Seeds

You never know what seeds you’ve planted in other’s lives.

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This past Sunday we heard the Gospel passage of Jesus healing the man born blind from John (9:1-12).  While it could just seem like any other healing story, it holds so much more nuance within it.  What I really want to focus our attention on is two points: 1. just how little Jesus is in the full story; and 2. the healed man’s answer when asked where Jesus is!  Both of these emphasize that we don’t fully know just what impact we’re having on the lives of others; or as I stated above, ‘what seeds you’ve planted in other’s lives.’

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The full story of this healing is all of chapter 9 from John’s Gospel account (all 41verses).  In all of the story Jesus is only present for the healing (v 1-7a) and then in responding to the treatment of the man who was healed (v 35-41).  So, of the whole chapter, Jesus is only present ‘on stage’ for 13.5 verses. The rest of the chapter is just trying to figure out what happened.  Perhaps Jesus, healed this man and went about on his way?  And only hearing what happened later did he then reply?  In either of these cases, Jesus plants within the man the seeds and tills the ground both upon his eyes and within his life as he is given a new budding life with his ability to see!  Jesus could have simply gone on having done the healing without fully knowing what happened to the man; and still had the same impact upon him.

Next, our reading this past Sunday concluded with verse 12:
           “They (being the man’s neighbors and friends) said to him, ‘Where is he (Jesus)?’  (and) He (the man formerly blind) said to them, ‘I don’t know.’”
 

The man was not necessarily out to be healed that day.  He had already been living with his nature ‘from birth’ (v 1).  And within Jewish tradition there were laws within the Torah to protect, support, and care for those who were lacking in senses, economic, or societal resources.  The book of Ruth is a great example of the latter two.  To the first, are God’s own recognition before Moses from within the burning bush that, ‘makes them (people) mute or deaf, seeing or blind?  Is it not I, the LORD?’ (Ex 4:11b) Additionally, within Leviticus 19 the priestly (and those hoping to live closer to God) are told to ‘not revile the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the bind’ (v 14); and reiterated in Deuteronomy 27:18, ‘cursed be anyone who misleads a blind person on the road.’  The community clearly knows that he is blind and thus cares for him purposefully.
 

With his healing, the man has a new chapter in his life planted and sprouted.  Jesus has planted within him a new life where he no longer was reliant upon others as he had been.  Rather, his life now becomes one of evangelism and telling of what happened.  And since Jesus is not there to corroborate his account, the only answer he can give is what the gardener had done: plant within him.

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As I have had the privilege to serve you all, I see the growing of many seeds that God has planted: hope, confidence, thanksgiving, grace, perseverance, love, embrace, and so much more.  What I probe you to consider is this deep question: when you acted in hope, in confidence, in thanksgiving, in grace, in perseverance, in love, in embrace/welcome, and so much more; were you to planning on planting those seeds?  Or, were you planting in faith that the witness of God’s work in you might bring something (whatever it might become) to life?  We don’t always know what new life God will bring about.  The man who was blind but is no longer; experience that new life for himself and within the community.  The middle section we didn’t hear is just that, the man being questioned on what happened and where the man is who did it.  To which he, and we, can only say, “I do not know.”  So, may we keep planting and let God bring new life.