John 9:1-41 Mud Cake Suprise

Chocolate Seeds for Lent 2005
Week 4, March 8: The Den, led by Dave Fagg

“…We would eat chocolate and smoke cigarettes and read the Bible, which is the only way to do it, if you ask me … the Bible is so good with chocolate. I always thought the Bible was more of a salad thing, you know, but it isn’t. It is a chocolate thing.”

Quote from “Blue like Jazz” a book by Donald Miller.

Biblical Text: John 9:1-41 Mud Cake Suprise (Blind Man)
World Texts: “Chocolat” The Movie (Chapter 11 Serge tries to woo back Josephine.)
Revised Common Lectionary: Year A, Third Sunday in Lent
Loosley based on Christ and the Choclaterie: A Lent Course, Hilary Brand, (Darton Longman Todd, London, 2002)_
World Text:“Chocolat” Chapter 11 Serge tries to woo back Josephine.)

“God has made me a new man……
Please Josephine we are still married in the eyes God.”

“Then he must be blind!”

Biblical Text:
A chiastic structure used as a basis for sharing personal stories that may connect with the text.
Verses 1-5 Asking why vs. doing Gods work: Sharing stories of our experience of the blame/intellectual wanker game
Verses 6-7 The invitation to be born again accepted: Sharing our stories of commitment and conversion
Verses 8-17 Witnessing to the truth round 1 : Sharing our stories of costly witness
Verses 18-23 The sins of the parents and the child: Our stories of conflict with family and friends over discipleship.
Verses 24-34 Witnessing to the truth round 2: Stories of costly witness
Verses 35-38 Finding Jesus on the outside:Sharing our stories
Verses 39-41 Are we blind? What does it mean to be excommunicated? Sharing our stories.
We used play doh as our “mud/clay” and people sculpted as we read and discussed the interaction of the text and our own experiences.
Good Question/Quote
The “miracle” thus consists of three elements: clay, living water/Spirit, and washing.
Blind people learn to see by allowing themselves to become new creations in Jesus, and by responding to the act of creation by joining the Johannine community, symbolized by the act of washing (as in the footwashing episode, 13:1-20).
Are we bound to the blindness of our ancestors and hence not responsible for our participation in sinful religious and political structures, or do we have the ability to break the cycle of blindness and learn to see?
Wes Howard Brook (via Sojourners Magazine)