“After he said this, he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and smeared the mud on the man’s eyes. ”
We are deeply physical creatures living in a material world.
We are also deeply spiritual creatures living in a spiritual world.
For nearly twenty years I worked in the world of library preservation. Library preservation is about preserving more than just stuff, but the part of preservation work that most shaped me was working with stuff – damaged, wounded, vulnerable stuff. I worked with papers made of wood pulp, cotton rags, and hemp fibers. I handled books bound in the hides of cow, sheep, and goats. The first time I got a hog-hair brush wet the smell immediately took me back childhood memories of butchering hogs on the family farm. I pulled on binding thread, pushed on press screws, gently tugged at old tape, and critically handled a newly repaired book. When I was given a paper document that gave me every indication of being very brittle, I still needed to grasp it between my thumb and forefinger and gently bend the paper till it invariably broke. When I was given a book with signs of mold, I caressed the discolored area and often brought it up to my nose for a quick sniff. I had a very physical relationship with the library.
The biblical depiction of the physical world is vast and complex. It is, first and foremost, God’s good creation, but it is very quickly tarnished by Adam and Eve’s rebellion. As a result, humanity’s relationship with the matter of this world is described as one of labor and struggle.
“cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.’” (Gen. 3: 17b-19)
With the fall in the Garden of Eden, all physical material was tainted with sin. For the rest of the biblical story the material stuff of this life is a mixed bag – it both extols the glory of God and demonstrates our mortality and insignificance. These opposing qualities are probably best reflected in the Psalms.
The Psalms often extol how the grandeur of God is revealed in the stuff of this world.
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. (Ps. 19:1)
But the Psalms also express the deep transience and turmoil of our material existence.
As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more. (Ps 103:15-16)
The Christian scriptures, or New Testament, portray an equally conflicted relationship with the material stuff of this word. The early church as depicted in Acts shares its material possessions and cares for the material needs of others. Other writings depict flesh as the home of sin, and something to be overcome.
“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit, To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Rom. 8:5-6)
It sometime seems right at times to demonize the flesh. I know for myself, and I’m guessing for many of you, I was brought up with at least an awareness of the idea that flesh was bad. It is the home of uncontrollable urges, and the stuff that falls apart, decays, and dies. Sins of the flesh are often seen as the worst, or at least the most unmentionable sins. Our goal as Christians was to overcome or deny our physical selves which only lead us to sin and to look forward to that glorious day when we would take on spiritual bodies (whatever that meant).
But simply dismissing the material stuff of this world as the abode of sin does not reflect an attentive reading of the full biblical story. As much as the stuff of this world reflects and participates in sin, the bible also tells us that the stuff of this world reflects and participates in the divine.
I’m very fond of the verse from Psalm 34 “Taste and see how good the Lord is!”
I like that this is a call to encounter God through our physical senses. It is not a call to traditional “spiritual” and often cerebral things like beliefs and doctrines. We are called to taste and see, and before we delve too much into this phrase as a metaphor or spiritualize this language, we must deal with the fact that these are physical acts of our physical selves. It is a call to encounter God in this world with our bodies.
Stories of Jesus’ life often involves the very basic stuff of the earth: blood and wine; loaves and fishes; stones and wounds; and in our text, spit and dirt. I love this story from our John text of Jesus healing the blind man with a mud made of dirt and his spit. God takes on the stuff of the earth in the person of Jesus and then uses the stuff of the earth, common under-foot soil and a bodily fluid to mediate a miraculous healing. After Jesus smears this mess onto the man’s eyes he is told to go wash this crud off his eyes. This story isn’t about the stuff of the heavens declaring the glory of God, but it’s a story of filthy and kinda gross stuff mediating God’s healing power
The feature of the Christian tradition which has perhaps the most to say about a believer’s relationship to the physical world is the idea of incarnation; that God, creator of all the stuff of the universe, became embodied in that very particular stuff of the universe. God took on the stuff most notably in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In Jesus, God became fully human. Incarnation may be the most scandalous teaching of the Christian faith.
Western Christianity, especially in its modern protestant form, has tended to let the idea of Jesus and incarnation play 2nd or 3rd fiddle to stories of Jesus’ death as the key, and maybe even only, saving event of the whole Jesus story. Jesus came as a baby, but only so he could die. But we know that Jesus is more than just death and resurrection. Jesus came embodied in flesh and blood and his ministry was a physical ministry – a ministry of spit and mud, perfume and blood, bread and wine. When people called out with physical problems he often replied with a physical response.
When I attended the Mennonite seminary, a course which really captured my attention was a course on the history of the Eastern Orthodox church. In this class I learned of the significance of incarnation in the Orthodox tradition.
Within Orthodox theology God becoming human was not an afterthought, an event to make up for Original Sin and human sinfulness. Incarnation was God's first thought, the original design for all creation. The purpose of Jesus' life is the fulfillment of God's eternal longing to become united with humanity and with all creation. This was God’s original intent in creation. As an Orthodox theologian said “This union of the Divine and human nature in one person, the Incarnation of our Lord, has once and for all bridged the gap between God and Creation. By the Incarnation, the material world is redeemed.”
The very existence of Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God gives credence and value to the idea of matter playing host to the divine. In the person of Jesus, God took on flesh. God became embodied in the stuff of this earth.
I don’t want to deny the spiritual realm but rather I want to suggest that the physical aspect of Jesus ministry, and of our lives, are not separate from the spiritual. Jesus demonstrated that ministering to the body and ministering to the soul can be one. Feeding the hungry is sharing the bread that will give life to the world.
If we pay attention to John's emphasis on the Incarnation and on the truth of God revealed in Jesus, we discover that for John, what is at the heart of reality is a God who wants to share divine life. God wants to be in communion with humanity.
God is love and created all life to communicate to creatures the fullness of divine love. The Incarnate Word is the foundation of the creative plan of God, the very reason for the existence of all creation.
God’s desire to be in communion with us through creation means that the whole of Creation has the potential to be a sacrament.
Now I realize I’m very near the end of my message and I’ve just introduced the word sacrament. One thing I remember from taking “baptismal classes” way back in my youth at Grace Church was that the Mennonite Church does not have sacraments, but ordinances. Sacrament was weird Catholic thing. “Those people” think the wine “actually becomes blood” and we think the grape juice is a symbol of … something.
Broader than its specific use of sacrament to refer to the elements of bread and wine in eucharist, or the seven sacraments of the Catholic faith, a sacrament is a ritual, event, or thing that imparts divine grace. A sacrament is physical act or object through which God is present, and God acts. A sacrament is not merely symbolic of God, but sacrament involves actual presence of and engagement with God.
If we feel we are sharing the actual love of God through an act of bringing food to a sick friend – is that that soup and that service not sacramental? Is not God truly present in the soup and service?
God’s presence is real, but as the stories about Jesus so often demonstrate, our eyes do not perceive God’s presence even when it is right in front of us.
I’ve been returning again and again to this idea that the Christian life is a life of learning to see; to see all creation as it really is. And I think with those opened and trained eyes we will begin to see all creation (and that includes us) as a sacrament, for through the stuff of creation God’s presence, activity, and love is made real on earth.
I invite you this week to taste and see and smell and touch and hear that God is present and God is good.