Here's Mud in Your Eye (The Transfiguration of Christ; John 9:1-41; February 11, 2018)

Here's Mud in Your Eye

The Transfiguration of Christ
John 9:1-41
February 11, 2018

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa

It is, as I said a little earlier, the day we celebrate as "The Transfiguration of Christ." Unlike the other three gospels, the Gospel of John has no transfiguration story. You know the one I mean: the inner circle of disciples and Jesus climb "the" mountain and there Jesus is changed in appearance with his face glowing and his clothes shining like they had been washed with detergent and bleach.

There is no such story in John, although, I suppose, someone could make an argument that the whole of the gospel is a sort of transfiguration as we see, in its own words, "[Jesus'] glory, glory like that of a father's only son, full of grace and truth."

But if the transfiguration has to do with seeing, with what we see, and how we see, then it's all here:

It's story about a man who was blind from birth. On seeing the man, Jesus' disciples want to know whose sin was responsible for the man's blindness. But, says Jesus, neither is. Instead, he talks about daylight and nighttime darkness. Then he makes some mud by spitting on the ground and stirring saliva and dirt together [Oops! Making clay is work! It was on the Sabbath!] Then he smears the clay on the man's eyes and said, "Here's mud in your eye."

No, that's not what he said. He sent the man to go wash in the pool of Siloam. (Siloam means "sent.") Get it? Jesus sent him to the pool called "Sent". Nice. He sent a blind man off to find his way through the city to the pool.

When the man comes back the man's neighbors think it might be the same man, but it might just be someone who looks like him. When asked, the man tells the story of what happened to him. The neighbors want to know where Jesus is. How should the man know? He's been wandering around the city!

Then the crowd took the man to the local clergy group. The man testifies again. Here's where the Sabbath-breaking catches up with Jesus. The pastors won't believe that a "sinner" could perform a healing.

Then the preachers interrogate the man's parents. They confirm that this is indeed their son, but they refuse to get involved otherwise.

Stuck between the evidence of their own eyes and their prejudices, the preachers prefer their own prejudices. The man, however, reasons well from his own assumptions and comes to the conclusion that Jesus could not have healed him if Jesus were not "from God."

The clergy group rejects this argument and the man himself. He is "expelled."

When the word of this action gets out, Jesus finds the man, and asks if he believes in "the Human One." How can he, since he was blind when Jesus was smearing mud on his face? Jesus introduces himself and the man "believes."

This is why Jesus has come, he says. It is so that the blind can see and those who say they see can be shown to be blind.

So there is a lot of seeing and not-seeing in the story. And, as always with John, the words and images carry double meanings. The man who has been blind since birth sees well enough. Those who are supposed to have great insight are blind teachers who teach only blindness.

So, if we're looking for Transfiguration themes, we have them a-plenty. Only the burden of the event is on us. It is up to us to see or not to see. And those of us who think we can see just fine are under a caution.

But I see something else at work in this text. I have become convinced that in these forty-one verses we are given all the insight we need into John's community. My "traumatic" reading of John is grounded in this chapter.

The story concerns a man who has been blind all of his life. And, because that is the case, he has little hope for healing. There is even a suspicion that he himself has deserved this blindness. There are people who are willing to argue for the man having been "born completely in sin" as the Pharisees put it so sweetly, rather than admit that God's justice has miscarried in some way.

Of all the people in Jerusalem when Jesus came to visit, Jesus chooses this man for healing. The method that he chooses to heal is odd, but perhaps not without meaning. Jesus heals him with clay. This man who had never seen anything, is a case of failed creation. His eyes were, it seems, never completely formed. So the mud that Jesus applies sends us back to the creation of The Adam when God created the human being from the mud (which is what "Adam" means). Jesus finishes this man's creation with the mud of creation.

Jesus sends him to the pool where he is to wash off the mud. The man goes and baptizes himself. He comes back a new man, a new creation, finished this time, and able to see.

It's funny, the man's neighbors don't really seem to know who he is. How good is their sight? They try to figure things out and then refer the question to the clergy. I doubt very much whether the clergy had ever bothered themselves to consider this poor blind man's situation. But now they are outraged that he has been healed. The proper procedures were not followed. The wrong people were involved. And then, when the now-seeing formerly-blind person not only tells them what has happened, but what he believes about what happened, they can't stand it. The mere presence of this man is a challenge to their authority. They kick him out. Presumably, it is the synagogue that they are kicking him out of.

Notice how helpful his parents are in this whole excommunication process? They are afraid of being thrown out of the synagogue. So they throw their son under the bus: "Ask him. He's old enough to speak for himself." Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.

But Jesus finds him and completes the man's enlightenment. "I, who am speaking to you, am the Human One." And the man believed and worshiped Jesus. (Incidentally, worship in the Bible never describes an inner attitude. It is always the act of bowing down in front of someone, usually while kneeling.)

So here is the final scorecard: The man has lost his parents, lost his place in the community, and lost his membership in the synagogue. He is no longer a part of the Jewish community in any significant way. But he comes away with two things: He is now able to "see." And he is now connected to Jesus who has healed him. "God's mighty works [have been] displayed in him," just as Jesus said when he and the disciples had first come upon him.

And, this, I believe, is the situation in which we find John's community. They, too, have had their eyes opened. Their lives have been changed by the presence and actions of Jesus. And because of this, they have been abandoned by their families, expelled from the synagogue, and cut off from the Jewish community. They have suffered deep wounds from which they will not recover easily. Those wounds are evident all through the Gospel. They have paid and will continue to pay a high price.

But the work of creation which had been incomplete before they had encountered Jesus is now being brought to a glorious finish. They are on their way to becoming all that God had dreamed that they could be. In the waters of baptism they have been washed clean from the mud of their healing and connected to Jesus who has become family, community, and inheritance to them.

They have lost their families, but they are joined to Jesus. They have lost their community, but they are bound to each other and to Jesus. They have lost their place of belonging in the ancient tradition, but they are created as a new world and new people through the acts and words of the risen Jesus.

So, folks, here’s mud in your eye!

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