| "Cheers!" "Bottoms up!" "Here's a toast to you!" "Here's mud in your eye!" "It's a drinking toast expressing good spirits and humor," one informant correctly told me this past week, as I was going around asking people what the expression means, the expression I'd already chosen as the title for today's sermon. I was asking people because although I'd heard the expression many times, I really wasn't sure of its meaning. It takes a very special kind of chutzpah, don't you think, to announce for all to see on Broadway a sermon title that you've adopted before knowing what it means? Well, while I was asking people about "Here's mud in your eye," I was given an amazing array of other answers as well-from "Don't you say that when you want to insult somebody?" to "Doesn't it have something to do with political mudslinging?" to "I know I've heard something like that in cowboy movies!" to "Hmm, I don't believe I know that expression." Well, confronted by such a variety of answers and by my own lack of certainty, I finally did what I should have done in the first place. I went on line to Google and typed in "Here's mud in your eye." And then I sat there astonished as the search engine proceeded to line up first five pages of references, then ten, then fifteen, and by the time I logged off twenty, with no sign of stopping. Google quickly confirmed for me that "Here's mud in your eye" is a humorous drinking toast. But then, of course, I wanted to know, "But what's the origin of that toast? Why those particular words?" The first links that I came to claimed that its origin is unknown, but as I dug more deeply some sites began to offer suggestions, like: "It originated when farmers clinked glasses just before plow-time, wishing each other a good season" (that sounded plausible to me, a plow-horse kicking up mud on the farmer behind the plow), or "It was the way one man would say to another, while bending the elbow after the races, 'Ha, ha! My horse beat your horse'" (again a horse kicking up mud on what's following behind).But finally, on Morten's List of Toasts, displayed at http://home.worldonline.dk/~mortenl/cheers.html, I came to the explanation I'd been looking for all along, the reason I'd intuitively chosen this sermon title in the first place! For according to Morten's List, this toast may have arisen from the Bible story found in the 9th chapter of the Gospel of John, this morning's Second Lesson, where "mud in the eye" is a medium of healing and well-being, like that beverage that's about to go down! So journey with me, please, back to first-century Palestine and to the roots of this toast. Day in and day out, as he sat there by the side of the road in Jerusalem, a man who'd been born without sight attuned all of his other senses to those passing by-for instance, the large, slow-moving group approaching him now on this rather quiet sabbath day. The man could tell that the group was large-by the quantity of dust blown into his nostrils-and he could tell that it was slow-moving-by the sounds rising from their scuffing sandals. He could also tell from the pattern of conversation that it must be a rabbi and his entourage of followers. As the group came alongside, the man realized their topic was shifting to him. They'd noticed him, and one of the band was asking his teacher that dreaded question, the one the blind man had heard far too many times before, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents; who sinned that he was born without sight?" "Don't ask that," the man wanted to shout out in rising rage, as he remembered how often his parents had had to reassure him that his lack of sight had nothing to do with punishment for sin and as he recalled how often his father had had to convince him of that by telling and retelling that wonderful old story about Job. So, to avoid being hurt once again, the man started to shut down his faculty of hearing and to turn inward, where he could once more listen to the words his hero Job had addressed his accusers, those defiant words that offered him such consolation: "I am innocent!" (cf. Job 9:15, 20; 34:5) Yes, as I said, the man had started to tune out the rabbi but fortunately hadn't quite succeeded in doing that when, to his astonishment, he heard this teacher reply: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned." (John 9:3a) "Yes," the man exclaimed inwardly! But so pleased was he by what he'd just heard that he missed whatever words the rabbi said next. You see, he'd done what he often did when he was happy. He'd instinctively gone inside himself, moving to that realm of light and beauty within, where the true and living God would often meet him to offer hope and consolation amidst his despair. Soon, however, the man was startled out of his reverie, jolted by quite a crude noise, the wholly unanticipated sound of the rabbi's hawking, then spitting. What, in God's name, was going on? Then he heard a scrabbling sound in the dusty ground nearby, and only a few seconds later he found himself flinching violently as, seemingly out of nowhere, a thumb-yes that's what it was, a thumb-pressed hard against his unblinking eyeball, the left one, coating it with something that felt moist and pasty and smelled of earth. Instinctively, the man grabbed for the arm attached to that thumb, to try to shove it away. But too late. He flinched again as another thumb pressed hard against his right eyeball, coating it too. Jerking his hands up, the man at last succeeded in shoving both those arms away, arms that now offered no resistance. Then the man's hands went quickly to his eyes, to feel what was there. "It's mud," the man exclaimed. "You've put mud in my eyes!" And a soft baritone voice replied firmly, but kindly,"Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." "Ah! Is that it?" The man now thought he understood. "This rabbi's a healer, for I've heard that healers use mud in this way, as a poultice. But this healer's command to go wash in the pool of Siloam-that's easier said than done. It's simple enough for this rabbi to send me there. But does he know how hard it will be for me to get there? I mean, he's offering me wholeness and well-being, but I can't get there on my own. I have to have help.…" But before despair could settle in anew, a plan was born out of his hope. Excitedly, the man rose and ran with inner eye, covering quickly the few yards' distance to the familiar-smelling stall of his friend, the fruit peddler. "That rabbi over there," the man stammered. "Who is he?" The peddler looked over and then replied, "I think he's the one so many are talking about. I think his name is Jesus. Why?" "He's a healer! You see this mud? He's put it in my eyes, and he's told me to go to the pool of Siloam so that I can be made whole. Please, friend, won't you lead me there, so that I may come to the light and then become his follower?" And immediately they went, and he washed, and he came back able to see and ready to become Jesus's disciple. This scene from the 9th chapter of the Gospel of John, the account of the man born without sight whom Jesus called to the light-this scene appears an amazing seven times among the very, very few 2nd-century Christian frescoes that have survived into modern times in the catacombs of Rome. This scene obviously was one of their favorites! You see, they used it to illustrate Christ's call to leave behind the darkness of the world around us and to receive the light of new life in Christ-to do that by being baptized and becoming a follower of Christ, to do that by being washed, figuratively, in Siloam and becoming part of the Christian community. In today's First Lesson, the author challenged us by saying (Ephesians 5:8): "…once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light …" And the author concluded this passage (vs. 14) by quoting a fragment from a hymn sung during an early Christian baptismal liturgy: "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." For us the season of Lent is a time for abandoning the darkness of the world around us and for journeying toward the light of Christ, the light symbolized by the fire we rekindle on the Saturday night of Holy Week, as part of the rite of baptismal renewal celebrated during our annual Easter Vigil-Saturday, March 30th, 7 p.m. If you have not yet attended this service, please add it now to your schedule, for that's the service that offers us such a deeply meaningful spiritual bridge for moving from the melancholy of Lent to the joy of Easter. As we journey through Lent, abandoning the ways of the world around us and making our way toward the rekindled light of the Easter Vigil, God asks us to assess what condition of ours it is that's preventing us from dedicating our lives fully to Christ-again, what condition of ours it is that's preventing us from dedicating our lives fully to Christ-to the One who is the light of the world. And as we journey through Lent God asks us also to assess who it is that can help lead us safely to our pool of Siloam, to the figurative waters of baptism and of baptismal renewal. So this week, I invite you first to spend time reflecting, without condemning yourself, reflecting on what it is that's holding you back from leading a life filled with the light of Christ. No condemning; just reflecting on what's holding you back. Is it your inability to get along with those at work? Is it your wrestling with an addiction? Is it your festering anger over a lifetime of hurts and abuses? Is it your disintegrating relationship with one you have loved? Is it a roadblock placed in the way of your call from Christ by a homophobic church? What is preventing you from leading a life filled with the light of Christ? Second, I invite you to acknowledge that Christ has already come to you-somehow, sometime, someway, somewhere, come to you-extending to "your eyes" the gift of a "healing mud." Acknowledge Christ's offer of wholeness and well-being and his command now to go wash in Siloam. And finally, I invite you this week, after you have identified your spiritual need, after you have acknowledged your experience of Christ's touch and your receipt of Christ's command to go wash in Siloam-I invite you this week to find that person or those persons who can help guide you through Lent to the joy of Easter. Perhaps it is your spouse or partner or parent or child. Perhaps it is someone on our pastoral staff. Perhaps it is a neighbor or colleague or close friend. Perhaps it is someone in this community of faith. Find that person, and ask them to accompany you on your journey through the melancholy of Lent to the joy and light of Easter. To all who are in need of renewing our sense of well-being-which is to say, to all of us-Jesus is calling out, "Here's mud in your eye." Jesus is offering us the promise of wholeness and urging us to set out on our Lenten journey to Siloam, our journey to the Easter Vigil, where once again we can wash, and be made whole, and be renewed as "children of light." Amen |
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