This is a sermon I delivered on Mother’s Day at Emerywood Baptist Church in High Point, North Carolina.
John 5:1-9
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When 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?” The 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.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath.
What makes a person successful? That’s a topic that we enjoy reading about. TIME magazine touched on this question a couple weeks ago in its cover story, “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” I’m happy to report that Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, made the list. Jobs has been praised for single-handedly changed the way we use and think about computers. His iPod, iPhone, and iPad have taken computer technology out of our home offices and into our pockets.
TIME publishes lists like this each year because, quite frankly, we like these kinds of stories, and these stories sell magazines. We like to be inspired by people we believe have accomplished something great and embody success. But these stories tend to follow a couple of myths.
The first is the Myth of Self-Reliance. It’s the belief that when someone makes an accomplishment, the person was able to do it on his or her own without any help. Think about Steve Jobs for a second. He didn’t single-handedly change how we use and think about computers. He can’t; he’s only one man. Apple has a team of talented engineers, marketers and designers whose work we enjoy when we use our Macs, our iPods, and our iPhones. Jobs is the public face of the company, and he is certainly a talented man. But it is ridiculous to believe he changed computers on his own.
Think also about Martin Luther King, Jr. He is the face of the civil rights movement. He was a valuable leader and an extraordinary man. He helped change the country for the better, and we revere his accomplishments, as we should. But Dr. King did not start the civil rights movement. He benefitted from the knowledge and wisdom of activists before him. He also did not cause the movement on his own. He was one of among many who fought racial injustices. The movement was made alive by relatively ordinary people—mothers, fathers, teachers, shopkeepers, laborers—who did not have the leadership skills of Dr. King.
In Birmingham, Alabama, right outside the church that was bombed, there is a square in town that has been repurposed as a civil rights space. The city bronzed the spot where Dr. King stood and addressed the mourners after the bombing. You can literally see Dr. King’s footprints bronzed in the sidewalk. There are thousands upon thousands of people who supported and impacted the civil rights movement, but their names are forgotten, and their footprints will never be bronzed.
No one changes the world for the better on their own. Come to think of it, no one changes the world for the worse on their own, either. Hitler, Pol Pot, and Slobadon Milosevic were all considered bad men, but really all of them were powerless without their armies and supporters.
For a more contemporary example of evil in the world, consider KFC’s Double Down sandwich. Four strips of bacon, two types of cheese, and the Colonel’s Special Sauce, not between two slices of bread, but between two pieces of chicken. 32 grams of fat; over 1300 milligrams of sodium. Interestingly, the grilled Double Down has fifty more milligrams of sodium than the Original Recipe Double Down. Evil, evil, evil!
Someone apparently tried to make a sandwich one day, didn’t have any bread, and thought, “Why don’t I just use this chicken instead?” He ate it (and I am assuming this was a guy), and thought, “Other people need to eat this.” But that one guy could not unleash the Double Down to the world on his own. He had to take that sandwich to KFC and convince them to put it on their menu. That means there were several other people who ate the sandwich and thought, “Brilliant. What a great idea! I’m on board! We’ll sell millions!” Then they had to get the marketing folks involved to help convince us this would be a good sandwich to buy. I’m assuming they also have a bunch of lawyers on hand to handle the wrongful-death lawsuits that are inevitable from the sandwich. In short, the Double-Down is not the work of one man, just as most successful endeavors are not the work of one single person.
Don’t misunderstand me: self-reliance is not bad. Self-reliance is good. Self-reliance is truly an American virtue. Self-reliance led to the colonization of America. It led to the American revolution. It led to western expansion. Self-reliance is a distinguishing cultural factor for America, and it’s worked out well for us.
Self-reliance is also natural. I’m learning this now as a father of a two-year-old. The goal is to get that boy able to do things on his own, like eat without making a mess, or using the potty without being prompted by Anne or me. And he’s exercising his self-reliance more and more each day.
The problem with self-reliance, though, comes when we deceive ourselves into thinking we accomplish things in life on our own. Recently, actor Craig T. Nelson was on Glenn Beck’s show talking about why he’s not going to pay taxes anymore. He said, “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare. Did anybody help me out? No.”
My point: success is not an individual act.
The second myth is the flip-side of the self-reliance myth. It’s called the “bootstrap myth.” Susan Shaw and Janet Lee say the bootstrap myth “asserts that people, if properly motivated and willing to work hard, can pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” In other words, the myth says if you are not a success, it is your own fault.
They further write “Individuals who are not able to provide for their families must have deficiencies. . . . Such ideas encourage blaming the poor for their poverty rather than understanding the wider societal forces that shape people’s existence.”
The Bootstrap Myth does not state that individuals are never at fault for the trials in our lives. It does not absolve us of the consequences of our actions. But it does acknowledge that we live in a culture that privileges treating the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden as if they are victims of their own doing without acknowledging how they may be victims of forces outside of their control. It also acknowledges those of us who do not suffer like these are blessed, not necessarily because of anything we did or deserve, but because we benefit from forces outside our control such as race, gender, education, and economic status.
I read about an exercise that helps explain how this myth works. The leader will line up a group of folks from a class or a church group. Then he’ll say, “If both of your parents graduated from college, take a step forward,” or “If you were born outside of the United States, take a step backward.” Are you white? Take another step forward. Are you gay? Step backward. Have a chronic illness, like diabetes? Backward. Have 20/20 vision? Forward. Eventually, everyone will be standing in a different spot, some in front of the line, some behind. Then the leader will say they are to race to the end of the room starting from where they are standing. The winner, of course, tends to be the person who started out ahead of everyone else. Some start the race at a clear advantage; others start at a clear disadvantage. Yet what’s important to understand is that everyone was lined up based on factors that are really outside of their control. There was nothing that the person in the back could do to start the race on the same level as the person in the front.
Understanding these two myths help us better understand Jesus’ encounter with the invalid at the pool. This story takes place at a pool where it was believed an angel came down and stirred up the water, and the first person to enter the water afterwards would be cured of their ailments. A lot of people were there racing to get into the pool, and we read that Jesus started talking to one of them. (I’d like to believe He talked with everyone there, but John only tells us about this one particular encounter.) John doesn’t give us specifics about the man, except that he had been ill for almost forty years.
Jesus asks the man “Do you want to be made well?” Some interpret Jesus’ question in a way that upholds the self-reliance and bootstrap myths. They say Jesus asked this question because he wanted to make sure that the man was not merely taking advantage of his sickness as a means to get pity from others at the very least, or at most use his “disadvantage” of illness as an “advantage” to get others to give him money. They say Jesus asks, “Do you want to be made well?” to make the man acknowledge he should not live off of the benefit of others, and should instead be self-reliant.
This is a common approach to how we treat the downtrodden. Many of us who have never had to experience poverty or significant illness assume the hurting, poor, or sick want to be hurting, poor or sick. We assume these folks may have chosen not to improve their position—they just don’t want to be made well. So, it is easy for us to read “Do you want to be made well?” as if Jesus wanted to see if the man was truly interested in helping himself, and thus worthy enough for Jesus’ blessing. It justifies the idea that “God helps those who help themselves.”
There are a couple problems to address with this interpretation. First, there is no verse that reads “God helps those who help themselves.” In fact, there are a lot of verses that state the opposite: “God helps those who help others.”
- Galatians 5:13—Serve one another in love.
- Ephesians 6:7—Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord.
- I Timothy 3:13—Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.
- I Peter 4:10—Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.
None of these verses carries a condition of “Whether the person is deserving.” They carry a mandate to serve regardless of the condition.
Second, if we wanted to read this story as upholding the self-reliance and bootstrap myths, then when Jesus asks “Do you want to be made well?” the man would need the man to answer with an emphatic, “Yes.” Or “duh.” Or, “Of course, Jesus—it is better to take care of myself than to have others take care of me.” But that’s not how he answers. He says “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.”
There are at least two important points to raise about his response. First, he is trying to get better. In fact, is doing the best he can. He says he races to the pool, just like the folks in the exercise I mentioned earlier. But he is at a disadvantage among the other infirm. This fellow starts in the back of the pack, but, like he says, he cannot make it past the others.
Second, consider how he begins his response. “I have no one.” “I have no one.” This man is alone. He has no support. This man may be the only person we read in the Bible who is essentially, and explicitly, alone. There are other sick people who seek Jesus’ healing—and we should point out that when Jesus asks everyone else if they want to be made well, practically all of them say ‘Yes, Jesus, heal me’—but pretty much all of them have some support. Lazarus had Mary and Martha. The sick girl had the centurion father. Even the paralytic who was lowered to Jesus’ feet was lowered by his friends. Do you want to be technical? Even the first man wasn’t alone in the Garden of Eden, not because Eve was around, because she wasn’t always around, but because he walked and talked with God.
Steve Jobs cannot create Apple on his own. King cannot change race relations in America on his own. They had support, and could do great things. But this man is alone.
What does this story mean for us? Why is this man’s response so important that John includes it?
Christians are in the service industry. We serve. We help others. That’s our calling. That’s our mission. But it is easy to overlook some of the opportunities to serve, and to miss some important means to serve. In so doing, we look for the obvious needs. We help the poor, because they are obviously in need. We help the sick, again because they are obviously in need. But even faced with the poor and the sick and their obvious needs, we are still conditioned to consider whether they deserve our help. We wonder how they may have put themselves in this situation, and if they did, we become less eager to serve.
We shouldn’t fall into the temptation to believe that some people are more deserving of our care and service than others. That’s not what we do as Christians. Jesus didn’t ask why the man was ill. For all we know he may have hurt himself doing something stupid while he was drunk, like playing Frisbee on the roof of his house or something. John doesn’t tell us if he brought his illness upon himself, and Jesus doesn’t care. What matters is that the man needs help, and as Christians we are to help.
Second, we miss some of the obvious needs. Poverty is apparent. Illness is apparent. But loneliness is not apparent. This man at the pool was alone. And I believe that having no one, no friend, no ally, no shoulder, no support, can be a worse hell than poverty and illness. Thank God that we are not alone. Thank God we have a friend in Jesus, and in others.
Today is Mother’s Day. There is more telephone traffic on Mother’s Day than on any other day of the year. (Father’s Day telephone traffic, on the other hand, is no different than a typical Sunday.)
Call your mothers. Thank her for being your support. Call your children. Tell them you love them, and remind them they always have a support in you.
Then call someone else, if for no other reason, than to make sure that you and they will never have to say, “Sir, I have no one.”
Jim Y. Trammell's Blog 