Inclusion and Kingdom Building

John just keeps the inclusion train running in today’s first healing. Let me back the train up just real quickly to catch us all up. In John 3 we learn about God’s plan to save the whole world through the lifting up of Jesus on the cross. God’s plan is to save the world not condemn it, Then in the first half of John 4 we learn that Jesus goes through Samaria to act on that promise by bringing the good news of the Messiah to the Samaritans. Samaritans being the close cousins of the Jews that are never invited to family reunions, but now Jesus tells them they don’t have to worry about that anymore and are a part of the family of God. So Jesus has now covered the Jews and the Samaritans in plan to show the world that God’s love for the world is actually for the whole world.

However, there is actually one more group of people that needs to be a part of this train and that group is the gentiles. Gentiles, also known as everyone else who is not a Jew or a Samaritan. This is where we find ourselves in today’s reading from John. Jesus has finally made it back to Galilee when a royal official comes to Jesus seeking out his ability to perform miraculous signs and wonders. His son is sick and he wants Jesus to heal him or he might die. So he and Jesus have this conversation and it may seem like a bizarre conversation when we read it which got me to thinking about a good way to describe it.

Recently I have been watching a comedian by the name of Drew Lynch. And honestly who doesn’t need to laugh right now in a world that is so serious? Anyway, he puts out a lot of videos with specific interactions he has with audience members. To help give context, which we know is important, he shows the beginning of his performance. He says that he always opens with some jokes about the area he is visiting to get a feel for how the audience will react to him and his jokes and he calls this part of his show “sussin’ out the crowd”. He wants to know how much he can play with the audience and the kinds of things they are wiilling to laugh at and engage with him on.

Now I seriously doubt that Jesus would use the term “sussin’ out the crowd” when talking about his interactions with people, but if I’m going to be honest, that is what Jesus does and what he is doing with the official. (And to be transparent he is also doing this with the crippled man at the pool.) Jesus is attempting to get a feel for this official by calling him out for only wanting Jesus to heal his son. Jesus doesn’t just want to heal people and then be on their way, Jesus wants belief in God more than anything else. If this man is impressed with Jesus that’s one thing and it will probably fade away, but if the man has actual faith and belief in Jesus that is another thing.

Which is why when Jesus tells the man to just go home for his son lives is such a critical moment in the story. The man could have demanded that Jesus come to heal his son, to touch him or to say some special incantation. At the request Jesus would just be a healer or a miracle worker for this man. Which I already indicated, at this level the man could eventually forget and not worry about this Jesus ever again. But to take Jesus at his word that his son is alive, to not question it, to not ask for Jesus to audibly say a prayer or do some sort of ritual required faith and belief. Let’s be real skeptical here for a moment: Jesus could have told the man whatever he wanted to hear like go home because your son is alive just to get him to go away. He’s an official for Rome and a therefore is the ‘evil occupier’ as well as a Gentile. If Jesus wasn’t the ‘real deal’ or just doesn’t want to deal with this occupier, then he could have sent the man on his way. And we have no idea if this is anything the official is possibly thinking but it’s a possibility.

But we find out rather quickly that this man’s faith is rewarded. He believed in Jesus and his son was healed, and the official finds out that he was healed, we have to assume, at the very hour that he had engaged with Jesus. The man is so moved by Jesus and the leap of faith they both took, he and his household believed in Jesus. And now just through this one man, just like through the one Samaritan woman, Jesus has begun to proclaim the good news to Jews, Samaritans and now Gentiles…the whole world. And his disciples are witnessing to what Jesus is doing and that is informing and influencing their current and future mission and ministry.

Then Jesus meets a man at the pool of Bethsaida, and as I said, he ‘susses out the crowd’ and lands on this one man who has been trying to get into the pool for 38 years. If I’m being honest I have so many questions, thoughts, and frustrations about the fact that this man has been there that long. But I will focus on one (maybe two): I am sure that there were probably a lot of people waiting to be healed at this pool, but why couldn’t anyone figure out a system by which people could be healed? Because what appeared to be the system for at least 38 years was: first come first served. While that may work well in a New York deli, I’m not sure it’s the best system here. Because essentially the healthiest of the sick people there, or those with friends who could help them, would be the ones who got healed. Which means the people who were the worst off were the ones not getting healed. Why was the system: every person for themselves?

Jesus calls out the system and this man for being a part of a stupid system, and thinking that this was the right way to get well. Jesus calls out this man to take a step back and move away from what has been into something that could be. Which is actually ironic because hoping to wait to get into the pool seems like a lame thing to put your faith and trust in. Which is what I think is the point that Jesus is making. Obviously no one cares that these people just lay here and fight over who gets in first or that maybe there’s another way.

Jesus hears this man’s story and tells him to pick up his mat and walk, and the man does. What’s funny is that it’s not until later that Jesus and this man are able to finish their conversation. What Jesus tells this man is not sin anymore. What I think the sin is isn’t what got him crippled in the first place, but putting his faith in the broken systems of this world. His was thinking a pool would heal him. Jesus tells this man, in a way, that all systems, no matter how good intentioned, will fail. And that is a sin that we can all fall into, thinking that the things of this world are perfect and will always be good for us.

Perhaps that is also where the official ended up as well. He had probably exhausted all his other options. He had sought out the doctors and the healers and miracle workers and realized none of that would work. I don’t want to make it sound like faith and Jesus was a last resort, but for one he wasn’t a part of the Jewish faith so it probably wasn’t something he was thinking about in the first place, and second, how often do we hear that people do come to faith when they realize that the systems of this world have failed them? Sometimes that’s what it takes.

So here we are. Jesus fulfilling his mission to the whole world by bringing an official to faith in God. And we also see how Jesus engages with the world in different ways. The official coming to Jesus, seeking him out, needing something different from what the systems of the world offer. And then after this man seeks Jesus out, Jesus comes to, or seeks out, a man so stuck in the system that he doesn’t know what else to do and just waits hoping it will finally be his turn to win the lottery. And what a beautiful picture that we can see so many different ways that Jesus engages with the world, includes people from all around the world, and through it all builds up the kingdom of God. Perhaps you have experienced one of these ways or maybe even both, and know and trust that God is working in and through this world and the people in it to bring about God’s kingdom whether we are fed up with the systems or this world or stuck right in the middle of them. God finds us and brings us home, that is the love and grace of God at work in this world and in our lives. Amen.