Riffin on John 9 (AKA where they got the good stuff from…let’s ask the Great One for some effective stewards next?)

9 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

I’m laugh-crying at the disciples response to blindness, even if parable…

Which is to say something pretty special about social progress/the impact of society in the time in-between, where it intersects the cultural sensitivity of compassionate individuals… these were the disciples of Jesus (!)… and still, before paper money and human rights had their come up, apparently this was there level of awareness regarding fringers… obviously somebody had to do something pretty wrong for that guy to be born blind…

Jesus, in so many words, answers back as if to say that this is the most ordinary situation He’s ever seen. Nobody has done wrong; whether born literally blind or figuratively blind in a spiritual sense of it, the purpose of activity in general, the spontaneous flow of circumstance…every determinism shaping every happening ever…is to allow “the works of God” to “be made manifest”…in all! We cultivate it within as we cultivate it without. A perfect spectrum flows from self-work to that which serves the community. It’s beyond conceptions regarding its efficacy/mechanics, yet remains mechanical. It’s potency is infallible. Eventually, it amounts to Love, victorious.

Christ always seems to be speaking from a place in which there is no semblance of meaningful restraint, while somehow remaining very grounded in his prescriptions regarding social duties. He simultaneously affirms our labors/normative lifestyle as a people as well as our spontaneous potencies, a meaningful ambivalence inflected off of the moral judgements of our consciences in live-time, leaving the door open to “civil disobedience” as a means of a necessary re-orientation socially-culturally, but also too heavily encouraging participation in the system as it is, as it was inherited from the best of people, and usually is a loving and capable one.

Flock mentality is paramount…

It’s admittedly a touch out of character for Him to speak of a coming “night” or some sort of meaningful “hopelessness” which must be deeply respected, even labored against, as he does in today’s message justtt as he is beginning His healing of the blind man. It simply isn’t true that “the night cometh when no man can work”.  This is a contradiction, it flies in the face of what Christ ultimately actually says directly to the blind man whom He is healing a moment later “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world”.  Christ is being a voice box to an oppositional sort of familiar, social sensibility, “I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day. The night cometh when no man can work.” The first half of that statement is true, but it also can be laughed at as tonally insane in a world that fully recognizes it… oh you must do that thing that actually is deeply meaningful and recreational to do? Almost every tv show is predicated on myths and narrative patterns that themselves convey the very same truths as our Bible…everything recreational is secretly spiritual. Everything we love to do as slacking off is secretly it…it’s just a question of what needs to be done…hopefully most of, if not entirely, our economic activities…I like jobs…

We don’t rabidly white-knockle rosaries in fear to the tune of excellency…we do it because it’s pretty practical as well as kind of really neat/rewarding and it’s just who we are and its a pleasure. We’re not working to offset this alluded to coming night Christ mentioned, and such a night can’t come because every activity is secretly spiritual; as long as He remains in the world, and He is the world… we are Him, by therefore the light of the world, ourselves…and self-discovery/living a good life becomes the vehicle of spiritual actualization.

One final note: he’s sent to a public bathhouse or pool of some sort, the blind man, after Christ’s blessing. This means…let the system work the miracle. Western/social medicine… and it’s after he bathes there amongst the people that the healing fully takes. Which is akin to getting a successful surgery, which is also too, a miracle.

Just like the constitution versus slavery. They drag their feet and to make the most of the tension, get rich personally in the time in-between…