Second Sunday in Lent (3)
1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” 7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” 8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
John 5:1-9
One of the things that is really
beautiful about scripture is that it is a living text. Each part can hold
layers of meaning and God continues to speak to us through it with each new
day. The story of the healing in our reading for today, for example, can be
read purely historically – an account of the historical event of Jesus healing
a man at the pool of Bethesda. It can also be read on a more personal level –
we might ask ourselves, in what ways do I need healing today? How might I
respond to Jesus’ question, “do you want to get well?”
At other times, God speaks through the scriptures in a different way: sometimes the Word of God reads us. As we read this familiar story, something might jump out at us or something might seem jarring or difficult to make sense of, encouraging us to pay more attention to the text and to ask ourselves sometimes difficult questions. We might think of this experience as one where God’s Spirit prompts us to deeper reflection on our own interpretation of the story and the assumptions that underlie our interpretation.
After Jesus has healed the man at the pool, he seeks him out at the temple and tells him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” What does this mean? Surely, we don’t want to imply that Jesus is drawing a connection between the man’s sin and the disability he was healed from. I am not comfortable with that interpretation. It does not line up with who I believe God to be and who I believe God says we are. So what is going on and what do I do with this difficult line?
Over the last 20-30 years or so there has been a wave of really interesting theological reflection from theologians who are disabled. One of the things that these thinkers have drawn our attention to is the sometimes overly simplistic - and at times problematic - ways that we have interpreted stories of healing in the scriptures. For example, there is a tendency to make the implicit assumption that the person’s sin is in some way connected to their physical disability. This is deeply problematic. We would never make that assumption in our day-to-day encounters with people of varying abilities, and we also know that God created each of us and that God loves each of us like a parent loves their own children.
What is interesting in this particular story of healing, however, is that - unlike some other accounts of healing in the gospels - there is no profession of faith before the man at the pool is healed. Jesus’ act of healing is completely gratuitous and seems disconnected from the man’s renunciation of sin or from his turn to Christ. In fact, the man appears to walk away without even knowing who it was that healed him. So, rather than this line drawing a connection between the man’s sin and his physical condition, Jesus tells him not to sin just as he might tell any of us the same. The man’s life isn’t made perfect through the healing of his body: he still has a spiritual reality to face which in many ways runs much deeper than just his physical reality.
Additionally, we tend to hold the implicit assumption, both socially and theologically, that all disabled people must desire to be “healed”. As a teenager, I learned British Sign Language with a brilliant deaf woman called Ricky. She introduced me to a whole community of deaf people in my hometown and she helped me to understand that not all deaf people desired to hear, for example. It is notable in our passage, I think, that Jesus actually asks the man at the pool whether he wants to get well. In addition to this, I find it fascinating that when the man at the pool responds, he does not give a straight forward answer. Instead, he explains the situation at the pool that makes it impossible for him to be healed: every time the waters are stirred, others are able to reach them before him. The man’s answer insists that we consider not just his physical situation, but also the social one that hinders him.
When we read the healing narratives, I think we often relate to the person being healed - what might I also need to be healed from? But what if, particularly at Lent, we were also to relate to the culture that hinders and harms in our reflection? - not just those at the pool who thought only of themselves when the waters were stirred, but also the whole society that did not give the man a way of being whole and valued just as he was.
This kind of reading and listening for God’s voice is not easy and does not always give us all the answers to our questions. I’m still not completely sure what to do with that challenging line that Jesus said to the healed man at the temple. But God did use it to encourage me to pay attention to parts of the text that I might have otherwise overlooked. And for that, I am thankful.
God, especially in this time of Lent, I ask you to show me how I participate in damaging theological interpretations and harmful social constructions. Give me ears to hear the voices of those who might help me see things in a new way, so that I might better love my neighbour as myself.
God, help me to listen to your voice as I read your Word. Give me courage to attend to the difficult parts of the text and allow you to speak to me through them. Amen.
- Dr. Gillian Breckenridge