Heal My Child - Jeremy Duncan

welcome to the commons cast we're glad

to have you here we hope you find

something meaningful in our teaching

this week head to commons dot church for

more information

we continue our lenten series

lent is why i am wearing purple again

this week if you haven't seen a clerical

stall before

this simply helps to remind us of the

season that we're in and what we're

preparing our hearts for which of course

is easter

but we still have quite a journey ahead

of us

six more signs of things to come

now last week we explored what john

calls the first sign

jesus turning water into wine at a

wedding

and this is one of my favorite stories

of jesus jesus making good wine and a

lot of it to keep a party going late

into the night i mean that is just good

stuff

i made a joke about apothec red and how

bad it was last week and a lot of people

gave me dirty looks i deserved that

but i stand by my opinion so take it up

with jesus that said

as much as i love this story

it is one that we do need to be careful

with

it is very easy for christians to

misread a celebration of jewish custom

and ritual as a critique of judaism

if you don't already understand the

culture and the beauty of these rituals

what they meant and what they were for

then the fact that jesus takes these

stone jars for ceremonial washing

and repurposes them as vessels of

celebration

that can very easily seem

like a repudiation of those religious

practices that jesus grew up with and

continued to celebrate throughout all of

his life

that there's no sense in this story

that jesus ever stopped ceremonially

washing his hands before a meal or that

he ever expected his disciples to stop

either

so instead of imagining this story

as these stuffy rules that we used to

follow but now we get to party

a better way to contextualize jesus

intent here

is on the lines of him speaking to his

people saying we've had these rituals

that have sustained us for centuries

that have reminded us of god's presence

near us and with us and the first sign

of things to come

is a celebration of the fact that it was

all true

god was near god is near and everything

we have longed and hope for it is all

coming to pass

now you may not be jewish i'm not jewish

and so these rituals that jesus

celebrates they aren't mine

but i still find this incredibly

encouraging

i mean how do you remind yourself of

god's presence how rituals and systems

and habits do you celebrate that keep

you close to god

do you journal do you pray do you get up

every sunday and come to church even

when it's daylight savings time

do you volunteer at the mustard seed to

pray for peace

jesus is saying that whatever our

reminders and rituals are when they

become realized

they point us to the world that will be

and so my encouragement is in whatever

small moments you experience joy in the

presence of the divine

whatever religious commitments you have

that transcend your religion

and connect you directly to the

heartbeat behind them reminding you of

god's goodness always

that is the sign jesus is pointing

toward

our rituals are not wasted

our attempts at goodness are not futile

the small contributions that all of us

make every day to align ourselves with

god's imagination for the world on earth

as it is in heaven jesus once said

all of this is a sign of things to come

today we move on to sign two but we're

actually going to talk about two

connected stories that move us together

toward john's second slime

first of all let's pray together

god who continues to offer us signs of

things to come

who speaks with grace and compassion

even in the midst of our hurts and fears

even in the midst of the violence we

direct toward each other

may we have ears to hear and eyes to see

your presence that surrounds us always

may those glimpses of truth those

glances of beauty

inspire dancing and celebration our

parties long into the evening

and may that joy become the fuel to

re-engage the needed work of justice and

restoration around us

may your signs inspire us to the hard

work ahead

and trusting that none of it is in vain

and for those of us who are hurt today

perhaps let down by someone we trusted

perhaps wondering if what we thought was

goodness was just an illusion

we asked that your spirit of comfort be

near and close

that truth would bubble to the surface

and that healing be allowed to take

place in each of us

and that this might in time become a

sign of your promise creation renewed

and restored in us

may joy return wherever it is lacking

and may your kingdom come

as it already is in heaven

in the strong name

of the risen christ we pray

amen okay

today we got two stories a woman at a

well and an official with a sick son

and we're going to talk about how i

think those stories are actually

connected in john's imagination

but here's our agenda for today

weddings and divorces royal officials

and no signs for you

but we're going to look at john 4 today

so let's start by setting the stage

after the wedding at canada jesus has

gone down to jerusalem for the passover

so cana where the wedding that we talked

about last week happened is in the

northern region called galilee jerusalem

is way down in the south in a region

called judea

and jesus makes that journey for

passover

chapter four he's starting the long

journey back home

we're talking about 150 kilometers here

so this is a multi-day journey by foot

however between galilee and the north

and judea and the south there was a

region called samaria that jesus would

have had to travel through

now samaritans were a related ethnic

group

that drew their lineage from the

assyrian occupation of this area

centuries earlier

so they had both azirium and jewish

ancestors and they had religious

practices that were drawn from both of

those stories and cultures

but while traveling through this area

jesus meets a samaritan woman at a well

one day

and you may have heard that story we

have talked about it here before it's a

pretty famous one

but jesus comes up and asks her for a

drink

she's surprised that he's interacting

with her so freely

there were gender expectations at the

time but there were also clearly some

tensions between these ethnic groups

regardless they strike up a conversation

and two important things happen first

jesus slowly shifts the conversation

from a drink of water to the living

water that he offers

and second

he surprises her with this profound

knowledge of her life and story

now

when you read the interaction in john 4

it feels kind of strange the woman says

look man it's kind of weird that you're

out here asking me for water in the

middle of the day

and jesus responds actually if you knew

who i was you would ask me for living

water

to which she replies what are you

talking about now in english it can kind

of sound like she's just not keeping up

with things right but the metaphor that

jesus uses here is actually very subtle

that living water sounds obviously

spiritual to us in english right

but in the first century living water

was also a way of saying running water

like a stream

there's a very ancient document called

the decay

it's one of the first church manuals

that we have sort of a book about how to

do church

but at one point it talks about baptism

how do you do a baptism

and the writer says look if you can

always use living water for a baptism if

you don't have that still water is fine

but try to make sure it's as cold as

possible

this basically comes down to hygiene

right dumping old warm standing water on

top of someone came with some

significant health risks

living water flowing water or at least

cold water was going to mitigate the

presence of bacteria they didn't

understand bacteria but they knew what

made you sick

the point being

living water just meant fresh running

water like a stream

so

when jesus asks for well water

and says actually i've already got some

fresh water the woman is like well why

are you here asking me for a drink

and so it's now that jesus starts to

make clear that he's getting at

something deeper

he says whoever drinks the water i offer

will never thirst again you see this

water that i give

becomes in them a spring of water

welling up to eternal life

and so the woman replies okay i see

where this is going tell me more

now we get to the famous part of the

story right

jesus says go and get your husband and

the woman says i don't have a husband

and jesus says that's right

you've had five husbands and the man you

are with now is not your husband

no

many scholars like lynn kohick have

pointed this out and we've talked about

it before the assumptions we make about

this woman are flat out wrong

this is not a story about some serial

adulteress

this is not a judgment against this

woman that jesus is making at all in

fact jesus is empathizing with her story

here

now the simple fact is

that a woman in the first century could

not divorce a husband

she could only be divorced by a husband

in other words

this is a woman

who has been continually abandoned and

discarded by the men in her life and she

has continued to pick herself back up

and move forward regardless

and the way that she responds to jesus

comments indicates that she understood

his intent and compassion

she saw his words as welcome not

criticism

and so she says i can see that you're a

prophet and they begin to talk about

their various religious traditions

the woman ends up coming to a place of

trust in jesus and she invites him to

spend some time with her and her

community

now side note here

this is not all at all out of character

for jesus

when jesus talks about divorce in the

sermon on the mount he takes a very

similar approach

he says it has been said anyone who

divorces his wife must give her a

certificate of divorce but i tell you

anyone that divorces his wife except for

sexual immorality makes her the victim

of adultery

now the context here again only men

could divorce a woman

but if they did they were supposed to at

least provide a certificate of divorce

essentially a legal divorce that allowed

a woman to remarry that's part of the

law of moses problem was they often

didn't do that

largely because there were basically no

ramifications for men getting divorced

at all

women on the other hand

who couldn't hold property or own things

the way that men could they were often

dependent on finding a new partner to

look after themselves

but if they weren't legally divorced

that would automatically make them

adulterous in the eyes of many

so jesus says look divorce is hard

and divorce is full of hurt divorce is a

concession to the brokenness of our

relationships but it happens

let's not add injustice on top of that

let's look out for those who are

disadvantaged by the status quo

and so consistently throughout the

gospels jesus takes the side of anyone

who is on the downside of the power

differential

advocating for a more fair approach to

the systemic imbalances in all of our

relationships

the gospel is not just hey let's be nice

to each other

jesus is advocating that we begin to

fundamentally restructure the systems

that allow for abuse in the first place

and so here

on his way back to cana

the rural region that he comes from in

the north

returning from a big religious festival

in the south he interacts with a

samaritan woman in the middle

a human person

who has a very different experience of

gender in the associated cultural norms

a human person who comes from a related

but different ethnic and religious

background from himself

he empathizes with the imbalances he

commends her for her religious practice

and devotion and he says

a day is coming when where we worship

and how we worship won't matter

a day when all of our limitations and

misconceptions will be swallowed up by

grace and on that day we will all of us

worship in spirit and truth

okay

hold on to that interaction

i think it's going to be important as we

follow the rest of the story in chapter

four

now picking up in verse 43 we read after

the two days he left galilee now that's

the two days he was invited by this

woman to stay in her community with her

teaching them in samaria

but after the two days in samaria he

left for galilee

now jesus himself had pointed out that a

prophet has no honor in his own country

yet when he arrived in galilee the

galileans

welcomed him for they had seen all that

he had done in jerusalem at the passover

festival

now this is sort of an interesting

comment right

john points out

that an honor a prophet has no honor in

his own country and then jesus comes

home to his own country and is greeted

with i mean a lot of honor

probably what's happening here is the

author is being ironic

and that's because

two chapters later in john 6 15 we read

that jesus knowing they intended to come

and make him king by force withdrew

again to a mountain by himself and then

a few verses later we see from this time

on many of his disciples turned back and

no longer followed him

all of that happens in the galilee

in other words he comes home and the

people are excited

but then they listen to him and they

become a little less enthusiastic

and john is sort of setting the stage

for what's going to come as the story

unfolds

other way this is what we read next

once more he visited cana in galilee

where he had turned the water into wine

again we're laying groundwork here we're

connecting back to where we were last

week and there was a certain royal

official whose son laisik at capernaum

when this man heard that jesus had

arrived in galilee from judea he went to

him and begged him to come and heal his

son who was close to death

unless you people see signs and wonders

jesus told him you will never believe

but the royal official said sir come

down before my child dies

go jesus replied your son will live

the man took jesus at his word and

departed

while he was still on the way his

servants met him with the news that his

boy was living

when he inquired as to the time when his

son got better they said yesterday at

one in the afternoon the fever left him

and the father realized that this was

the exact time at which jesus had said

to him your son will live

so he and his whole household believed

this was the second sign jesus performed

after coming from judea to galilee

now another interesting story right

and again fascinating that john thinks

this all of this is the second sign of

things to come

but let's talk about a few things here

and how this whole chapter works

together to illustrate what i think is

john's point

first of all a certain royal official i

don't know if you noticed this but this

woman at the well in john 4 and this

royal official in john 4 neither of them

get names

that's not to say that all of the

characters in john are anonymous they're

not right nicodemus in john 3

nathaniel and john 2 are both named and

they illustrate a personal connection to

jesus

we even talked about nathaniel's

possible connection to the wedding at

cana last week

but we also talked about how john has an

agenda in writing his gospel

this is a second generation christian

text

it's reflecting back on the story of

jesus and highlighting the meaning and

the significance of his life

so often

when we read these types of anonymous

encounters in john

it could simply be

that by the time john is written the

names and identities have been lost and

forgotten to time but it's more likely

that the reason certain stories are

anonymous is because the writer wants

those stories to be reflective of

something larger

the scholar gary bird says that these

anonymous characters are mirrors in

which to view jesus from another angle

in other words when a character is

anonymous john wants us to see ourselves

in that character

and we see ourselves in them and through

that we see jesus in a slightly

different way

okay and what about this certain royal

official who is he well literally in

greek what we read here is a certain

royal

now that doesn't mean this guy is the

king

or even a member of the royal household

but what it does signify likely

is that he worked directly for herod

antipas

now herod was the tetrarch of galilee

fancy title but it just means that he

ruled over one-fourth of an area

and in this case it was the northern

jewish region galilee in the smaller

region to the east called perea

now herod had been installed there by

the roman empire to keep the roman peace

that largely meant negotiating with the

jewish peoples and if necessary

violently putting down any uprisings

he is the son of herod the great

who ordered a bunch of babies murdered

around the time of jesus birth

and he is the same man who would later

murder jesus cousin john the baptist so

not a good dude

but that means that the certain royal

that comes to jesus for all intents and

purposes

works within and directly for

the very system that kept jesus people

subjugated

that harmed his family directly and that

would eventually execute jesus himself

in other words

there is a really interesting contrast

john is building in this chapter

between a samaritan woman abandoned by

her partners

and a royal official who wields the

power of the state

and the hinge here for me

is this sort of gruff line we get from

jesus

unless you people see signs and wonders

you will never believe

see that comes

at a really interesting moment in the

encounter

we read that this official went to jesus

and begged him to come and heal his son

who was close to death and jesus says ah

without a sign you'll never believe

except if you look more closely at the

language here there's some i think

questionable choices that the niv has

made

the word they have translated begged

here is the word erota

and veg is okay

it can be used that way particularly if

the context indicates it

but more commonly this word simply meant

to ask for something

that's how it's translated in the esv he

asked jesus to come and heal his son

where the niv is getting begged from

is that the word is in what we call the

imperfect indicative form and that

doesn't really correspond to the past

tensed begged

it indicates something like an ongoing

action he kept asking jesus to come

so begged is an option i get it

but from the context i would argue here

there's another possibility

and you can see that in the way that the

nasb has translated this when it says he

began asking or he kept asking jesus

which makes more sense to me when jesus

replies unless you see a sign and wonder

you will never believe in the man who is

used to getting his way

used to making demands used to seeing

people respond to him immediately when

he asked for something

says sir come now before my child dies

that's an imperative in the greek which

means it's a command to jesus come

now

and there's a really interesting dynamic

here

this man this official he clearly knows

that he needs jesus help

he calls him sir it's actually kurios or

lord in the text he defers to jesus in

one sense

but then in the next he's demanding or

at the very least strongly expecting

that jesus is going to accommodate him

in the next

and man if that doesn't ring true for me

i mean how many times have i prayed or

how many times have i given money or how

many times have i volunteered my time

and then acted as if or at the very

least felt like i deserved something on

the back end

in fact sometimes there's something even

more insidious in that isn't there

sometimes it's even more satisfying to

think you're not getting what you

deserve it feels like you've been hard

done by or under appreciated we kind of

feed off of that

that's a tricky line

right because sometimes we are

underappreciated

sometimes we are underpaid and sometimes

we have been undervalued or dismissed

and we do need to learn how to stand up

for ourselves and ask for something

but maybe that's part of the story here

our starting point where we come from

today we might even call that our

privilege

but the disparate experiences of say an

ignored woman

and a respected official

that can often obscure the line between

the goodness of god that comes to find

us

and the expectation of being served that

often comes from existing for far too

long at the top of an unbalanced scale

now is there anything wrong with what

this man is asking for of course not

he has a son in pain a child that he

loves of course he would advocate for

healing

but remember this story this chapter is

more than just about a son in need this

is about the world to come

and so we get this really interesting

contradiction here

where jesus says you won't believe

without a sign so no no sign for you

you'll have to leave trusting

and he does

and then john tells us that all of this

is a sign of things to come

if you were to sit me down and demand

that i tell you exactly what i think

john's meaning here is

i mean yes

of course i would say that it's about

the healing of our bodies

and the ways in which the world to come

will free us from the terror of sickness

and the tyranny of decay but if i had to

give you my gut feeling

my perspective on what i think he's

getting at i'd have to say it's more

than just the healing of our bodies

i think it's also about the healing the

reordering of our expectations

how perhaps those of us who are used to

getting our way

and acquiring what we need and having

our requests taken seriously how we can

learn to trust in what we can't see

even as those of us who've been pushed

to the edges and ignored start to notice

god showing up in all kinds of

unexpected places and out of bounds

conversations signs of god all around

them

except here's the real beauty of all

that that is a gift to everyone in this

chapter

because samaritan women

who notice the messiah talking with them

as equals they return home as leaders in

their communities ready to expand the

story for everyone

and royal officials

that gain the ability to trust in the

goodness of god beyond just what they

can demand with their stature

they become the kind of people that

slowly decouple their imagination of god

from the expectations of their culture

and when that truly begins to happen

then even those royal officials can

become signs of god's blessing to those

who've been struggling to see the divine

all along

and maybe this is the sign of things to

come a world in which the hungry are

filled with good things and the rich are

sent away empty

and both of them are better for it

the promise of a god that loves each of

us enough to meet us wherever we are

with the healing that we need

specifically

may the sign of things to come give us

hope for the healing of our bodies today

absolutely

but perhaps also the healing of our

expectations and assumptions about god

and the trust that as we grow in

awareness of the goodness that surrounds

us always

learning to celebrate what comes near to

us instead of just a demanding of more

that we might actually see the unending

graciousness of god and the ways that we

can become a blessing beyond ourselves

to those who need it

let's pray

god that comes near to all of us with

signs of things to come

for those of us who like a samaritan

woman

have not seen your presence for a very

long time

and if putin pushed aside

ignored abandoned

might we today see your presence a sign

of your goodness around us and near us

then for those of us who like royal

officials are full of blessing in our

lives surrounded by your goodness all

the time and yet still wanting

more

might your spirit come near

to remind us that a sign is not going to

make things better it is only our

awareness of gift that heals us

god might we recognize that probably

most of us

are present in both of these characters

without the push and pull of your spirit

that welcomes us with signs of things to

come and encourages us to see what is

already around

is the goodness and the graciousness of

the god that loves us perfectly

that yes you want to heal our bodies our

minds our emotions but also our

expectations of you

and our sense of purpose in the world

might you come near to each of us just

as we need in this moment in this day

right now

and may that

become the fuel the clarity the energy

to become a sign of things to come to

everyone we encounter this week

may we speak peace and blessing and

truth

with our words and our actions

and the ways that we love

in the strong name

of there is in christ we pray

amen