Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent - March 20, 2012
John 5:2 - 7
Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie — the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
I'm thinking about the man who had been disabled for 38 years, and who could not answer Jesus' question, "Do you want to get well?"
Most all of us have stories we tell ourselves and tell others about ourselves, and many of them are stories that rob us of our personhood. They are stories that define us in certain ways, stories that tell only a partial truth about who we are. We get stuck in the stories and cannot get out. We get so stuck in them that it becomes more comfortable to live inside a story of sickness than to move out into a life of wholeness.
Perhaps the story tells a tale of something we did long ago.
Perhaps the narrative tells about an ongoing struggle or habit we have.
Perhaps they tell a tale of broken relationship that has wounded us.
Perhaps they tell about a great deed or significant event that we were a part of.
Perhaps they tell of the woundedness we carry within us.
Perhaps they point to a defining moment in our lives, a moment that we either captured or lost forever.
We have told the stories so often, or rehearsed them in our memory so much that we can't imagine life without them. If someone says, "Who are you?" or "Tell me something about yourself," this is where we immediately go.
It is easy for us to get locked into these stories, to tell them to others -- and to ourselves -- and to see ourselves only in terms of this particular story.
This particular narrative about us may be true, but it is not our only narrative. It is not the full extent of what is true about us.
You are more than the handful of stories you rehearse about yourself. There is no script large enough to tell everything about your complexity and beauty.
You need to resist narrowly defining yourself or describing yourself in these small ways.
"Who are you?" can never be reduced to one or two narratives about your life.
For today . . . when I ask, "Who are you?", pay attention to what comes first into your mind. Notice the stories you rehearse, the ways you immediately identify yourself.
If you can sit with the question a little longer, see what new stories or new images arise for you. Resist the same old narratives. See if God might allow you to hear a new voice arising from within.
Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie — the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
I'm thinking about the man who had been disabled for 38 years, and who could not answer Jesus' question, "Do you want to get well?"
Most all of us have stories we tell ourselves and tell others about ourselves, and many of them are stories that rob us of our personhood. They are stories that define us in certain ways, stories that tell only a partial truth about who we are. We get stuck in the stories and cannot get out. We get so stuck in them that it becomes more comfortable to live inside a story of sickness than to move out into a life of wholeness.
Perhaps the story tells a tale of something we did long ago.
Perhaps the narrative tells about an ongoing struggle or habit we have.
Perhaps they tell a tale of broken relationship that has wounded us.
Perhaps they tell about a great deed or significant event that we were a part of.
Perhaps they tell of the woundedness we carry within us.
Perhaps they point to a defining moment in our lives, a moment that we either captured or lost forever.
We have told the stories so often, or rehearsed them in our memory so much that we can't imagine life without them. If someone says, "Who are you?" or "Tell me something about yourself," this is where we immediately go.
It is easy for us to get locked into these stories, to tell them to others -- and to ourselves -- and to see ourselves only in terms of this particular story.
This particular narrative about us may be true, but it is not our only narrative. It is not the full extent of what is true about us.
You are more than the handful of stories you rehearse about yourself. There is no script large enough to tell everything about your complexity and beauty.
You need to resist narrowly defining yourself or describing yourself in these small ways.
"Who are you?" can never be reduced to one or two narratives about your life.
For today . . . when I ask, "Who are you?", pay attention to what comes first into your mind. Notice the stories you rehearse, the ways you immediately identify yourself.
If you can sit with the question a little longer, see what new stories or new images arise for you. Resist the same old narratives. See if God might allow you to hear a new voice arising from within.
Comments
Post a Comment