Trying to Limit Our Power, Freedom, and Joy

As human beings, we have the strange tendency to develop habits and practices that hurt ourselves and each other. Last week in the Revised Common Lectionary, the gospel lesson contained the story of Jesus' encounter with the women at the well. Although not explicit in the story, what framed the story was the collective violence and exclusion within Jesus' culture. The women was a Samaritan, which was an ethnic group that experienced exclusion from Jewish society. In fact, we are told that most Jews who were traveling took a roundabout route around Samaria to avoid contact with the Samaritans. The Samaritan women herself was an outcast among her own community. She was an outcast among outcasts. The collective violence and exclusion of Jewish culture in Jesus' time mirrors our own. In Jesus, God shows that God's place in cultural violence and exclusion is not to support it or endorse it, but to reveal it for what it is. To demonstrate to those who participate in it that they are hurting themselves and each other. And to reveal that those who are trapped within its structures have the power, through God's grace, to bring reconciliation and healing to themselves and to each other. The story of Jesus' encounter with the women at the well reveals both our human tendency to hurt ourselves and each other with violence and exclusion. This week's gospel lesson, the story of the encounter between Jesus, the Pharisees, and the man born blind, found at John 9.1-41. In the same way that collective violence and exclusion created the context for the story of Jesus and the women at the well, what underlies this story is our tendency to try to place limits on our own power, and our tendency to place limits on our capacity to receive God's power, mercy, and grace. In this story, the Pharisees are upset that Jesus heals the blind man on the Sabbath. In other words, they want to place limits on how, when, and where we can reveal God's power, and limits on how, when, and where God acts. As always, our own religious practices and traditions mirror those of the Pharisees. In our churches, we try to place limits and restrictions about how, when, and where we can reveal God's power, and limits upon how we respond to God's call. By healing on the Sabbath, God reveals that God wants healing and joy in the world, all the time, without limit. God will not be bound by religious conventions and traditions. In fact, God will act directly contrary to them if our conventions and traditions get in the way of God's work. And God wants us to be partners in God's plan to bring healing and joy to the world.