23.10 | Mud Pies & Talmud Shabbat

John 9

‘Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.’

John 9:14

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It began with mud pies. 

It was a few months ago, and we had a few friends around for dinner. While the adults were talking, our seven-year-old, Eeva, and her friend Thando, decided to start playing in the mud kitchen at the bottom of our garden. And so they started to shovel earth into pots, and pour in water.

It was then that things started to get out of hand. 

My guess is that they went from mud pies to war paint — streaks of mud across their cheeks and foreheads. From here, maybe it was only natural that they’d start pasting their arms and legs with mud. And once the skin was well-coated, what next apart from the clothes?

By the time we realised what they were up to, they were coated in mud. Head to toe. 

And they were absolutely delighted with themselves.

Big picture, today’s reading is a beautiful story. A blind man gets healed. Blind from birth, he experienced the sight of colour and pattern and faces for the first time. 

And yet, in this story, it’s easy to get lost in the details that seem strange.

Such as, why did Jesus spit?

What’s with the mud? 

And why were the Pharisees so upset?

We’re helped with a little ancient research. 

The Jewish religious law was built on the Torah — the first five books of our Old Testament. These gave foundational ideals of holiness in the ways of God. 

However, as the centuries progressed, much was left unclear. The rabbis’ role was to interpret the Torah for the people, helping them to understand, far more exactly, what was or was not allowed in the Torah’s teaching. At the time of Jesus, most of this rabbinic teaching was passed from rabbi to disciple by word of mouth — with interpretations memorised and discussed and repeated. In the few hundred years following the time of Jesus, these teachings were compiled into writings, known as the Talmud.

Stick with me here, this is going somewhere.

Among these writings is an extensive discussion around what was, and what was not, permitted on the Sabbath (Talmud Shabbat). The level of detail is incredible. Directions on female cosmetics and toddler excrement, on pickling radishes and baking bread. 

And, among these details, healing. Healing, it was said, was prohibited on the sabbath.

More specifically, the use of saliva (understood to be a healing agent) was prohibited.¹

Further still, the disturbing of the soil was considered to be akin to plowing, which was considered work (mud pies would have been strictly forbidden).

All in all, spitting on the ground, making mud, and then using the saliva/mud mixture to heal a man, was a direct affront to rabbinic interpretations.

Which begs the question:

Why?

Why did Jesus do this? Why did He choose to heal in a way that directly contravened the code of the rabbis?

He tells us at the end.

For judgement I came into this world.

Judgement, my friends, is not what we think. We think of it as criticism. It isn’t. Judgement has far more to do with exposure of what something is. Judgement reveals. Judgement exposes the core values and motivations and nature of a person in the essential matters of the soul.

As Jesus heals this man, He presented the people with a direct choice:

The fiddly legalism of rabbinic interpretations;

Or the wondering inbreaking of life found in the healing of this man born blind.

Rules, or life?

Effort, or power?

The exhausting work of legalism, or the surrendered receipt of grace. 

As our girls were carried through the house to the shower — muddy, giggling, and having broken all normal rules of garden and dinner party behaviour — I couldn’t help but be a little bit proud of them. For in the muddiness and rule-breaking, their eyes had lifted higher, and they showed us how the heart of God soars vastly higher than our cautious and controlling hearts would dare believe. For the path of our rabbi surpasses our rulebooks and precautions, inviting us ever upwards into the colourful seeing of joy, that happens in the matters of beautiful, muddy, life.

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Reflect:

Are there places I’ve become too concerned with rule-keeping rather than the matters of truly living? Is it possible that the heart and Way of Jesus invites me into a freer, lighter, and more beautiful way today?

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Pray:

Lord Jesus,

You mess with me.

Because, just when I think I’m getting a handle on the rules,

You go and shatter my paradigms.

Just when I thought I was getting in control of this faith thing,

You go and show me a world that is so much greater—

A world beyond my control and effort;

Beyond my easily-offended sensibilities,

And rigorous rules.;

A world of mud pies and blind men seeing—

Of sabbath rules that mean nothing if not the 

Fullness of life,

And a measure of holiness that is not found in the clinical and controlled,

But the expansion of humanity

Into all things that are most beautifully good.

Lord Jesus,

Mess with me.

Rub mud into my eyes,

So that I can see,

With the wondering sight of one who has tasted

Freedom,

And dances upon the soaring winds

Of the Father’s endless love.

In Your Name,

My Lord,

Amen

Old Testament: 

For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:

Nehemiah 6:15-8:12 | Psalm 119:113-128

1. Talmud Shabbat 108b