Friday, December 2, 2011

Matthew 9:27-31

I suddenly had the thought that I should go back and count up how many times I've started this blog with something along the lines of "I don't really know what to do with this one." Perhaps I should go back to last year's format, since I tend to do better in the small details, and it was so nice to be able to build on what I had said the day before - a weeklong thinking project on one story.

But this is one I don't know what to do with. I remember once at a Bible study in college, I had a kind of CSI New Testament moment. Actually, I frequently had moments during that Bible study that just baffled my all-Protestant fellows. Another memorable one was my insistence that the feeding of the 5,000 was people sharing their food and that the feeding of the 4,000 was a pure miracle and that's why we have both stories.

But this was the bit where Jesus put mud on a blind man's eyes and then he said that he saw people walking around (despite the fact that Jesus pointedly took him away from the crowd that had thrust him forward) like they were trees. Then Jesus gave him another coat of mud and told him not to go back to that town.

So I said that I thought that the man was faking it in order for the town to trap Jesus, so he first took the man's sight (partially) away and then restored it again. And then He told the man not to go back to that clearly messed up situation. Now, the message of the day was supposed to be how sometimes healing, especially spiritual blindness, takes time to overcome - and it was perhaps the most awkward segue I've ever heard when the Bible Study leaders decided to just say the stuff they had planned every time I started presenting more evidence (how does he know what people and trees look like if he's blind?).

Another great interpretation might be that the blind man was seeing some kind of spiritual truth, some in-between vision after the first coat of mud.

But what prompted all of my theorizing about the fake blind victim was an uncomfortable lack of consistency in Jesus's instructions to people. He either told them go out and spread the news joyfully or "tell no one." And I suppose it must have been specific knowledge of the facts on the ground in each place He was - but I had such a desire to rationalize it I came up with this whole story.

So here, the detail that always sticks out is the bit about Jesus saying not to tell anyone. Especially because these guys do anyway.

And I wonder: is the pattern that Jesus wanted the joyous news to be spread, but as He became more established in an area, He took pains not to be come just another faith healer? That He wanted to be the Teacher, not the Healer - for people to come to Him to solve their spiritual blocks rather than their physical problems?

We know that people spent their lives camping out by a pool for a recurring miracle. We know that people tore up roofs and had friends carry them to prophets. Jesus was something different - and He was always way more concerned with our souls than our bodies.

So maybe that makes the most sense: we're not supposed to pray to God because we want something done about this world, even if it's for others the way those who help the invalids are doing. We're supposed to come to Him to learn how to better please God with our hearts and our actions. With our lives.

Not how to improve our lives - even if it's by being touched by God. We're supposed to come to Jesus for help being better people. For permission and strength and guidance to be the people He meant us to be. Not to have restored anything we have lost in this life. To have what He wants us to do with it revealed to us.