May 1, 2016

Peter Lineham

Easter 6     Acts16:9-15     John 5:1-19

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A Pool for the needy

Scholars often puzzle about John’s Gospel and its relationship to history, and the identity of this pool where Jesus found the disabled or paralysed or lame man has been debated. The few phrases of description are unclear with textual variants, but the most probably explanation is a site in Jerusalem just north of the temple which once had a pool some 50 metres by 100 metres and it seems to have had colonnades across the four corners and crossing across the pool and dividing it in half. This seems to explain the five arches or colonnades. The lower pool may have been used for washing the sheep used for sacrifice, given its proximity to the temple. But as to why so many sick people gathered at the pool? On the site one hundred years later a pool in this spot was dedicated to the Roman gods Asclepius the Greek god of medicine and Serapis an Egyptian fertility god. So traditions of healing were linked with this place, but from Jesus time we are reliant on an extra verse (the missing verse 4) which a scribe obviously added, trying to explain that they were waiting for an angel to stir up the water. This may be confirmed by a reference in the Qumran Copper Scroll to Beit Eshdatain refers to “the house of spontaneous shaking”. Jerusalem was a religious centre, and needy Jewish people hung around in search of hope. In the ancient world wounded, sick, handicapped people must have been everywhere in sight and the average span of life for people like that was short. When Jesus comes to that pool that day he saw a whole world of need. If we in the church had our eyes open we could see the same.

A Grumpy Man

I am not sure I like the man at the centre of the story. He is not exactly the glowing example of faith that the best of those healed in the gospels manifest. Soured, perhaps by the discouragement of 38 years of waiting by the pool, and by constantly being pushed aside by the less disabled in the rush to get into the healing waters, Jesus asks perceptively if he really want to be made well. He would not be the first beggar who preferred a benefit and begging over the uncertainties of being healed. The man does not show any great interest in his healer – indeed he doesn’t even know or enquire after his name. And in order to save his own skin, as soon as he knows the name of Jesus he promptly betrays the name to the Jewish authorities. The scholars have variously called him “ungrateful”, “crotchety”, “a grouchy old man”.

He probably exactly mirrors what some people have said about the paper that my colleague Mark Henrickson and I have written in response to the General Synod document “A Way Forward”. They feel we should be more sensitive to the massive issue that this business of receiving gay people as equals has become in every church and in the Anglican Church in particular. They feel we should show a bit of gratitude for the clever device in this document which will bless our marriages in dioceses which are supportive, and which by this clever means will enable ordained gay people to gain recognition of their ministry as gays. And what do we do but complain it is not enough; complain that we don’t want these clumsy deals. You might want to comment that the man wasn’t able to get himself into the water by himself.

As a historian, I am well aware that slow progress is usually more effective than revolution. I can understand that the members of General Synod feel the weight of maintaining the unity of the church and the necessity of compromise to achieve anything. But I recall that many years ago when the campaign for homosexual law reform was under way it was initially led by fine fair minded individuals in the Homosexual Law Reform Association. Then came the age of liberation, and Gay and Lesbian voices demanded to be heard and demanded to do it in their own tones. And in essence that is our complaint about the Motion 30 and “Way Forward” that it says to GLBT people, “shut up, and we can do it for you”. Like the grumpy lame man, we would like to stomp on the ground and say, listen! But I guess we also need help.

Jesus and the Needy Person

I am struck by the difference between Jesus’ attitude to the man and that of the Jewish authorities. The Jewish authorities have a place where the paralytics can go and who knows they might get healed there. They never go there themselves, and they keep the maimed people out of the temple. Jesus in contrast goes to the place and finds one person at a time, because his touch is always personal. Jesus’s goal is for each individual to find fullness of life and purpose. So he finds his way there and reaches out to help the most helpless case. He didn’t choose a particularly promising case, for 38 years of exclusion has left a residue of bitterness. Jesus is very gentle. He starts with the man’s obvious need but asks before he helps. He doesn’t ask him to believe, just to stand up. Later Jesus tracks him down, finds him on the man’s first visit to the temple precinct. Jesus explains who he is, and then tells the man in rather uncomfortable language not to sin any more.

Some Christians think that this is a just how the church should treat gays. Yes, be friendly to them, but remind them that they are sinners, and not make concessions to them. They have misread this story. Jesus does not start with forgiving the man. He heals him. He starts with physical healing; he starts at the point of practical need and does not ask the man to believe. The church needs to hear this. Gays have been stuck for generation with labels and pink triangles, criminalised or forced into concealing their identity. Just as Jesus begins with the man’s perceived need, so there is a great difference between those who set out to convert gays and the people who have really made a difference to the gay community, those who like the City Mission established Herne Bay House, those who like St Matthew’s provided a home for gay Christians, those who have advocated full human rights equality for people regardless of their sexuality. With the advent of marriage equality, they have given full respect to gay relationships and have offered marry those who want to take public vows. You are not likely to get far with the GLBT community unless you are willing to go this far.

This does not mean that GLBT people should be placed on a pedestal or idealised. Like the lame man and like all of us, gay people are sinners. Gay people should be fully welcome in the church but the goal should be that they find forgiveness and a life consisting of more than the shallow life of sexual encounters and triviality. But gay people will not come to you. You will need to meet them at the Pool of Bethesda and offer your support. Like Paul in the reading from Acts, you will have to find the place where the searchers are to be found, and like Paul, you may have to accept that an undesirable person – in Paul’s case a woman, perhaps in your case a transgendered person is the person who is most open to hearing the good news from you. This is a missional priority.

The Jews and the Problem of Mats

Jesus healed on the Sabbath, but unlike later in his ministry this fact goes unnoticed. No, the problem is the lame man’s mat. The mat – the rough portable bed – is central to the story. Jesus doubtless told the man to take up his mat because it was his only possession. He would be sleeping somewhere else that night. But surely Jesus knew that it was Shabbat and the 39th of the Shabbat regulations was explicit that you were not allowed to carry a load during Shabbat. So this provoked the religious authorities. It was a direct flaunting of the canons of the Jewish religion. The healed man was the one who faced the wrath of the religious authorities. No excuse of why he was carrying the mat was sufficient. The rule said no mats. The only way the man could save his skin – or his mat – was blame someone else.

It strikes me that we have a mat problem all over again. As our paper argues, gay marriage is a huge step forward for the GLBT community. It says to gay people that they are no second class citizens, that their relationships are good for them and for the community, bringing stability and structure to society – which is a key part of the reason why marriage has been recognised by every society and by the state and by religion as a good thing, in all its varied forms. Taking up this mat – this sleeping mat, this marriage bed, this recognition – has been a huge step forward, analogous, we say in our paper, to the abolition of slavery. We well recognise that it is not the way marriage is described in the bible or in any ancient society, but it is such a step forward. But the mat which is the precious possession in the eyes of the man is ultimately offensive in the eyes of so many of the religious authorities, precisely because they can’t find it in the Bible.

This surely is the tragedy of the present situation. Those who called for change in the church’s rules sought a generous step to welcome GLBT people and to offer an apology for their exclusion. But as folks here discovered when they took the church to the Human Rights Commission, the church now has failed the common perception of justice in the eyes of the community. Anxious to preserve its unity, it has tried in different parts of the Anglican world to find a clever way to preserve the traditional doctrine on marriage by drafting new rules which say one thing and offer a kernel of hope at the same time. It is a clever ploy, and it is very well meant. But what a tragic statement about the church that this is all it can do, too little and too late! The warm welcome to gay relationships by the wider community means that we are proving our social irrelevance while we continue to ban mats.

The Jesus Way

The man in the story in fact narked on Jesus, eager to blame him, in order to save his skin. I guess there will always be some who want the ceremonies and structures of religious communities. For myself, I prefer the prophetic voice of Jesus, who longs for this man to find more than healing, more than social acceptance. He wants the man to find a deep and transformative spiritual life, where he can meet the living, loving, accepting and forgiving God. In the parallel story of the man born blind four chapters later in John’s gospel, the blind man washes in the pool of Siloam, sees Jesus, and sees the blindness of those who criticise the Lord.

I dare to believe that Jesus still offers this hope to the needy world. He says to GLBT people as he says to all, come here, come as you are, come and find a place at the table. But he goes on to say more, he says, come and find life, come and find deep forgiveness for the stained and damaged parts of your life, come and find life in God. But I pray that we will not be so preoccupied by mats that we miss him as he walks by.