spit & mud

as he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. his disciples asked him, “rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said jesus, “but this happened so that the works of god might be displayed in him. as long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. night is coming, when no one can work. while i am in the world, i am the light of the world.”

having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “go,” he told him, “wash in the pool of siloam” (this word means “sent”). so the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

a few years ago, i led a bible study on this passage, and reflected on how it challenged me to consider how my orthopraxy matched up with my orthodoxy. when confronted with a blind man, the disciples asked a theological question about the sinful origin of the man’s blindness. but much to the surprise of the disciples, jesus explained the blindness wasn’t a punishment for some past sins – far from it. god made him blind so we could see god’s glory.  

at school, i often hear speculation about how some of our students end up in their predicaments. is it because the kid grew up surrounded by substance abuse? is it because there was no dad? or did the student just start hanging with the wrong crowd? certainly, these factors (and many others) can contribute to our student’s difficult life circumstances, but this scripture raises another possibility – is it so we can see god’s glory?

i’m not saying that it’s a good thing many of my students have already spent time in jail. it’s not. but neither was the blind-man’s disability good in and of itself; what’s good was how jesus reacted. we recognize the ‘works of god’ in the blind man when jesus got his hands on some spit and mud and healed him. 

i decided to teach because i wanted to rub some mud on a bad social situation. i thought i’d be good at it. it’s my answer to the question we discussed at that bible study gathering — what’re you gonna spit on? 

but what i’ve come to realize through my student teaching is that the process is even messier than it sounds. i am amazed how often i’ve felt like an absolute failure this past quarter. i have no miraculous tfa-esque story to tell — just stories about me staying up late, trying to come up with a good game plan for the next day, and trying to survive. hardly the stuff of hollywood. what i’ve been learning first-hand is that there aren’t quick-fixes, and nothing is easy. and even though in this story, the healing is fast and dramatic, god’s redemption of broken things more often than not is many generations in the making. but part of being a christian teacher is remembering that in the end, god will redeem all things. in time, we’ll recognize the ‘works of god’ in our educational system as we continue to persist with our hands in the dirt.