Epiphany 3: John 5:2-18
(Evensong)
This was why
they sought all the more to kill Jesus, because he not only broke the sabbath
but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God – John 5:18
One of the
great insights from Christian thought and prayer is that the words and actions of
Jesus are suited perfectly to the kind of world we live in, and the kind of
creatures we are as humans. Unlike the
gods of mythology, Jesus was human in the ordinary sense of the word, and, as
Christians go on to confess, he also shared the divine life of God in its
fullness. He was neither a god who lived pretending he was mortal, nor a
spiritual guru who said some profound things now and then; he was, in the language
of the Christian teaching, Son of God, Son of Mary. He is counted as one of us, and yet, more human
than us in the way he loved with perfect freedom and without fear.
I would like
to spend a few moments thinking with you on what it means for Jesus to love
without fear. I suggest we start by considering the world in which Jesus lived.
I don’t mean primarily the world of 1st Century Palestine, but the
world in general: this world, our world. What kind of things can we say about
our world? Well, our world is a place of great beauty and darkness, the kind of
place animated by love but often controlled through fear. It is a world where
healing happens every day, yet a child dies every 2 seconds. It is a world
where we argue for gun control while within this country remains enough
weaponry to destroy the planet a hundred times over. In other words, it is a
world where our freedom to live human well is seriously hindered by fear, death
and violence.
This evening,
I suggest to you that freedom fundamentally means being able to give oneself completely;
a free society is one where people are able to be open to each other, to love
each other without fear. In our society, we look to the government and technology
to provide means for us to be free: we struggle for and against laws that
restrict us, and seek after technologies that will help us overcome disease and
distress. These methods sometimes help, but more often than not, freedom via
government constraint or by means of technological advancement only work for a
short while. Eventually, we feel trapped again, perhaps because the freedom we
seek through policy becomes the tool of interest groups, or the advancement we
seek turns out to be just one more product in the marketplace.
Of course, important
freedoms have come about through policy and technology. My point is that such
activity can never be the final word. There is always, it seems, something
else, new forms of slavery, that emerge to lock us in and keep us afraid to
love, afraid to give ourselves to each other with confidence. I think we are
witnesses to these new slaveries in how we make a commodity out of people, and
how we place undue energy in maintaining individual rights against the good of
society. The commodification of life turns everything into a product, and the
bias against the common good, entraps us in ways that will be our undoing. Under
such conditions, what hope do we have of thriving as humans?
I mentioned earlier
that one of the astounding things the Church declares about Jesus is that his
words and actions are suited perfectly to the kind of world we live in, and the
kind of creatures we are as humans. As the one in whom the fullness of God was
pleased to dwell, Jesus inhabits a space in our world where humanity is free to
love without fear. This freedom is evident in the healing of the man in today’s
reading from St. John. The story of a
poor soul waiting half a life time for wholeness; well, what wonder to hear the
words: stand up, take your mat and walk.
What is odd in this story is the reaction of the religious authorities.
Actually, it’s not odd at all if we consider how the openness of Jesus life was
represented through his ministry of healing and reconciliation. The authorities
are concerned with a kind of freedom; the freedom made possible through maintaining
order. This is important and necessary, so let’s not think that the authorities
are 1st century bureaucrats. The struggle here is between two
visions of freedom: one that moves us towards loving without fear, the other, a
more conserving freedom that keeps the powers and principalities satisfied.
Jesus is all about loving without fear, even though such a life is a threat to
the authorities and religious leaders. Being free will make people nervous,
especially people who benefit from our fear.
For his action of healing on the Sabbath,
Jesus is marked for death. This tells us one additional fact about our world.
If you love enough you will in the long run inherit the fate of Jesus*. He loved
with prefect freedom as only one sent from God could. His life was not dictated
by the fears that usually grip us; and for this, he showed us what a full human
life looks like. But more than this, in giving himself fully to us and to the
world, he became the source of a renewed humanity so that we too can learn to
love as he did. We too, can practice our freedom to love our friends, the
stranger and the enemy. As the source of
our freedom, the God we encounter in Jesus equips us to face the fears and the
powers and principalities that would rather we remain docile consumers of the
flaccid freedoms dished out to us in the name of ‘liberty and justice for all’.
Through Jesus, we have the chance to be healed of our fear and complacency.
Like the man
in need of healing, we are asked this evening: do you want to be made well? Or
better: do you want to be free? It is time to get up and walk. It is time to be free. Go, love without fear.
*A favorite line from Herbert McCabe (See his, Law, Love & Language, p. 133)
