NEW YORK — The preacher gathers a pool of saliva to the back of her throat and sends a wet suction sound booming through the speakers — hwauuuuk, pftooh. “If you’re in New York, this sound should be familiar,” she says. Thankfully, Yen-Yen Chiu is not actually spitting on the Evangelical congregation gathered in Hope Church at 163 W. 97th St.

Instead, she’s guiding worshippers through John 9:1-38, a Bible passage that’s inspired works of art from John Newton’s “Amazing Grace” to paintings by El Greco and Rembrandt — the story of Jesus healing a man who was born blind.

The miracle is a messy one. Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud, rubs it on the blind man’s eyes, and tells him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. His sight miraculously comes back, but the Pharisees — a devout Jewish religious group — are not so sure. They question the blind man, refusing to believe that Jesus is from God, and expel him from the synagogue.

Standing at the front of the chilly school hall, Chiu takes her listeners on a guided meditation. “Do me a favor. I want you to close your eyes and I want you to imagine you’re the blind man.” People began to sink into the experience. A young man with a surgical mask squeezes his eyes tight. A woman with a fur hat rests her eyelids so they flutter like leaves in the breeze. All the worshippers see is black, but in the darkness, ambient noises seem to come alive.

Chiu crafts her biblical soundscape, trading the Upper West Side for Jesus’ Jerusalem. “You hear people walking” — she stomps her black boots on the lacquer floor, sending thuds echoing around the hall. “There’s kids that are screaming. You hear animals. And then you hear somebody ask, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?’” 

At the core of Chiu’s exercise is empathy. She urges the room of 50 believers to imagine how the blind man feels when he hears this. “Maybe you’re interested. … Maybe you’re like me and you’re angry, like, hey I’m blind, but I’m not deaf.” Most of the members chuckle, eyes still shut, faces creasing to reveal grins across flushed cheeks.

“All of a sudden you hear, hwauuuuk, pftooh. And a few seconds later, you feel this goopiness squashed on your eyes.” So powerful is Chiu’s sonic meditation that the sea of shut-eyed faces wrinkle in disgust, as if saliva is being smeared across them. A woman in a pink poncho grasps for her partner’s hands. To her left, a man with a nametag spelling “Moses” squirms in his seat, sliding his feet in front of him.

Chiu pauses, swaying in her blue jeans, then breaks the silence, “You hear a different voice telling you, ‘Go and wash this off here.’” She queues the churchgoers to open their eyes. One by one, they come back to the room, blinking in the fluorescent lights.

Chiu’s black bob bounces as she distills her message, arms rotating in huge circles, “Jesus engages with us. He chooses to get messy.” A wave of murmurs agrees. Yes, He does.