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“We do not know God in his essence. We know him rather from the grandeur of his creation and from his providential care for all creatures. For by this means, as if using a mirror, we attain insight into his infinite goodness, wisdom and power.
--St. Maximus the Confessor (b. 580), On Love
For several weeks I have meditated on a scripture that Loving Presence placed on my heart one morning. The passage is from St. John 5.
1Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3Crowds of sick people--blind, lame, or paralyzed--lay on the porches. 5One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him and knew how long he had been ill, he asked him, "Would you like to get well?"
7"I can't, sir," the sick man said, "for I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get there, someone else always gets in ahead of me."
8Jesus told him, "Stand up, pick up your sleeping mat, and walk!"
9Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up the mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath day. 10So the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, "You can't work on the Sabbath! It's illegal to carry that sleeping mat!"
11He replied, "The man who healed me said to me, `Pick up your sleeping mat and walk.' "
12"Who said such a thing as that?" they demanded.
13The man didn't know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, "Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you." 15Then the man went to find the Jewish leaders and told them it was Jesus who had healed him. (NLT)
One of several lessons from this narrative pertains to the freedom of Sacred Presence. Jesus and the Jewish leaders are set in contrast. Between the two is caught a nameless man. The nameless man is nameless in the story, which possibly highlights how religious conflict and dogmatism reduce persons to anonymity in the “sacred” claims of right and wrong. Bill becomes only one of a generic class of the “gay,” while Mary is just another “lesbian.” And, Martha, well, she is just another “prostitute.” And, Mark, he is just another “drunk.” And, Lillie, she is one of those "divorcees." That is, religion often exalts its customs, beliefs, and morality over naturally-divine compassion, forgetting the royal command of love and bowing to idolatry of its own ways. In such absolutism, persons become generic examples, categorized by the insiders as "in" or "out" and used as pawns in internecine conflict.
But, notice Jesus: after all, is that not what a Christian is to do? Is not Jesus the example in this passage for us? Does not he show us God? He speaks to the man, directly. For Jesus, the man is not just one among many un-whole persons. Jesus speaks specifically to the man, addressing him directly. Jesus manifests a specificity of compassion, not just a generic “I love the world.” But, what makes this intersection of the life of Jesus and the man offensive to the religious elite?
Jesus' encounter with this one man is subversive. In the language of Martin Buber, Jesus recognizes the nameless man as a “Thou,” not just one among a class of sick persons lying around a pool.
In this one act Jesus counters the sacral claims of the religious. This angers them. “How dare he disrespect our tradition?” Ironically, “How dare Jesus restore this man to wholeness, of all days on the Sabbath?” Indeed, “Who does this man think he is?” So incensed were the religious that they began persecuting Jesus, even seeking means to kill him. Legalists always seek means to sabotage and dispel those spiritually free beyond the confines of custom and belief. And, one chief means is to describe the subversive as heretical or liberal and, thus, a threat to the “church.”
Oddly, the practice of Sabbath is at issue in this narrative. Accumulated traditions—by the way, all religious traditions are “accumulated,” even if they go back to an original core, and to this extent they are products of historical change and human response based on specific, relative cultural contexts—had gathered around the practice of Sabbath. Obedience to God through practice of the Sabbath had become more important in the hierarchy of sacral obedience than compassion to human persons.
Of course, Scripture will not let us rightly reside safely from the narrative before us today and, two thousand years afterward, safely castigate the Jewish elite. The Scripture pulls us into the story, and it questions us. The Scripture is subversive of our "sacredness." What questions does it confront us with? How about … “What is the Sabbath for us, today?” That is, what sacred traditions, customs, and beliefs have become our means of measuring faithfulness and obedience, to the exclusion of the immediacy of real human need? That is, what is the “Sabbath” that we idolize and that, thereby, claiming its absolute claim on our lives and derivation from God Himself, becomes the excuse for closing our heart to nameless ones, deemed unfit and punished, unwhole and unworthy—as would have been the estimation of the religious elite and many persons of that day in regard to the nameless man--…?
The Eastern Orthodox Church has taught the “energies” of the Divine. Simply put, the energies refer to the expression of God in our world. This expression of God is God, for God is indivisible; that is, God cannot be parceled out. If there is true love in the world, this is God manifesting as Love—God is the wholeness of Love. If there is truth in the world, this is God evidencing as Truth—God is the fullness of Truth. …
“Energies” contrasts with “Essence.” We cannot, so teach the Eastern Church and Christian mystics, know God as God is, for to know God completely would be to know God as God knows God’s Self. No human can do this.
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Therefore, “the whole God in his outgoing love has rendered himself accessible to man.” And, “the energies are God himself in his activity and self-manifestation” (Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way). Of vital import is that the energies is God conferring God’s Self, not just a “thing” or “aspect” of God. God can only manifest God's Self.
Now, we apply this to our story for today. Jesus is, to use the words of Ware, “the whole God in … outgoing love.” Jesus refers to “God” as “Father,” for Jesus derives from the Essence, in all Its Wholeness. Jesus is the consummate Energies, as Logos, of the Father.
Understanding this, we see in our passage today, that the conflict is between the freedom of the Energies of God and the customs of religion. The question is, “Will God serve religion?” or “Will religion serve God?” And, “Is obedience principally about obeying rules and customs?” or “Is religion validated only through it being means of manifesting the Christ in the world, a Christ who seeks above all to serve persons and creation and love them toward wholeness?”
Part of the weakness of Christianity has been its oft refusal to follow the radical freedom of the Spirit, or energies,of Christ. The Church has, indeed, often sided against the nameless in self-righteousness. The Church has often become so institutionalized, politicized, cultured, and enamored with its customs, beliefs, and rules, as well as its buildings, programs, and socializing, that it walks by the nameless ones. It rejoices in its tradition and obedience to its “Sabbaths,” as though this impresses Christ greatly, while He is most interested in nameless peoples who have no one to come to share with them hope for a better future and release from a broken past.
If Jesus had prioritized the Sabbath over the paralyzed man, the nameless man may never have walked. Jesus knew the Heart of the Father is a Heart longing to touch the lives of the very ones that religion often ignores as unfit, sinners, and deserving of their plight. Jesus, as expression of the Energies of God, refuses to classify human need into neat categories, which would allow him not to feel a need to address a person as a real human person, face-to-face.
You and I are being called to be means of the Divine energies: God God's Self. All of God is His manifestation of Himself as Compassion and seeks to serve the nameless ones through us. If we do not say “Yes,” how many nameless will continue cut-off from the experience of love, joy, and peace in community, while we maintain the customs and politics and policies of “church”?
If we stay aloof from the nameless, is it not true we cut ourselves off, also, from ourselves? Therefore, to ignore the nameless is to become nameless, cut off from the Life that gives Grace to the least of these. Is this not true? Indeed, do I not forfeit the Life I refuse to give to others? Do I not receive the Life I share with others? Is not evangelism more than offering a plan of salvation? Is not evangelism serving those whom Christ loves, indeed, letting Christ touch them through our hands, see them through our eyes, listen to them through our ears, and speak to them through our mouth?
Finally, there may be only one way for me to appreciate, truly, this story in St. John 5. Possibly, I must identify with the nameless man, seeing I am the nameless man. I, possibly, must see myself in need of the same Grace as he. Possibly, I must see myself as broken and unwhole. What do you think?
For Reflection
1. What are the “Sabbaths” today that take priority over human need and persons being the Christ Presence to the nameless ones in our world?
2. What are the peoples that, today, many in the churches lump all together and call “going to hell,” “damned,” “unfit,” “lost,” “sinners,”…? Would Jesus agree with such depersonalizing of persons into classes of objects? Explain your answer.
3. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber taught about addressing all persons as a “Thou,” not an “it.” Did Jesus relate to the nameless man in St. John 5 as “Thou” or “it”? Explain your answer.
4. We are called to serve the world in different ways. Some of us serve more actively, some of us in more subtle ways, but we are all to serve. How do you see your call to serve other persons?
5. What are the Divine “energies”? What is the Divine “essence”? How have you experienced the “energies” in your life?
6. Can our beliefs and customs block the flow of the Spirit of Christ? Explain.
7. Can you recall a time when the Spirit of Christ moved you to help someone? What was that leading like for you?
8. Is there any persons with a particular lifestyle or belief system that you find it hard to love in a “Thou” manner? Would you pray today for Christ to help you love them and speak of them as “Thou”? … as well as speak up, when you feel led, to counter persons who objectify these persons as objects and unfit for being personally and nonjudgmenally addressed as children of the One Father of us all?
9. Are you willing to be looked upon as “heretical” or “liberal” to love everyone?
10. Do you feel there is a part of you, now, that needs to be touched by the Christ and restored to wellness? Is there not some part of each of us that is in need of the same compassionate, restorative Grace as the man in St. John 5?
11. Can we know God apart from God serving the nameless ones? Explain your answer.
OneLife Ministries is a pastoral outreach and nurture ministry of the First United Methodist Church, Fort Meade, FL. For Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Counseling, spiritual formation workshops, Christian meditation retreats, or more information about OneLife, write Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox at briankwilcox@comcast.net.
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