THE FIRST READING: ANOINTING
The first reading for Sunday, April 3 (First Samuel 16:1-13) is the story of the choice of David to be King and his anointing by Samuel.
Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.
In the Old Testament, anointing was an important action. Kings, priests and prophets were anointed – holy oil was poured on their heads – as a sign that they were chosen by God for the task given to them.
Anointing with oil remained a sacred part of the coronation of French monarchs, and still is part of the coronation of British monarchs in Westminster Abbey.
In the Hebrew Bible all Israel looked for the coming of “the Anointed One” – in Greek the “Christ” and in Hebrew the “Messiah” – who would save the people.
It is interesting that the Lectionary gives this first reading along with today’s Gospel. Jesus makes mud, as you will see, to put on the eyes of the blind beggar – and then sends him to wash, where he is healed. So the Anointed One anoints someone and brings healing and sight and light.
TODAY’S GOSPEL STORY: THE ENCOUNTER OF JESUS AND THE BEGGAR BORN BLIND ( John 9:1-41)
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.
Jesus was walking along an ordinary road when he saw a beggar by the roadside, described as a man blind from birth.
Jesus saw a beggar. The story teller is setting the scene, but we should not pass by these words too quickly. It would be easy – it is easy -- not to see a blind beggar – pass by people in trouble without seeing them. Jesus saw people, noticed them, saw they were there as human beings, as people of infinite value. The story begins with Jesus noticing this man, seeing him. The disciples react and have a question – but the story begins, the action begins with Jesus noticing someone – someone on the outside, in need. .
The disciples see Jesus notice this beggar and ask a question. Always good to ask the questions we authentically have.
Although this question – oh yes, authentic for us humans, we humans ask this sort of question, very human indeed -- this question was (and is) a cruel one.
His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned;”
An interesting and important answer. The blindness was not a punishment.
“he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him.”
Actually why we are all born. Every human being is created by God – every one has been created to be loved by God “so that God’s works might be revealed in him” or her.
“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”
And then Jesus says one of the seven “I am” statements in John’s Gospel, a self-portrait in words.
Four of the seven “I am” statements are found in our Gospel stories for this Sunday and next Sunday plus chapter ten, which is found between the two in John’s Gospel. Four of the seven are within these three chapters: an important grouping.
“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes,
Why did Jesus do this? Jesus was the great master of the imaginative gesture to make a point, to be remembered. At the Last Supper he would take the bread and wine and give it to his friends in a gesture that still is repeated and at the heart of the worship of his church. So that if we talk about the basic, the Supper of bread and wine is on the list. Jesus and the person he encounters, and the Supper (the Eucharist) as the place of encounter.
My own personal thought is that Jesus did this action of making mud so that the blind man might feel even more clearly he was being touched. That is a Ray Webster theory, with my own shingle hung on it. Someone blind, whose sense of being touched would be heightened – someone who was a beggar who had I am sure been treated roughly – would be alert to being touched, and here was something to highlight that.
Putting the story of the anointing of David together with this, strikes me that here the Anointed One is, in a very earthy way, anointing someone, and sending them to wash, where healing will take place – as we are washed in baptism, and anointed ourselves with the Holy Spirit given to us: and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.
saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
In John Newton’s hymn:
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see. (Hymn 671)
There follows a long account of the reaction of the neighbors:
The reaction of the neighbors
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, `Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner." He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.
The poor guy. At the beginning of the story he was outcast – blind from birth and put out to beg. He meets Jesus and is healed and the neighbors do not say hurrah – quite the opposite. And by the end of his encounter with them, they have driven him out and he is an outcast again!
When Jesus found him
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him.
Jesus went looking for the man and found him. William Temple writes:
The man who is driven out by the Pharisaic Court is not left to wander as an outcast. Jesus found him. The man did not find Jesus; Jesus found him. That is the deepest truth of Christian faith; Jesus found me. Our fellowship with Him is rooted in His compassion.
For it is into His fellowship that He welcomes the blind beggar; and to do this, He offers Himself explicitly for the first time as an object of faith. Westcott …
(Note: Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), was Bishop of Durham, England, and great scholar of John’s Gospel.)
… sees here “the beginning of the new Society.” That presses the point too far. But it is true that here for the first time the Lord offers Himself as an object of faith, and does this as a way of receiving into His fellowship one who is alienated from another.
William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel, London: Macmillan, 1945, page 160
Jesus’ “new Society” breaks down human dividing lines – for anyone cut off as a woman, a Samaritan, a blind beggar. For anyone.
An Anglican story: Apartheid and the Archbishop
Geoffrey Hare Clayton (1884-1957) was Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Alan Paton wrote his biography Apartheid and the archbishop: the life and times of Geoffrey Clayton, Archbishop of Cape Town (New York: Scribner, 1974)
In 1957 the South African government passed a law requiring churches to segregate the races in public worship. Archbishop Clayton was a conservative Englishman – but he could not accept separating people by race at the altar rail. He wrote to the Prime Minister on behalf of the Anglican Bishops of the Province, saying:
“We should ourselves be unable to obey this Law or to counsel our clergy and people to do so. We therefore appeal to you, Sir, not to put us in a position in which we have to choose between obeying our conscience and obeying the law of the land."
He signed it and died the next day.
Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, `We see,' your sin remains."
What comes next
At the risk of adding something to a Gospel reading which is already unusually long, may I note that in John’s Gospel, the next words which follow immediately are chapter ten. Directly after this story, Jesus gives the next two “I am” statements: he says he is the gate of the sheep, the way in for the sheep – the way in for someone just like this healed beggar, someone just like you and me. And then he says: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
“I am the gate for the sheep – I am the good shepherd”
John 10:1-11 Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
(Raymond Webster)
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The Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.
