Be Motherly

This blind man was brought to Jesus by others. . . . They asked Jesus to touch the man. Jesus did much more. First, he gently took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, away from all the curious onlookers, those wanting just the spectacle of a sign. . . . Then Jesus did what might seem very surprising to some. He spat on his hands and applied this "save" to the eyes of the man. It is such a motherly image. Can't you just see a poor mother, trying to tidy up her rag-a-muffin, using a bit of her spittle to wash some of the grim off his face and get his hair into some kind of order. Jesus was not afraid to be motherly, to speak of himself even as a mother hen who would gather her chicks beneath her wings. It is something for . . . all of us to hear. We do not want to fail in our ministry to one another to be intimate and to reach out and touch, to be motherly and unafraid of getting our hands dirty.

— M. Basil Pennington in Living in the Question