Change the Familiar? Whoa!
Friday, January 9, 2009 -- Year One
Julia Chester Emery, Missionary, 1922
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 942)
Psalms 121, 122, 123 (morning) 131, 132 (evening)
Isaiah 63:1-5
Revelation 2:18-29
John 5:1-15
We all adapt to whatever we are familiar with. Pathologies and unhealthy structures take root and get established. We figure out ways to live with the problems and some people use the circumstances to their advantage. We get used to the way things are. The familiar is comfortable.
For thirty-eight years this unnamed man in John's gospel lay by the Bethzatha pool. You get used to a way of life if you continue in it for thirty-eight years. Imagine back to 1970. How old were you? Where were you living and what were you doing? Imagine your life today being consistently the same as your life in 1970. Same place; same circumstances; nothing changes for thirty-eight years. You'd be adapted and comfortable with that life, even if it's not optimal. Would you react with eagerness if someone said, "I'll change all of this"?
"Do you want to be made well?" Jesus asked the man. Whoa. Just a minute. He doesn't even go there. He explains to Jesus, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up..." He understands the situation. He explains. He makes excuses. He's grown accustomed to it. It's not so bad. Obviously he has food, shelter, companionship, a familiar life that is comfortable enough. He is so used to this situation that he doesn't even think about its changing. Thirty-eight years. It's been this way a long time.
"Stand up, take your mat and walk." He does so. We might think, "He is healed! It's a miracle. How wonderful!" Whoa. Not so fast. There are a couple of problems here. We have regulations. We have rules and customs here. You can't do that on a Sabbath. Carrying a mat on the Sabbath is not allowed. Immediately the man gets in trouble with the authorities. "Why are you carrying the mat?" "The man who made me well told me to." "Who is he?"
Now his life has become really complicated. He knows what the authorities might do to a troublemaker who is sabotaging the Sabbath laws. If he tells them who healed him, he knows they'll go after Jesus. It won't be pretty. But if he doesn't, he's in big trouble. He becomes an informer. He tells the authorities.
And there are other new problems to consider. Tomorrow, the first day of the week, he'll have to go looking for a job. When he was lame, others had a responsibility to look after his basic needs. Now he'll have to take on new responsibility for himself. It's going to be harder. He's not going to get the same kind of help he used to.
Yet, his life is immensely richer. He can walk. He has new possibilities for living more expansively. It was the right decision, though a hard one, to take up his mat and walk. But he had to overcome great inertia and some powerful vested interests to make this change.
A couple of days ago I listened to a sociologist tell a few things about some of the pathologies and unhealthy structures we live with. We Americans spend a lot more on health care than any nation on earth, yet by most metrics of health, we aren't in the top ten among other nations. We've got a sick system. But if someone asks, "Do you want to be made well?" there are plenty of excuses, complications and vested interests to be considered. It's been this way a long time. There are regulations. Who's going to take responsibility if you change what we're familiar with?
Some people live in homes or relationships or jobs that appear pretty miserable and dysfunctional. But after thirty-eight years, you learn to adapt. You get pretty comfortable with the pathology. It's easier to live with it than to change, you think.
If someone comes and says, "Take up your mat and walk," will we make excuses, or will we do the hard work of taking new responsibility? It's a tough question.
Lowell
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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
Lowell Grisham, Rector
Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
posted by Lowell @ 8:02 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Take up your mat, it is hard but your never alone. Remember the same force that allows you to change will always be with you on your new journey. You dont think he would heal you only to let you fail?
Some people live in homes or relationships or jobs that appear pretty miserable and dysfunctional. But after thirty-eight years, you learn to adapt. You get pretty comfortable with the pathology. It's easier to live with it than to change, you think. The verb phrase here, “than to change” places the responsibility for change at the feet of the handicapped one. The “change” for the palleted man that the fountain at Bethesda came with in his encounter with the theophany, Jesus, the visible manifestation of God on earth. I think we need to stay closer to the real “cause to be” in the pure religious sense, keeping a high premium on divine revelation and placing a low status on our personal capacity to change. Philosophies teach us what to do, how to do it, and even go so far at to tell us what is good, what we should be. Philosophy, in definition, is all the wisdom of the earth. Religion knows that the wisdom of the earth is limited distressingly limited. We need the epiphany, the presence of the Light of God for a “cause to be” and to trigger change.
When someone comes and says, "Take up your mat and walk," will we make excuses, or will we do the hard work of taking new responsibility? It's a tough question. The answer is not in “the hard work that we do.” All that we do is in vain. The enigmatic act that is a doing that is a not doing, the surrender to God, is the answer. It is a tough question because the answer is a conundrum. How do what we cannot do, or how do we not do that which we must do? Toss the philosophy and accept the mystery.
Scott Hull
Thanks for the thoughtful responses.
I think the thing that caught my imagination in the story was the drama of Jesus' question and whether the man who has been crippled would respond to him. It too his active cooperation -- his willingness to take his mat, stand up and walk -- for the power of Jesus' presence to be manifest in his life.
He could have continued to make excuses. "Oh, but you just don't understand. I haven't been able to do that for 38 years..." Or he could have looked at what this decision would mean for him -- a total disruption of the life he was accustomed to -- and he could have stayed "safely" on his mat.
Part of what he knows if he accepts the gift from Jesus is that he will now enter a new life of dramatically greater responsibility. Isn't that always true when we accept the divine invitation?
It seems like the divine work always includes human cooperation. Mary's humble "Let it be unto me according to your will." Jesus: "Let this cup pass. But not as I will, but as thou wilt." It is the sacramental life. We bring bread and wine to God, and it becomes the Body and Blood of Christ.
If we don't take up the mat and walk, and in that act choose to embrace the responsibility of a new life, Christ's invitation and the power of his transformation is blocked. (Like when he visited Nazareth, and he could do no great work there because of their unbelief.)
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