets, who had called to their ancestors, showing them the way forward. In the words of prophet Micah.
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
So the question is, are our ears open? Do we hear what Jesus is saying, not just to the authorities of his own time, but to humanity throughout the ages? Is love what guides us? Is love that which animates the laws which we follow? Are we the ones who would knead the mud alongside of Jesus or would we be the ones accusing him of breaking the Sabbath? Are we the ones to lift another up or are we the ones who help to keep people bowed down? It’s an important question these days. The world needs more dust kneaded into mud and more sight granted to the blind. The world needs more hope. Help us, O God, to be agents of that hope.
Amen