“We, without God, cannot; God without us, will not.” So said
Saint Augustine of Hippo, Bishop and theologian, who died in 430 CE. One of my
favorite saints, actually, because he struggled to give up those things that
kept him from God and admitted he didn’t want to give them up quite as quickly
as God wanted.
“We, without
God, cannot; God without us, will not,” is part of what’s going on in our
Gospel story of the man lying by the pool of Beth-zatha.
The first thing
Jesus asked the man lying by the pool was, “Do you want to be made well? What a
strange thing to ask someone. Everyone wants to be made well, don’t they? Well, don’t they?
Apparently not,
because what does the man say to Jesus in return? He whines. He’s full of excuses
about why he can’t be healed. And. What he’s really saying in this. “Thanks
Jesus, but no. I think I’ll just stay on my mat here by the pool. It’s pretty
comfortable and I’ve been here for 38 years already. I know all the other folks
at the pool and I’m probably not going to get better anyway and I’m used to
being here so I’ll just stay the way I am, Jesus. Thanks for the offer but it’s
really okay for me to lie here and keep hoping for healing. See, Jesus, what I
really want is to stay the way I am but feel better about it.”
Whenever I hear
this story I’m surprised all over again. Maybe it’s because I’m not a very
patient person myself, but I’m always surprised that Jesus doesn’t just walk
away. Here Jesus is, the savior of humankind, offering to heal someone who has
been ill for nearly forty years and all the guy can do is whine!
But instead,
Jesus practiced fierce compassion, or what we might call though love. The face
Jesus showed to the man by the pool was the face of fierce compassion. Jesus
says to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” And our friend by the pool
does just that.
But it’s not
over. Anyone who has been lying there for that long has a lot of changing to
do. Lying by the pool is passive. Being there is easy and being upright…not so
much. Being upright involves going places and doing things. It involves being
with others who are upright and bending down to talk to those who still need
healing. It’s tough and messy and most of the time not even rewarding. It’s a
real temptation to take that mat and put it back on the ground and stay there.
It’s too bad the
story doesn’t have a happy ending. The part we don’t hear is what happens once
this guy picks up his mat and walks. He doesn’t even know it was Jesus that
healed him. And apparently doesn’t think much about it until he’s confronted by
the authorities. They want an explanation. But our friend with the mat doesn’t
know who Jesus is. I’m sure once he told the authorities he didn’t know who
healed him he could go off and not be bothered.
Jesus finds him
in the temple though. I suspect Jesus seeks him out because he knows the
temptation of falling back on the mat and lying down, and he knows how hard it
is to let old habits die and learn new ways. So he seeks out our friend and
reminds him of his healing, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse happens to you.” The sin wasn’t his illness; the sin was
being willing to remain the way he was.
You would think
that would do it, wouldn’t you? Only it doesn’t. Because just as soon as Jesus
reminds him he’s been healed and tells him not to sin any more, he rats out
Jesus to the authorities. Now there’s gratitude for you!
This is a very
human story. How many of us, when offered healing, whine about how we have to cooperate
with our own healing? How many of us resist doing the things we know we need to
do to be healed? And how many of us find someone else to blame for what’s
happening? It’s my genetics. I’m too busy to do that. I’m too tired. My
neighbors are too noisy, or too dirty, or too poor, or too different. I need
more money before I can. I need more time before I can. I need more people to
join me.
Somehow I think
Jesus would get fiercely compassionate with us the same way he got fierce with
the guy by the pool. First he’d ask us: Do you really want to be healed? And
then, even if we whined, he’d tell us, “Pick up your mat and walk.” It’s important
to note: Jesus doesn’t waste time deciding if we’re worthy of healing. He
doesn’t waste time with conditions or costs or numbers. He doesn’t ask any more
questions, he simply heals.
But it’s not
over yet. Jesus is going to seek us out to see if we are discarding our old way
of behaving and learning new ways of behaving. And he’s going to show us his
fierce compassion again. He’s going to remind us, “See, you’ve been made well!
Go and keep doing what’s good.”
Because for our deepest healing to
occur, it has to be both God and us. God with us, because even with God’s
grace, “We, without God, cannot; God without us, will not.” AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette
Papanek
©2016
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