Scripture: John 5:2-9
The disabled man didn’t expect it. This strange rabbi Jesus, happening by the healing pool
on a Sabbath – what kind of rabbi would do that, anyhow? Passing by where he
practically lived – healing just out of reach – and asking him, “Do you want … to be made well?”
What an asinine question that must have seemed to
him! “What do you mean by that, sir: ‘Do you want to be made well?’ Why do you think I’ve been sitting here by
this pool for 38 years?!”
But
who says the disabled man even wanted
wellness? After 38 years of living the way he had lived. His
one particular frame of reference – dis-ability – he carried with him day in,
day out. For practically his entire life. For by first century standards, 38
years was a life span outlasting most of his contemporaries, sick … or healthy.
Thirty-eight years. All along, eking by. In ways he
had grown long accustomed.
Who says he even wanted to be healed? The “get well
now” card from Jesus every one of us wishes we would hear straightway
from our Lord.
Or
do we? Is that what we really want? “Do you want
… to be made well?” There are consequences to getting well,
you know. Changes in the way we do things.
For dis-abled as we are, it's easy to remain wrapped up in our victimhood. Because it’s comfortable there. Because it’s all we've ever
known. Because, understandably, we feel we wouldn’t – couldn’t – be
accepted otherwise.
Then again, perhaps the disabled gentleman truly desired to get well. Perhaps he wanted it. He just could not imagine
it. For it’s what he needed to do,
that had to be done in order to get what he wanted. Or so he thought. Or so we
can think.
And
so the disabled gentleman does not reply with, “Yes, I do. Yes, I do want to be made well.” That would
strain credulity. Instead, he replies with the safety of “How?”
·
Jesus:
“Do you want to be made well?”
·
The
Disabled: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred
up …”
The disabled man replies out of what he thinks he
needs – rather than what he desires … or has desired, at some point. He replies out of what he thinks he can and cannot
get from a perceived lack of means – rather than what he can now receive from a
new, abundant vision.
And who can blame him? Who can blame him …
Like
this disabled man, I think I know what I need.
As a disciple of Jesus, I need to follow God’s will. “God’s will”, which has sounded my entire life
like marching orders – an instruction manual. No pain … no gain. Suck it up,
and stick it out.
Until a spiritual director friend of mine pointed
out to me that God’s will can better be translated as God’s desire for us,
versus God’s need of us. God’s longing – which can be our longing. “Do you want to be made well?”
God’s desire for us. Our calling. Our calling, best
described by Frederick Buechner as the place where our deepest longing meets
the world’s deepest need.
Our deepest longing … our connectional desire … our
communal want … God’s vision for our lives.
… Which, as our Session has noted for us here, is to
feel fully connected – vibrant in church body. To be made well; to lead others
to healing – wholeness. Not primarily of any physical maladies.
As so it was it was Jesus. Note that biomedical
symptoms are rarely discussed in the gospels related to the healings; a first
century NIH there was not. What are discussed at great length are what one
writer calls ethnomedical symptoms: the alienation of the ailing member from
the social fabric – the common good. Hence: the word dis-ability.
Alienation from the social fabric to the point that
the wounded soul may not know how to say yes to being well, anymore. Other than
retreating to the zero-sum game of complaining about the how.
·
Jesus: “Do you want to be made well?”
·
The Disabled: “Sir, I have no one to put
me into the pool when the water is stirred up …”
For if he just had the right instruction booklet …
the right manual of operations … the right get-here-to-there connect-the-dots
to make his healing happen … well, he already knew it could not happen, because
he had done the calculations. He had surveyed the landscape; he had taken
stock. He didn’t have the resources, financial or human, to be healed!
How
easy it is for us to be in the present and conjecture about the future based on
resources from the past we know will never materialize again.
Stuck in our question “How?” – when God
is asking “Yes?” A different, deeper, more primary question than we would ever
want God to ask, because it means we have to
(A) let go of the past
(B) celebrate the present – we are as
well as we want to be, right here and right now, do we want it? all we have to
say is yes! – and
(C) take responsibility for the future.
For
the question we would want God to ask us is, “How can I make you well?” For
then we could stay in control, and present to God our shopping list. We
could say, “How can you make us well, Jesus? Well, we want you to make us more this,
and less that … more personal through our hospitality … more passionate through
our worship … and more progressive through our diversity and outreach.”
Personal, Passionate, Progressive: has a ring to it. A two-year ring, to be
exact. And as far as it goes, it has served us well.
And
yet, out of this pool of Bethesda experience – the Bethesda that named our
church – Jesus asks us a scarier, more primary question. A question whose outcome
depends wholly on our desire – and nothing more: “Do you want – do you desire –
to be made well?”
