The story of Jesus healing a lame man in John 5:1-15 is repeated in church sanctuaries throughout the world.
The setup reads like so many others: Jesus comes across an invalid. I would think Jesus, who lives this reality every day, would be the first to assume that the lame man seeks to be healed. Yet Jesus asks: “Do you want to be healed?” I can imagine Jesus asking me the same question Sunday morning during the Sharing of Joys and Concerns, and sometimes I wonder what my answer might be.
The lame man’s answer is not what I would expect, though maybe it should be. In response, he complains that he can’t be healed because he can’t reach the pool. It doesn’t matter if he wants to or not, so he has stopped believing he can be well. In asking what may seem like an obvious question, Jesus brings the lame man to reveal the affliction in his mind as well as his legs. The real miracle of the story is the man taking action for the first time. He is no longer helpless.
By reaching out through a question, Jesus allows the truth of the scene to be revealed. Curiosity affords a deeper understanding of others, allowing them to define themselves rather than be defined by the inquirers, leading to true relationship and mutual understanding. It’s more than just an attitude. It’s a Christian witness.
When I went to Nicaragua for a year and a half, I was constantly presented with new and challenging situations. It was easy to fall into a judgmental mentality. Why can’t anyone arrive on time? Why aren’t school resources used more efficiently? Why can’t you just do things my way? While it is easy to be judgmental and miserable in another country, there is still no better place to cultivate an attitude of curiosity. This is precisely because everything is new and foreign.
When presented with the unknown, I had a greater power to decide how to react because I hadn’t developed a pattern of reaction yet. I had never had to wait two hours for a practice that may or may not happen. I had never had school cancelled last minute because of rain. It was a great opportunity for me to cultivate more flexible response patterns based on suspending judgment and seeking more information. It is much more difficult to approach situations and people we see every day with curiosity rather than judgment. Cultural familiarity leads to habituated responses and impedes a witness of curiosity.
Asking questions can be a way to challenge or overcome habitual ways of acting and reacting. When I think I know a person well, I more freely assume I understand their motivations for acting the way they do. As Dar Williams puts it: “Way back where I come from, we never mean to bother. We don’t like to make our passions other people’s concern. We walk in a world of safe people, and at night we walk into our houses and burn.”
She’s talking about the Midwestern American cultural phenomenon of “polite but aloof,” the assumption that others want to keep their inner struggles to themselves. We don’t ask questions. In my experience, the Nicaraguans do not share this predilection for privacy. Your passions are everybody’s concerns. I was once stopped on the street by a woman who sold snacks at the school where I worked. She looked at me and said, “You look sad today. What’s wrong? Did something happen at home?”
This made me stop and wonder for a moment. I had assumed I was fine, but I have a penchant for becoming inured to a good deal of misery and calling it fine. I don’t remember what I said to her, but I remember her insistence that went beyond the casual “How are you?” caused me to reassess my scale of “fine.”
In that moment, I felt an obligation to be part of community, to share of myself and to share in the struggles of others. I have had friends mention to me in frustration that you can have a conversation with a North American for an hour without talking about anything. That may work for the supermarket, but it’s not good enough for church.
We are the body of Christ,that suffers and rejoices with every stomach, foot, and shoulder. In order to do that, we have to ask questions. We have to provoke with our curiosity, and not default on the assumption that others don’t want to share their deepest insecurities.
When I went to visit my little church in Milwaukee, we got into a discussion of which seminary I should attend. The pastor looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and then asked, “What are you hungry for?” It was maddening. I didn’t have a ready response. But that was the beauty of the question. It revealed what I really needed to think about.
Many people find in church a place where they can reveal more of themselves than anywhere else. They can share their concerns for family members and for health, they can testify to experiences of hope. But church can fall short when we do not make the effort to go beyond traditional patterns of sharing. Like the lame man, we divulge what ails us physically even as we conceal the damage it does to our soul. Behind our proclamations of hope hide fears of brokenness. The very tradition and ritual which tether believers to God and to each other can impede the healing work of the church by offering one too many cleft rocks in which to hide. I can find spiritual nourishment in church every Sunday and leave without being challenged the way Jesus challenges the lame man by asking the right question.
Questions don’t always bring answers, but they can bring transformation. Jesus transformed the lame man by allowing him to reveal his truth. The church can do no less.