Scriptural Basis
John 5: 1-18 (NRSV)
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew* Beth-zatha,* which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed.* 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When 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?’ 7The 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.’ 8Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Now that day was a sabbath. 10So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ 11But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” ’ 12They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’ 13Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in* the crowd that was there. 14Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ 15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. 17But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ 18For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.
Blog Reflection
After I wrote my blog post about Dr. Martin Luther King yesterday, I received two angry and mean spirited comments, which I will not post. They were both from the same person.
One comment reminded me that many mainline Protestant denominations have race issues in them. No where in my blog post did I suggest that mainline churches do not have racial issues. Whenever I use the word "Church" with a capital "C" I am referring to the entire Christian Church, and most Christian Denominations. All of the Christian Church have a long way to go on the issue of discrimination of people on the issues of race, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression and gender and so forth.
In the other comment the individual chastised my intelligence and me personally because I wrote "Dr" before Dr. Martin Luther King''s name. Yet actual history tells us that King earned his B.A, B. D., and Ph. D in Systematic Theology from Boston University. (See Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints on page 306 for the reference.)
An additional comment in there somewhere was a comment that no where did Martin Luther King speak about homosexuality. That is quite true. However, many of those who are closest to him will tell you, that if King were alive today, he would in fact support equality for LGBT people. Charles Barkley said as much and was quoted in the Bilerico Project.
"People try to make it about black and white. He talked about equality for every man, every woman. We have a thing going on now - people discriminating against homosexuals in this country. I love the people. God bless the gay people. They are great people. We have discrimination against Hispanics in this country right now. We need to answer to that."
Where ever and when ever people can find every excuse on God's green earth to keep someone that they do not like as the "other."
Christians do this kind of thing to Muslims, LGBT, Native Americans, African Americans, Asians, Atheists, and so on. Some Athiests like the one that wrote the comments to me, have also been known to marginalize Christians and anyone else who believes in any kind of religion. Groups of individuals of all walks of life have been so cruel in one way or another to those who have any kind of physical/mental/psychological or behavioral challenge. The moment someone with a disability of any kind begins to find their place in society, there suddenly becomes this tyranny of folks who have to protest or take funding away or any other such issue.
Here in our Gospel today, Jesus is really not interested in some tradition such as the Sabbath being used to keep a poor sick person from being granted his dignity as a human being. Jesus sees in this person who has been sick for 38 years sitting by the pool as someone who just wants to have some piece of life that he can call his own and claim some sense of being by which he too can rejoice in all of the goodness that God seeks to give him.
The people around this person are just too busy to notice him or give him a hand into the pool. He is just too inconvenient to bother with. If someone were to pay attention to him, or help him suddenly the "other" that they have been ignoring becomes someone that they just do not want to get too close too. And so when he is finally cured and healed, and can rejoice in what God has done for him, all those around him can do is talk about how Jesus broke the rule on the Sabbath Day. They have to be killjoys.
It should therefore not surprise us that as LGBT people and other minorities gain successes such as the repeal of DADT and the many States where marriage equality has been passed or is being debated, that there are Christianists and other religious based individuals working to be killjoys in the process of equality, inclusion and justice.
Christianist speaker Cindy Jacobs made the statement that:
Not only did God kill all those birds in Arkansas because of the repeal of DADT, the earthquake in Japan and that tsunami? Totally because of gay soldiers in the U.S.
The ongoing assault on LGBT people as the reason why God is a psycho path, is just a Christianist lie and nothing more.
As the theology of the more modern and more common sense time has developed we no longer suggest that things happen to people and countries because God is punishing them. That was another reason why Jesus healed this sick man when he did. Jesus was stating that all individuals are loved and honored by God to the point the God's love is never far from any one for any reason. God's grace is not dependent upon our actions or in ability to act. The mercy of God is not with held because of something we've done or because of someone's sexual orientation, gender, gender expression/identity and so forth.
Why God does not stop natural disasters or horrible infectious diseases? I do not know. But I also believe the very fact that loving and caring individuals rise up and express concern, and are determined to help those less fortunate than themselves, means God is still very much at work in this world.
John Michale Talbot wrote a song to the words of the prayer of St. Theresa: "Christ has no body now, but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks. Compassion on this world. Yours are the feet of him who walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world."
Our caring hearts and hands are extensions of God's in a world full of hate and hurt. We have opportunities and reasons to share what God has given to all of us. We are the work of God's healing, living water and light when we use our gifts in service to God's people.
Prayers
O God, with you is the well of life, and in your light we are light: Quench our thirst with living water, and flood our darkened minds with heavenly light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Prayer for Tuesday in the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, page 55)
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. (A Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, Book of Common Prayer, page 833).
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