Mud Bath

Mud Bath

 a take on a story handed down from

the gospel community of John, chapter 9,

(adapted from the New Revised Standard Version)

As Jesus moved along, he saw a woman who had been bound since birth.

Church folk being church folk—nosey and opinionated—wanted to know, “Who sinned, this woman or her parents, that caused her to be born bound?”

Jesus answered, “Neither this woman nor her parents sinned. She was born bound so that God’s handiwork might be revealed. We all need to get on with the work of the One who sent me. As long as you get me, you’ll get it.”

Then Jesus did a really queer thing. He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the woman, and said, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” (Siloam means Sent.)

So the woman went and washed, and lo and behold, she came out to herself.

The neighbors and those who had known her before as a victim began to talk, “Isn’t this the woman who used to be helpless and plead all the time?”

Some said, “Yeh, that’s her.” But others replied, “No, that’s just someone who looks like her.”

She kept saying, “It’s me, alright—I am the woman.”

They all kept quizzing her, “What happened to you?”

She told them, “This guy Jesus made mud, spread it all over me, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and now I understand.”

They wanted to know, “Where is this guy?”

She said, “I don’t know.”

The church folk made the woman who had been bound come before the group of elders who made it their job to set people straight. Now it was on a Sunday that Jesus had concocted the mud bath and liberated the woman. The elders started to interrogate her about the whole thing.

She said to them, “Jesus put mud on me. Then I washed and came into my own!”

Some of the elders decided, “This Jesus can’t be from God—he doesn’t respect Sundays.”

But others of them disagreed, “How can someone who is a sinner—who violates Sundays—do anything like this?”

Again they put it to her—the bound woman, “Who is this guy? It was you he did it to.”

She shrugged, “What can I say? He’s a prophet.”

The fundamentalist ministers in the area didn’t believe this woman had been bound and then unbound, so they called her parents and outright asked them, “Is this your daughter, whom you claim was born bound?”

Her parents answered, “This is definitely our daughter, and she was indeed born bound. But we don’t know how she was released or who released her. Ask her—she’s her own person. She can speak for herself.”

Her parents said this because they were afraid of the fundamentalists. For the fundies had already decided that anyone who came out and connected it to Jesus would be put out of the church.

           

So for the second time the elders and ministers called a meeting with the woman who had been bound, and they made it very clear to her, “Swear to God! We happen to know this Jesus person is a sinner.”

She answered, “Whether he’s a sinner I couldn’t tell you. All I know is, I once was bound, but now I’m free.”

They came back at her, “What did he do to you? How did he open you up?”

She answered them, “Enough already! You wouldn’t listen the first time. Why do you want to hear it again? Could it be that you all want to become his disciples too?”

They angrily attacked her, saying, “You’re one of his, but we belong to Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this Jesus freak, we have absolutely no idea where he’s coming from.”

The woman responded, “Amazing! You don’t know where he gets it, yet he enlightened me. We all know that God doesn’t listen to those who turn away from God. But God does listen to one who gives glory to God in all they do and in who they are. The world’s never heard of anyone untying a person born bound. If this guy didn’t come from God, he couldn’t do a thing. No God: no nothing.”

They kept up their abuse, “You’re a 100% born sinner, and you’re trying to teach us?!” And they dropped her from their membership.

Jesus heard that they had driven her out, and when he found her, Jesus said, “Do you believe in who God sent?”

She answered, “Who is it, pray tell? I gotta know who to believe.”

Jesus said to her, “You’ve already gotten it—it’s the One speaking to you right now.”

She said, “O my Lord! I believe.” And in everything she did—and especially in who she was—she worshiped God.

Jesus being Jesus—getting the last word—said, “I came out to this world so that those who are not free to come out may be free to do so. And those who can’t stand the sight of an out Jesus and who feel free to judge others may become cross-eyed and tongue-tied.”

                       

Some of the fundamentalists overheard Jesus and couldn’t help but ask, “Surely we’re not judgment-bound, are we?”

Jesus said to them, “If you were bound, it wouldn’t be because you had sinned. But now that you assume, ‘We’re free,’ you’re bound to sin.”

Lost and Found Family

Lost and Found Family

I lost my “traditional” notion of family when I was doing my ministerial training in a church in Washington, D.C., while I was in seminary. One of the many African-American youth in the congregation—a young teenage girl—who came to worship every Sunday with her grandmother, started to complain that her stomach hurt. I would sit with her during worship and escort her to the bathroom when she needed. A few months later her school nurse confirmed that she was pregnant.

She was 13 years old, and she had been sexually molested by her mother’s boyfriend. Throughout her pregnancy I had permission to pick her up at her junior high school and drive her to the various appointments with her doctor, social worker, and court-appointed attorney. During these visits I would sit in the lobby or waiting room where I was usually the only white person present. Glancing around the room at the other pregnant girls, I once noticed one of the accompanying grandmothers nod and give me a knowing look. We were all trying to support to the best of our ability some pretty tragic situations.

After the birth, my young mother and her baby resided in a home for young single mothers that was operated by an order of Catholic nuns. The home was in fact a former nunnery, and each mother had her own spacious room, communal meals, and child care services while she continued to go to school during the day.

The church organized a joint baby shower for this mother and child and for two other babies in the congregation: one born to an older teenager who was single and had a supportive family, and one adopted by a married couple who were middle-aged professionals and did not have children. Members of the church showered each of these families with love as well as presents, and the parents were given a scrapbook filled with words of wisdom.

I was in charge of a party game for this baby shower. We sat in a circle and each person was given—secretly—the name of a familiar Bible character. Then we all got up to mingle and introduce ourselves—without saying our character’s name—by telling our stories, that is, our Biblical stories, in order to find our next of kin. Abraham and Sarah, both nonagenarians, found their son Isaac. Jacob found the sisters Leah and Rachel who became his wives. The daughter of Pharaoh found Moses. Naomi found her daughters-in-law Ruth and Orpah. Mary, young and unmarried, found Jesus, and Jesus also found his adoptive father Joseph. The prodigal father found both his prodigal son and his unwelcoming elder son.

And we found that none of these Biblical families was any more “traditional” than the families we honored that day.

When a difference makes a difference

When a difference makes a difference

When we are born, we come with some fear that enables us to survive. The “fear of other” is what makes an infant cling to its primary carer, focus on and mimic the carer’s facial expressions, listen for and respond to the carer’s voice, and start out as a picky eater rather than experiment with foods that could prove sickening or deadly. This xenophobia drives our early childhood development regardless of the speed or direction it takes with each of us.

Basically we humans are stubborn creatures who resist change. And it’s not just us humans who act like mules; according to prehistoric records, fossils appear unchanging for long periods of time until—they woke up one morning and decided to turn over a new leaf and joined a support group and began taking positive steps toward becoming the fittest survivor? Hardly. As Stephen Jay Gould described in The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002), fossil records suddenly change at the point at which a species splits into two species. It’s not that change only happens when species split, but rather it’s only when species split that the change changes things.

As my 10th grade algebra teacher, Miss Bobbie Jean Hunt, used to say, “It’s only when a difference makes a difference that there’s really any difference.”

Sexual orientation is a difference that currently makes a difference.

We humans haven’t always differentiated ourselves by the gender of the company we keep. I suspect our ancient ancestors divided the world into “us” and “them” based on their needs for subsistence: “We” who live by the shore with access to fish are different from “They” who live on the plain with access to game or “Those up there” in the hills with access to nuts and berries. And “We” choose to flee from, or fight, or trade with “They” or “Those up there” depending on our group—waking up one morning and deciding to turn over a new leaf and joining a support group and taking positive steps toward becoming the dominant power?

Unfortunately we’re all as stubborn as fossils, according to human records including the Biblical record. Since the dawn of creation, we’ve individually and collectively had a difficult time growing up and out of our early childhood xenophobia. Evolving beyond our infancy survival needs.

Yet at some point—and that point is unique to every single one of us—we let go of our primary carer. Whether the carer likes it or not. We split and become our own person. And there’s no going back to the way things were. We find ourselves attracted to another’s face, we’re turned on by their voice, we dare to be curious and risk experimenting—risk experiencing joy—with this “significant other.”

It’s not the only time we change. At various points we do wake up and decide to turn over a new leaf and join a support group and take positive steps toward becoming—who we each were born to be, whatever our sexual orientation or the gender of the company we keep.

One by one we can choose to stop being afraid of “the other.” We can choose to stop worrying about individuals leaving or organizations splitting. And together we can choose to affirm one another’s differences—and change the differences that make a difference.