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.”