Day 18: God in Dirty Places: Dirt, Spit and Restoration

Reflecting Verse: “When he said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes.” John 9:6

I grew up in a small town named Tamenglong in the state of Manipur, a close-knit tribal community, where everybody knows who is there and what everybody does. Almost all social engagements revolved around the land and its produce. Particularly, young people find leisure hours for swimming in a pond alongside buffaloes and ducks or picking snails and fishes in the river. However, young people today find it filthy and grimy. In the process of growing up with bliss and bruises, I found humility and restoration that evolve around dirt and creation.

When we look into the Genesis creation narrative, we see humankind (Adam, meaning “Earth”) is the only creation that was created by dirt and thus remain in toil with dirt until return into dirt. This circle at the same time shows the humility of God’s creation and the very breath within it.

It was at the reeking dirty fishing dock where young Jesus found his first disciples – a low class stinky foul-smell fishermen and the man involved in a corrupted tax collecting profession. It was in these “dirty” places where God found the saints. The sanctified Godself Jesus, walked among these dirty places engaging with the dirty-outcast people throughout his ministry.

The physical embodiment of God walked in the country among the people with sickness and outcast suffering with leprosy, blindness, disability, woman menstruating constantly for twelve years (which means twelve years of being considered impure, filthy and outcast by the society!). These are the least opted choices by the people to be with where there are no public dressed-ups, no OOTD (outfit of the day) hashtags, and no #Trashtag challenges. It is the place where hygiene and sanitization were unheard of. It is a place where people are socially distanced and untouched. It is the place where young people saw no future, saw no encouragement, no passion and no life. Yet, it is in this place, upon this people the Church was born and built (Matthew 16:18). In the passage, Jesus could have just healed the man by just telling him to open his eyes or by just touching the man’s eyes with his hand. Rather than a quick fix, Jesus took time to make a mud out of dirt and saliva, apply it in the man’s eyes and sent him to wash his face in the pool of Shiloam, literally meaning “sent”, which is on the other side of the city.

The dirt that Jesus, the “Son of Man” (here ‘Adam’- earth/dirt), used to heal the man reminds us the humility nature of God’s manifestation in that dirt and rejected dwelling. It further reminds us to bring ourselves in humility and restoration of life and fullness.

This lockdown and physical distancing (“social distancing” has a negative connotation and I would encourage others as well to not use the term “social distancing”) has let down many people. The young people are suffering from depression, loss of jobs, anxiety, fear of missing out (FOMO) and losing out their youthful lives and physical social engagements. In this time of physical distancing and shabbiness, bedraggled hair and unbrushed teeth, may we find God with humility and healing, restoring our lives as we seek in our bathroom and dirt-filled rooms.

Prayer:

O God, open our eyes and hearts as we toil amidst the dirt and filth searching for restoration of our lives. Help us, particularly the young people who are undergoing depression, loss of jobs, fear and anxiety that we all may find solace in you. Amen.

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Author: Jianthaolung Gonmei

About the Author: Jianthaolung comes from a small town Tamenglong in Manipur. He completed Bachelor of Divinity at The United Theological College, Bangalore and is currently working as Executive Secretary – Youth Concerns in National Council of Churches in India, Nagpur