My Spit Is Your Spit

It was one of the unexpected telephone calls that completely changes the kind of day you are having. A person who was once a member of the congregation where I serve and, after moving to a nearby town, had transferred her membership, was calling to share a very special conversation with me. It was a conversation with God.

As the story was told to me: It has been a long time since she has heard the voice of God speaking in her ears and, pray as she might and be open as should could, still the dry valley of silence was long and hard. The Sunday before she had been in church with her granddaughter and, as often happens in church services, a variety of things were being passed out to various people, including hard candies to the ladies of the congregation. Well, her little granddaughter wanted one but was too young to be sucking on a whole hard candy, so grandmother began biting the hard candy into very small pieces, taking the small pieces out of her mouth with her fingers and placing them into her granddaughter's mouth. As she said, "If anybody who didn't know us would have seen us, they would have thought, 'What in God's name is that woman doing putting that spitty candy into that child's mouth?!' But, "Pastor Don," she said, "I am her grandmother and if there is anybody in the world I would swap spit with, it would be my granddaughter, after all, my spit is her spit and her spit is my spit."

It happened the next day when she was reflecting on what had happened in church with her granddaughter, that God spoke to her and her life filled with joy and understanding. As clearly as my voice sounds in your ears or your voice sounds in mine, God's voice filled this grandmother's ears with the words, "My spit is your spit." and all the barrenness, hardness and silence of the time before melted away. God reminded this daughter of God's that, "My spit is your spit." and who better to understand the power of those very words than a grandmother who mouth had broken a hard candy into bits for the child she so loved.

"As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.""When Jesus had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent)." (John 9.5-6)

It is a powerful truth that lays bare the presumptuousness of our cultured society: "My spit is your spit." The One who breathed into lifeless dust and brought forth humanity, the One whose creative Spirit births new life into the death of humanity, the One who spits on the ground and gives sight to the blind man, it is this One whose spit is our spit.

It was an incredible telephone call to receive and one that transformed my day and the Lenten journey I am walking. As my friend said, "There really is no more the story than that. I just wanted you to know I heard God's voice in those words. I just wanted to share that good news with you." And so, I pass this grandmother's story on to all of you. God's spit is your spit. For those not bound up in the properness of it all, these words are the makings of a deeply held identity in those who would be God's people. "God's spit is my spit" just about says it all in coming to understand the Christ of God whose love is poured out on the cross for us all. It is certainly a notion that will walk with me the rest of the way to Jerusalem.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don