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Strange Exchange Part 2
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Hey, welcome to church.
Speaker 1:My name is Jeremy, if we haven't met before, and thanks for taking some time out of your day to join us here for church. We don't take it granted that you take part of your day to be here with us. Last week we kicked off our seventh season at Commons. Every year we plan the entire year, we compile that into a journal. You can swing by the church and pick one up anytime for free, or you can download a copy at commons.church/journal if that's easier for you.
Speaker 1:But this week, we are in part two of our launch series called Strange Exchange. And this series is all about the questions that Jesus asks. And it's kind of an interesting thing to look at the Gospels and see the deep respect that Jesus has for the power of a question to interrupt us, to sort of wake us up from our apathy. For someone who is known for teaching, Jesus actually does very little preaching. I mean, sure, there's the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1:We looked at that last year. And by the way, I've got a little devotional book on the Sermon on the Mount coming out. We should have that for you sometime in the New Year. But there's also the Sermon by the Sea, also a series available on our YouTube channel if you're interested in that. However, for the most part, Jesus teaches by telling stories and asking a lot of questions.
Speaker 1:In fact, often Jesus will tell a story and then ask a question about the story. Famously, after the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus pauses and asks, Which of these was a neighbor to the man who had been hurt? And I think what this shows is that Jesus was more interested in engaging us than he was in just instructing us. Perhaps this is why Jesus' words and teaching are so enduring, because they are more than just technical exploitations of particular religious circumstance. They are instead invitations to encounter a wisdom that can be metabolized and understood and applied in all kinds of new circumstance, across thousands of years, across cultures as varied as ancient Palestine and even modern Calgary.
Speaker 1:In other words, learning to love well will always be more valuable than winning doctrinal debates. And so we have a Jesus that asks us questions. And last week we saw him ask a pretty big one, Who do you say I am? Now we looked at both sides of that question last week, How Jesus invites his friends' perspective on him. Who do you think I am?
Speaker 1:What do you think about me? And these are good questions for all of us to ask from time to time. I'm certainly not saying our friends will answer us the Messiah. In fact, I hope they don't. Asking people you trust what they see in you, who you are to them.
Speaker 1:As vulnerable as that can be, this is an incredible exercise for all of us because it helps us see ourselves more clearly. Now, it is a risk. They may not see you the way that you want to be seen. They may even tell you things that you do not want to hear. But as the proverbs say, the wounds of a friend are faithful, so ask the right people.
Speaker 1:However, opening our self perception to include what those around us see in us, this is healthy. In fact, it's an essential part of being known. As I said last week, sometimes to be known we have to be willing to ask to be known. And I really get a sense that's part of what Jesus is doing here. He wants to see if his friends get him.
Speaker 1:But I also think he wants to be truly known moment by them. And I think you actually see this clearly if you follow the story a little bit farther than we had time to last week. As soon as Peter declares Jesus the Messiah and confesses that he really does see Jesus, all of a sudden Jesus just opens up about himself and what he sees coming in his life. He says, Yes, that's it. And then he pours himself out.
Speaker 1:We read that Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go on to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of those that opposed him. That he must be killed and on the third day raised to life. It's almost as if his Jesus has been holding on to all of this. Unsure of whether he can actually let it out, but now assured that he was seen, assured that he was understood by his closest friends, he lets it all come out. I think it's a beautiful moment.
Speaker 1:I can relate to that. I'm sure you can too. Those moments where we feel finally safe enough to be our full selves. Because this is a big moment for Jesus. And it's his questions that open that moment up to him.
Speaker 1:But then there was also Peter's side of the story. Peter's the one who gets to answer Jesus. He says, you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. And we talked last week about Peter had probably been holding on to that statement, probably wanting to say it out loud for maybe even years. But it was Jesus that gave him the chance to open up and say it.
Speaker 1:To disclose his trust, his faith to Jesus. And again, think there's something just really beautiful in that, that Jesus creates the space for his friend to say everything he's been wanting to say. Rather than just preempt him, Jesus makes room for him. Now, of course, Peter doesn't get it all right. He wouldn't be Peter if he did.
Speaker 1:And so when Jesus finally opens up about what's coming, it's Peter that rebukes Jesus for even talking about dying. And it's Jesus that calls him Satan and tells him to back off. So even good friends can mess up those moments. But still, this is a moment where their relationship is deepened in new and even sometimes challenging ways. All of that is facilitated by a good question.
Speaker 1:So questions are powerful because they invite our perceptions to be expanded. Questions are powerful because they create the space for those near us to self disclose. They can even draw out the misconceptions and the misunderstandings that we inevitably hold about each other so that they can be challenged and transformed as well. But only if we can be as curious about each other as God seems to be about us. Today Jesus has another question to ask.
Speaker 1:First though, let's pray. God of all grace, who comes to us with questions, curious and fascinated about what we might share in response. Might we welcome ourselves into your embrace at your table knowing that we are fully welcome here? We're going to bring our answers, doubts, our perceptions and bring them towards you to be refined and shaped and turned into what is truly true. God, might we never be afraid to be open and honest with you.
Speaker 1:And in that, may your spirit be present, shaping, molding, turning us into the people that you imagine us to become. As that sinks somewhere deep into us, may we become fascinated with each other. May we turn toward each other with good questions. May we actually want to hear what the other might say. And in that, may we become healed as well.
Speaker 1:May we be shaped into the likeness of your Son. May we contribute to the ongoing expansion of your kingdom all around us all the time. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Okay.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to talk about irony, textual criticism, healing, and finding our way. But let's start with a movie reference. Because whenever I think of irony, think of two things. First, Alanis Morissette. And by the way, that is the second Canadian music reference in as many weeks, so can con for the win.
Speaker 1:But second is the movie Reality Bites. Now Reality Bites was a mildly amusing, though largely forgettable, 1994 comedy directed by Ben Stiller. Yes, that Ben Stiller. But for two and a half decades, it has retained a small place in my head for one line. Winona Ryder's character is a writer and she's asked to define irony, which she can't.
Speaker 1:Only later to be given the definition, irony is when the intended meaning is the opposite of the literal meaning. And part of why that has stuck with me is because I came of age when Alanis Morissette ruled the Canadian airwaves in her song, Ironic, wherein she ironically describes a series of unfortunate, though not particularly ironic situations, was all the rage. The reason I'm talking about irony is because the question we want to look at today is embedded in a strangely ironic tale where Jesus' point seems to be exactly the opposite of what his detractors want to take away from it. But let's start by turning to John chapter five and we'll read from verse one. Sometime later Jesus went to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.
Speaker 1:Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool called in Aramaic Bethesda, which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who had been there had been an invalid for thirty eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a very long time, he asked him, Do you want to be well? Now, if you happened to be reading along and paying attention as you did, you may have noticed something a little strange here.
Speaker 1:First, the language is kind of inappropriate. Now, understand what the NIV is trying to do here. They are trying to distinguish between a number of different Greek words that have different, though somewhat nebulous, meanings. In this one passage, we have the words asteneo, tuflos, colos, and xeros. And all of these, with not a lot of clarity, describe different types of ailments.
Speaker 1:Now the reason I say it's not particularly clear is because these are descriptive words in this context. These are not medical diagnoses. So the guiding term here is the word astineo, which describes someone who is sick or weak. But then we have tuflos, which is someone who is blind kolos, which is someone who is perpetually deprived of the use of part of their body. So this could be someone paralyzed or this could be an amputee.
Speaker 1:And the last word is xeros, which literally means dry or dried up. But this could describe someone with a paralyzation where the musculature has been affected over time, perhaps even an eating disorder that made them look frail or any number of sicknesses with pronounced visible impact. The point of all this is that as an able-bodied person who might bounce off these words without thinking about them too much, I think we have to be really careful here to ensure that we're not grasping for a false accuracy that's not even there in the text to begin with. At the expense of using language that may not be as easy to ignore for people that we love in our midst. Lame, cripple, invalid.
Speaker 1:These are words that often subordinate the person to their circumstance rather than inviting and honoring the way that each person chooses to tell their own story. Which is exactly what Jesus is going to model for us in this story ironic, isn't it? Here's another thing you may have noticed. There's a missing verse here. We go from verse three.
Speaker 1:Here a great number of disabled people used to lie. And we jump right to verse five. One who was there had been disabled for thirty eight years. So what happened to verse four? Well, what happened is that the Bible as we know it was first compiled from manuscripts into a single book by Erasmus in 1511.
Speaker 1:And then in 1551, a guy named Robert Estien added verse numbers to make it easier to look stuff up. Then in 1560, the Geneva Bible was translated into English. And then in 1611, the King James Bible was authorized and adopted in most of the English world. And while that became the standard, a lot has happened in the intervening four hundred years, including a lot of textual criticism. Erasmus' original Greek Bible called the Textus Receptus was mainly put together from manuscripts that were created in the twelfth century.
Speaker 1:Well, since then we have discovered hundreds of older, more authentic manuscripts. And in those manuscripts, this verse, along with a number of others, simply did not exist. And what that means is that it was added sometime later by a scribe. Now, are 16 of these verses that do not appear in modern Bibles. The problem was everybody already knew all of the verse references, so if you're going to try to compare between different translations and you just take out verse four and you call verse five verse four, it's gonna get confusing the farther you read.
Speaker 1:So what they decided to do was just leave the gaps, make sure that the following verses still lined up with the traditional verse numberings. By the way, every once in a while someone will ask me about this. It's not a conspiracy. They're not trying to hide anything from you. In fact, if they were, wouldn't have just left an obvious missing number in your Bible.
Speaker 1:And they certainly would not have put that little footnote that directs you down to the bottom of page where you can actually read verse four for yourself. These missing verses are actually an indication of the incredible scholarship that goes into helping us understand the Biblical text as it was originally written. But you might say, Okay, what was in verse four? And the answer is actually really helpful in understanding both why we think it was added and what's really going on in this passage. So this is what it says.
Speaker 1:Verse three: Here a great number of disabled people used to lie. Verse four, And they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel, the Lord, would come down and stir up the waters, and the first one into the pool after such disturbances would be cured of whatever disease they had. Verse five, One who was there had been disabled for thirty eight years. Verse six, When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked, Do you want to get well?
Speaker 1:Then in verse seven, he answered, Sir, I have no one to help me get into the pool when the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. And so what we have here is a reference to a common folklore of the time, a tale about angels and healing in the Pool Of Bethesda. Now that story was evidently common enough that the writer of the Gospel assumed that we would know it and therefore understand the man's reference about wanting to get into the pool first when the water was stirred. But at some point, that story became less familiar and Native people started asking questions about why this man was trying to get into the pool and so a scribe provided an in line footnote for us to help.
Speaker 1:This is just a really great example actually of textual criticism because it helps us to understand why this verse wasn't original in the text, why it was added later as a helpful note, and it actually helps to give us a little insight into what's actually going on in the story. So now with all of that on the table, we can actually look at what's happening here because it is a really interesting tale. And first of all, I noticed that the story starts because Jesus had learned that this man had been in this condition for a very long time. Now, the writer here is trying to get to a confrontation between Jesus and some of the religious leaders of his day, and we'll see that in a moment. So he's moving through things quickly here.
Speaker 1:But my imagination can't help but be sparked by this note. Because it means to me that Jesus' question, do you want to be well? Isn't antagonistic. It isn't unsolicited. It comes at the end of some type of personal encounter between these men.
Speaker 1:Jesus has noticed this man. He's engaged with this man. Jesus is asking a question that comes in response to something that emerged in the self disclosure of this man. I think that's really important. Because I think often if you're anything like me we can jump to offering our opinions and solutions and personal coaching before we've ever properly listened to each other.
Speaker 1:And particularly when we don't have the same lived experience as each other, learning to slow down and listen to each other. Learning to form our questions in response to what is being shared with us. This is incredibly important. Because look at what's being shared in this story. We learned that this man has been in this condition for thirty eight years implying that he's older than that, implying that something happened to him at some point in his story, suggesting that he has taken the time to share that story.
Speaker 1:And now he says that he has no one to help him into the water, indicating that at some point over time his community has faded. They have drifted away, leaving him with very likely little social support. And you can imagine that at some point thirty eight years ago perhaps his friends and family first brought him to this pool and attempted to try to get him in first. When that illusion of healing never materialized, maybe they lost hope, they gave up. And so here, it's Jesus' question, Do you want to be well?
Speaker 1:That I don't think is rhetorical. It's certainly not intended to antagonize this man. Because if you read between the lines here, it actually seems to come in response to this man. See, I think Jesus wants to ensure that this man, who can't walk, who doesn't have community to support him, who is, for all intents and purposes in this culture, at this time, at the mercy of the charity of strangers, is given agency in this moment. I think we ignore that to our detriment.
Speaker 1:Not only because we miss the humanity of this moment, but also because we will miss what Jesus is really trying to do here. Which is about a lot more, I would suggest, than just physical healing. Do you want to be well? This is a question that all of us will have to face at some point in our lives. Because all of us at some point have put a trust in some kind of illusion that overpromises and underdelivers.
Speaker 1:And sometimes the longer that we've trusted, the harder it is to let it all go. Look, I'm sorry, but angels don't come down to stir the waters to pit people in need against each other in some kind of race for heavenly entertainment. And I'm sorry, but your financial security is not waiting on the other side of a social media post promising you you can start a business without hard work. The marriage that you wish you had is not depending on you to be first in line to buy the next book or attend the next seminar that flies into town. As Mirasov Wolf writes, The truth will set you free, said Jesus.
Speaker 1:And the truth does set us free, but by connecting us with what is real. It liberates us from fantasies, from alternative facts, from lies and half truths, which, when believed, push us into the pit of false fears and drive us up the sandy slope of false aspirations. You see, as tragic as it is, it does not matter how long this man lies by this pool. It does not matter if he can coax his friends to get him in first, because for thirty eight years he's bought into the wrong story. And the question, Do you want to be well?
Speaker 1:This is about Jesus asking, Are you willing to try something new? Because, let's be honest here, a lot of the time we're not. We've got too much invested in our story, too much sunk cost to think differently, to believe differently, to try to imagine Jesus in new ways. And sometimes it's easier to completely walk away than it is to reimagine things like our faith. But here Jesus asks, Do you want to be well?
Speaker 1:And then he says, Okay, well then, get up, pick up your mat and walk. And look, I don't know how these things happen. I don't know what's going on inside this man's mind and body right now, but I have to imagine that at least part of the struggle here in this moment is deciding whether to try. Regardless of your body, how do you will yourself to get up after that long? And in the end, maybe that's what this question is about after all.
Speaker 1:Are we willing to try? If our faith isn't working for us, are we willing to reimagine it? If our relationships are struggling right now, are we willing to work to change them? If you are where you don't want to be, are you willing to consider different, new possibilities? Because I would suggest that that is the beginning of faith, but maybe just as importantly, that's the beginning of our healing.
Speaker 1:The repair of our imagination for what could be. It appears the ironic part that brings us all the way back to where we started. In the very next verse we read that at once the man was cured, he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was the Sabbath. And so the religious leader said to the man who had been healed: It is the Sabbath the law forbids you to carry your mat.
Speaker 1:And if there was ever a case where the intended meaning of the story was the exact opposite of the received meaning, this is that moment. But it's also something we need to pay very close attention to here. Because when you are ready to heal, not everyone around you will be ready for that same transformation. Maybe that transformation means you learn to accept yourself as you already are. Maybe it means you change yourself in new ways to become something new.
Speaker 1:But trusting that Jesus has asked us we're ready, that God is with us in the process means believing that you are more than just what the people around you choose to see. And this is what a good question can do for us. This is what a good question can open us to. It can help us to realize that we are ready for more than we thought, both in ourselves and in everything that surrounds us. Do you want to be well?
Speaker 1:Do you want to know yourself as completely loved? Do you want to get up and move forward in that new story with God beside you? Because sometimes that's the only question that faces us. Let's pray. God of all good questions, who comes to us and offers us a new way forward, Who speaks to us and tells us that we are more than we believe that we are.
Speaker 1:That we are good, that we are loved, that we are welcomed, that we are embraced. May that become the impetus, the beginning, the root of our healing. And even when it's hard, even when the road ahead us is difficult, even when that healing takes work, even when those around us aren't ready to acknowledge it. May we trust that you guide us, you walk with us, you move with us along the path of Jesus. Christ, with us in new ways this week.
Speaker 1:Speak new questions to the deepest parts of our soul. Help us believe that there is more in store for each of us. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.