Hazards of healing - John 5:1- - Living by the Word - Column

Christian Century, May 10, 1995 by Margaret Guenther

I spent much of my youth at the movies, absorbing among other things the biblical extravaganzas of Cecil B. De Mille. So when I read the story of the healing by the Sheep Gate, the scene comes alive on the inner screen of my imagination. It's a crowded scene, with all kinds of people and domestic animals as well as "a multitude of invalids, blind, lame and paralyzed" gathered around the pool. I'd like to think the pool was crystal clear, cool and inviting, but then I remember all the sick bodies that have been immersed in it, and suspect that it looks more like a pool in a neglected city park.

Apparently the pool has mysterious curative properties. The section about the periodic appearance of an angel of the Lord and the need to be the first in the water after it is stirred up is relegated to a footnote in the Revised Standard Version. In any case, the sick and the impaired seem to engage in a kind of race. This is not a pleasant picture: it suggests a rough and degrading scramble, like a crowd of beggars tussling over coins that have been tossed their way.

We don't know what was wrong with the nameless man whom Jesus singles out. It's clear that his mobility is impaired, since he can't move fast enough to compete. He is without friends or family, and he has been ill for 38 years, probably for most of his life. Perhaps he has never been well. Perhaps he doesn't know what it is to be well.

Jesus asks, "Do you want to be healed?" This seems an absurd question: the man has dragged himself to a place known for its curative powers and has waited beside the healing waters for "a long time." He must want to be healed. But his response reflects the ambivalence many of us feel about accepting wholeness: he does not answer directly, but instead explains that he has no one to help him, that others are pushing ahead of him.

It must have been miserable lying beside the pool. (My imagination always adds swarms of flies to the scene.) At the very least, the sick man must endure tedium and isolation in the midst of a crowd. After a few days, weeks or years of trying to get into the pool first, perhaps he has stopped trying and accepted defeat. Perhaps a ritual of going through the motions has become his daily routine. No one can criticize him for not trying; things just aren't going his way. Yet however uncomfortable and bleak the wait, it may be safer and more attractive than accepting healing.

These Gospel accounts of healing are not "happily-ever-after" stories, ending with the restoration of health and wholeness. It is easy to forget that healing brings radical change: it can be difficult, frightening and challenging. When the beggar Bartimaeus asked to receive his sight, did he know how much his blindness had protected him from pain and ugliness, that it had shielded him from really knowing the world around him? Being healed restored him to full participation and accountability.

Similarly, this nameless man is both shielded and depleted by his illness. No one expects anything of him, and at least he knows where he is. There are no surprises. Why should he risk losing this bit of security? Why should he change?

When I was recently struck down by one of those 24-hour afflictions, I found it a relief to be forced by high temperature and aching bones to take to bed without apologies for tasks left undone! Even as I declared my eagerness to be up and doing things, an inner voice red to me about the pleasure of dropping out, the luxury of unaccountability and the bland safety of relative helplessness. Lying in bed watching reruns on TV is hardly the same as lying beside the pool of Bethzatha, but I had a glimpse of the same perils and temptations.

The sick man's ambivalent, self-justifying response reminds me of a popular self-help book of the 1960s, Games People Play. The author described the phenomenon of "If only you would..."/"Yes, but ..." in which the helping person suggests quite reasonable ways of moving toward wholeness, while the troubled or suffering person counters each proposal with a reason why it will not work. To be human is to be ambivalent: we can want and not want at the same time. We can seek healing and resist it. We can drag ourselves to the poolside and avoid the last crucial steps "because no one will help us" or "because other people get there first" or "Yes, but ..."

Fortunately, Jesus does not play games. He wastes no words. "Stand up, take your mat and walk." The man obeys - and he never does make it into that pool.

The author is Margaret Guenther, director of the Center for Christian Spirituality at General Theological Seminary New York and author of Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction (Cowley).