St John 5: 1 – 9 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Reflection
In Monty Python’s Life of Brian, among those begging is one man asking for alms for an ex-leper. When asked what happened he replies: I was hopping along, minding my own business. All of a sudden, up Jesus comes. Cures me. One minute I’m a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood’s gone. Not so much as a by your leave. ‘You’re cured mate.’ Blooming do-gooder.
Many years ago, whilst training in Clinical Theology, I was introduced to the work of Eric Berne and his book Games People Play (an early ‘pop psychology’ book) which illuminated some unhelpful patterns of communication and relationships that people can get stuck in. The response Jesus receives in the passage sounds well-worn, as though the man has often repeated his reasons for why he has been there, unchanged, for 38 years – one of a series of answers to why other people’s solutions to his problems won’t work for him. Being stuck can feel safe; at least it is familiar, however less than ideal. Whereas change is full of risks, unknowns, and discomfort.
In John’s account Jesus asks a telling question that goes to the heart of the matter: Do you want to be made well? Because Jesus does not compel, but rather invites us into healing, restoration and life in all its fullness. He has come so that we may have this – not to enforce it upon us. And this is not to trigger self-help efforts or guilt, but to find ourselves reborn in Christ, living with and for Christ, growing and changing through the work of the Spirit.
Of course God longs for us to respond to the gift of life through Christ – and we should long for that for those around us. But our engagement in the mission of God needs to be in sharing compelling invitation and not through compulsion – just like Jesus.
Prayer
Jesus – gently challenge us. Show us how to become unstuck, how to be open to change, willing to risk the new, with you. Jesus – shift us from being ‘bloody do-gooders’. Help us to listen, to ask respectful, empowering questions, to enable others to respond to your loving invitation into life. Amen.
Today’s writer
Dr Sam Richards, serving as Head of Children’s and Youth Work, Messy Church team, St Mary’s Chalgrove
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