AN ODE: TO THE PERIMETER-PEOPLE...

Suggested Listening-and-Watching-Before-Reading: "The Safest Ledge" by Copeland

How to begin? What sort of flashy intro might I use to grab a reader's attention? ...I can't say I really care. This is not something I want to dress up and "sell" to anyone. It's not a hot-button Christian issue. It's not one of the ongoing discussions you see anyone paying attention to in Christian media... It's just something that I feel has to be said. And I think many of those who read it will find that their own conscience has already been stirring over these things. Others will be skeptical or afraid. Others will vehemently disagree... But I'm not here to point out something that no one has been thinking about or feeling until now. I'm here to (hopefully) give words to those thoughts and feelings that many of us have struggled to articulate. Myself, I have been grappling with how to say all this for a long time.

This may be Christianity's proverbial "Elephant In the Room."

Oddly enough, I wrote the majority of this entry almost two years ago exactly. I've let it "breathe" for some time, waiting to see when I felt like putting it out there to share with others. I've really lived with this one, wondering if the pressing reality I felt when it all first hit me would subside or lessen in impact... but it has not. I've wondered if I really, truly wanted to make a statement this dramatic, or to imply such major things despite the backlash that might entail... but I guess I'm at peace with whatever response is to come. I know now that I am not being presumptuous to publish this entry - I'm not trying to shove this out there without giving it full consideration first. I know because I gave it time. I gave it a lot of time.

But time has only shown me one thing: This is not going anywhere. And no one is saying these things the way I crave to hear them said, so that must mean I need to say them myself... That's not to say this will be my one, definitive "opus" on the subject. Nearly everything I write has been chipping away at the surface of this for some years now, but I know that, despite this being the most direct I've ever been in taking on these ideas, I'll continue to take them on from here out - both directly and indirectly. I'll continue to paint the image taking shape in my mind. It will come up again (and again) because the same SCANDAL I find here, I find everywhere. I find it in everything Jesus says - in every parable and every conversation. In every dealing with the religious, the Samaritan, the Greek, the Roman. I find it in the prophets. I find it in the apostles. I can't get away from it.

I'm thinking this is the story I was created to tell.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not one for these sorts of grand proclamations in regard to myself. I tend to fall to the other extreme in that, if anything, I often discredit my own voice, or convince myself that other people are already saying what I have to say, and that I have nothing new to offer the discussion. I'm more prone to keep somewhat quiet about the full, blunt truth of what I see around me... But my bout with persistent and (dare I say) prophetic dreams over the past few months (which were really heavy - spiritually, emotionally and physically, and which I detailed in my previous blog) served only to revive these same concerns within me, which I had put down and filed away two years ago.

Thus, where I may have been too slow to pass along this perspective in my waking life, God has apparently chosen to wake me up from within my dreams... The irony is not lost on me. But what I danced with poetically in my dreams, I will now dance with a bit less poetically. And there's no introduction I can give the statement I'm making here beyond that... Here's the big reveal - AN ODE: TO THE PERIMETER-PEOPLE...

I’d like to begin with a selection of the apostle John’s writing.

…After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew “Bethesda,” which has five porches. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. (For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.) One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

To many, this story is a familiar one. Most of those raised anywhere near the church would say it's the kind of story you're as likely to hear in the "adult sanctuary" as you are in "Sunday school" with the kids. And that makes sense, of course: At its core, there's a simple account of Jesus' healing and compassion on display. However, as I began to read from (what we refer to as) John chapter 5 - which I've done a number of times before - this time, the context of of what was taking place here really jumped out at me. For the first time in my life, I began to sense some implications here beyond "Jesus healed a guy." For the first time, I examined the healing through what it would have appeared to mean then... And, as a result, an idea of what a similar act of Jesus might look like now began to take shape.

That's the part which really floored me... I'll explain. Let's recap the situation from the passage first: In Jerusalem, and in the first century, there's a pool called Bethesda, which people go to for healing. The water is believed to have healing properties.

There is a man at Bethesda. A regular. Part of the usual crowd. This man has had some sort of infirmity or disease or handicap for thirty-eight years. We don't know exactly what it was, but thirty-eight years is a long time, whatever the physical issue might be.

Whatever it is that keeps this man at Bethesda is extremely debilitating and limiting to him. He can't move well enough to even have a chance with the way of things at this pool... So he's very sick, and yet, the path of healing is literally beyond his reach. He's on the outskirts and cannot move any closer to the source.

His words to Jesus indicate that he's losing hope. He knows what he seeks, but does not see how he can possibly receive healing when it's impossible for him to contend with others and play by the rules of Bethesda... And yet, there he is. At this renowned "pool of healing." Part of the crowd.

There are many who take this circumstance (and Jesus' response to it) as some sort of metaphor for the world or a world system - so the message they might derive from this passage would essentially be something along the lines of "Jesus is the only true healer." And, while that's a valid sentiment worthy of discussion, I do not see it really meshing with the context of Bethesda. It strikes me as a very small and convenient aim, requiring little of those who hold to it.

There are probably many more people who've taken this circumstance as nothing more than "a healing of Jesus" (without much thought given to what Bethesda was, or how it informed this situation specifically, or what part it played in Jesus doing as he did). For them, this story never left the safety and tidiness of felt-board cutouts in the Sunday School classroom. This, too, strikes me now as a small perspective. In the gospels, Jesus is always dynamically responding within contexts. He doesn't just float along - aloof, working some esoteric program. He's always aware and invested. He's always presenting meaning - always acting in a way which also speaks volumes. So, keeping that in mind, I'll finish the recap in this chain of events.

Jesus comes along to Bethesda, and can see the man's condition. Jesus can tell the road has been long and weary for this guy.

Jesus extends the simple, compassionate question: "Do you want to be made well?" And obviously the man does, but he explains to Jesus the humble truth - that he has no one to help him, and it is impossible for him to reach healing within this system.

And that's when Jesus tells him to stand up and walk. The man rises, and walks.

So... what do we see?

Apart from meeting Jesus out on the perimeter of this crowd, blocked off from what it was there to celebrate, this man would have remained there - part of the "healing crowd" and yet... without healing, and very much alone. And that brings me to a bit bolder of a statement, which I think needs to be made because I never hear it put out there, much less with any conviction. See, it's very rare for the ethical or moral quality of Bethesda to be discussed much at all when this passage is brought up - those subjects are most often left alone entirely. It's as though some people (especially those in charge of "teaching" these things) avoid the subject purposefully, like they don't want to take a stand in either direction. As for me... I'm not who I used to be, and I'm comfortable to take a 'position' on Bethesda. So I'll go ahead and make the statement I believe needs to be made:

The entirety of what Bethesda stands for is a lie.

That's a nagging suspicion I've held - somewhere, buried internally - for years, but I want to finally let it out. For so long, I felt like admitting this would be some sort of sacrilegious affront to the memory of this pool of healing, as though the place itself was just fine (or at least not worthy of open criticism), and this particular man just needed some extra help, and that's what brought Jesus along to him (or maybe Jesus just "happened by" and "seized the moment")... That's the essence of the cautious and tame view taken by many and taught from many pulpits.

However, I feel perfectly at liberty to point out a few things here that bother me about this pool and this crowd. I've always pushed that reaction aside while looking at this story... Maybe I was subconsciously afraid of the implications... but not anymore. So I'll admit it: I don't like this system they've got going at Bethesda. I don't like it at all. And for at least two reasons:

1) Their system is unfounded... In's a nice legend they have going, but there's nothing in Hebrew scripture to suggest that healing must happen in this place, as though God was dependent on or shackled to a location. Not that God wouldn't heal or move in spite of their misguided traditions, but still, the idea of God being merciful doesn't validate something which is false just because God works within it. (Might I begin to suggest here that God working within our church services doesn’t necessarily validate how we’re assembling ourselves to the point where we can cease to question how we gather and what we aim for together?)

2) Their system is unfair... And that's the worse part. Their formula for healing favors those who need healing the least, and that's a fundamental flaw at the root of this story which should not be overlooked (though it usually is). The odds are literally stacked against the ones who need healing most. And thus, they've created a competition - here in the place of brokenness - and within that competition, those of privilege, those with more power, have a guaranteed "win." A hierarchy has arisen. The centerpiece of this gathering is dominated by a select few to the exclusion of others.

As I admitted these things to myself, instead of pretending everything was shiny (and still trying to take something true from the passage despite that dishonesty), I allowed myself to react to Bethesda how I would apart from tradition or familiarity. I became annoyed, indignant. I thought (and almost spoke audibly), "This place is stupid and wrong, and it's nothing like God's nature. How can I revere and respect so corrupt a system?" ...And then I sensed a still and small nudge - that moment of clarity when you realize such a thing - a wash of quiet understanding, as though God replied, "Yep. Exactly. That's what I always thought too."

A flood of thoughts unwrapping this passage in a new light came to me. I felt like I was finally viewing the situation as Jesus would have seen it then, and not just some cheap or cute version of it. It was so clear: The pool of Bethesda had become a system of abuse. A place of competition and contrivance and control. That's what it had to look like then - holding its tradition over the heads of the broken and burdened, keeping them dependent on a promise that would ultimately prove to be nothing but vapor for most of them. Still, their retelling of an older legend involving an angel kept most of them repeatedly attending. Hoping the formula would work. Hoping they could play by the rules of Bethesda and be rewarded with healing. Hoping they could be amongst the few lucky ones, even as repeatedly subjecting themselves to the system also subjected them to abuse and neglect, eventually embittering them. They became regulars to this show despite their reasoning having long ago morphed from hope to hopelessness. They just hung on as their hearts calloused, and they ultimately became more defined by their brokenness than they might have been before showing up to take part in the healing.

When you see the essence of that time and place for what it was... You can't help but start to see some pretty heavy implications for now as well. Let's face it: The parallels between Bethesda then and "church" at large today are, well, scary.

And a cautionary tale begins to take shape. It could be phrased in many ways...

When the place of healing has itself become a place which fosters sickness... When what should be the even ground of God's mercy has itself become a competition... When grace and rest in God's touch have become perverted by the rat race of a broken humanity... When the scope of God's power and heart have been reduced to controlled formulas... When the potential for healing favors some and excludes others, establishing a hierarchy of who's good enough and who's not... When a place set aside for the sick to get better has become a place of discrimination and judgment... And when the promise of wholeness is dangled in front of those it's not legitimately being offered to, because they've quietly been deemed "beyond the reach" of healing...

WATCH OUT. Because that's a dangerous place to find yourself in. You could spend decades there and experience no change at all. Your great hope could become your great hopelessness. And you could even become more defined by whatever afflictions, limitations, disabilities, burdens and baggage you carry than you were before you went to that place.

Bethesda.

They had a whole pool of it then. But I'd argue we have a lot more of it now. It's all over the place. Christianity as a culture is saturated with it, choking on it. It's everywhere. 'Places of healing' in name are so often 'places of sickness' in practice. And we need to see the parallels. We need to connect-the-dots, so we don't delude ourselves in the very realms where Jesus so courageously moved with beauty and freedom in order to bring us clarity. Let's put it this way: ANY system of inequality which would color our common, human need and desire to "be made well" is not a system we should be encouraging. It's an institution dealing in damage and abuse, the casualties of which are people.

And let's take that a step further, considering Jesus' response to the system in place at the pool of Bethesda... It would seem that any such system is one that Jesus has no problem whatsoever working outside of and beyond. Jesus has no problem undermining the formula. Jesus has no reservations when it comes to moving beyond our hangups and abuses, however much religious credibility they might carry.

To those who desire to be made well - who are sick, and who need more than anything to be spiritually-healed, restored to intimacy and purpose, discovering a peace which surpasses understanding and freedom from the brokenness which has tried to define them... the people of God are to be a "place of healing" for their sake. It's our mission: Love. But if the place renowned as one of healing looks more like Bethesda - a place of false hope, dangling the idea of healing before them, but never truly offering it (or even modeling it) beyond words... And if the people gather selfishly, seeking their own betterment first and foremost, isolated in their hearts from one another despite being joined together... then Jesus will go around that system, or any system like it. Jesus will not be bound to unfounded and unfair systems.

And Jesus will not be found at the center of such systems... though you might find him on the perimeter.

It was an elaborate system they had going too, wasn't it? The parenthetical backdrop provided within the passage from John paints the picture for us. It was surrounded by its own mythology, with a set of its own rules and a status quo all its own. They all gathered. They all knew the drill. But, as we saw, Jesus healed the honest and broken man in spite of this elaborate system. And outside of it too.

I wonder how often we've seen our own faces reflected in that shameful pool.

And I wonder especially, how often has it been the case that we've been so intent on the stirring of the water - and so focused on our chance to dive in and claim whatever experience everyone thinks so highly of - that we've missed Jesus entirely in the process? How many times, while we all remained fixated in one direction, was Jesus out in the margins, making friends with someone we had no time for? How many times have we seen people jockey for power, position and prominence, elbowing and boxing out those around them, only to find the place of glory they had so desired fell short, and that the people they hurt in the process were the real prize they had missed out on?

Within the church today - all over the world - there are many people, routinely gathered, who want to be made well. They've prayed the “magic words” prayers, and bought books, and listened intently and earnestly to people they believed must have the answer, casting their lot with decades and centuries (and millennia) of tradition... and yet something has been lacking. They still want to be made well. They've found themselves routinely submitted to a place of healing which really has no place for them unless they are to live their spiritual lives as a masquerade, which would be hypocrisy. They've found themselves repeatedly held to standards and rules which defeat the purpose of healing altogether. The promises of a "new covenant" or  "liberty in the Spirit" have been overshadowed by new Laws and eleventh commandments. They've been led to practice discrimination, railing against one thing they determine to be "sin" while ignoring other sins (that is, the obvious ones which implicate them) entirely. There's even an Evangelical culture (here in America specifically) which has allowed itself to crawl into bed with a certain political party, and which has cultivated (among other things) a nationalized view of church that results in young and innocent children pledging allegiance to an American flag followed by a "Christian" one - cementing in them (perhaps forever) a false understanding that these two things go together, hand-in-hand, and that God's kingdom is to be treated as though it was a kingdom of this world.

...All of this is a despicable lie. And it's a lie which parades itself before us with such confidence that few of us even realize it's making a mockery of the very healing we showed up to find in the first place. It's a lie which further entrenches us within the icy grip of the disease, and simultaneously tries to convince us that we've found the cure.

Is it really any wonder that so often, in so many places, a prevailing false gospel of prosperity persists and grows? This idea that God is more interested in you having the American dream, and less interested in you loving your neighbor (and your enemy while you're at it)? This idea that you can look the other way at all the greed, violence and oppression wreaking havoc on the world around you, so long as you feel "blessed," and so long as you don't disrupt your own pursuit of comfort (or anyone else's)? And all the while, so many who claim a union with Jesus continue to live contrary to everything he so clearly demonstrated. They think that their praying the right words, making mental assent to the right things, and attending "services" validates that claim. A life of love, even sacrifice, is not so much the priority. They believe in salvation by affiliation, not transformation. They believe that "gospel" - which literally means "good news" - is a message of guilt and self-loathing (but God loves your pathetic ass anyway). They believe that drumming up an emotional response musically is the primary exercise of "worship," rather than measuring worship the same way Jesus did: in how people, and particularly "the least of these" were being treated.

With all this (and so much more) being the sad reality around us...

We have to ask ourselves, What would God have to say about this? I think the prophets provide us with that answer time and again. I actually did a good deal of chronicling that message in another blog. And I'm reminded of Malachi in particular, who found Israel in a very similar state to Christianity today, and said:

How I wish one of you would shut the Temple doors so that these worthless sacrifices could not be offered! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and I will not accept your offerings. But my name is honored by people of other nations from morning till night. All around the world they offer sweet incense and pure offerings in honor of my name. For my name is great among the nations,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

How scandalous this was then, hundreds of years before Jesus and the new covenant! And how scandalous it remains today, in a Christianity where people make no room for the way Christ himself would designate the parameters of his people... where his inclusion and affirmation of goodness and beauty (wherever it might be found) is dismissed, or viewed as "relativism," or some other minimizing thing meant to scare us away from it in order to obscure its simplicity... Malachi's prophetic declaration insists that, even under the old covenant, God's "name" (nature, character, will, purpose) was potentially being honored, upheld, witnessed to and made great... by non-Hebrew people all over the world. Outside the Jewish system of faith, even theology. By whoever brought an offering of "purity" before God - even if they didn't have the "recipe book" for doing so.

Dwell on that a moment.


Don't miss the challenge it would have presented to the average Jew - the affront it would have been to their common understanding, which said, "We are God's chosen people. People of the law. People of the covenant. We have the correct beliefs, rites and rituals. We're set apart and properly-affiliated. We're 'in' by default." But God replies to that line of thinking with a resounding, "No. Absolutely not. In fact, there are people without any of the benefits you've known who know me, engage me, and move with me in truth and in beauty. And so long as you remain the way you are, I wish you'd just close the doors of the Temple." 

In the foreground of this communication we see God correcting a covenant people, but in the background is the even more scandalous and revolutionary truth: Even then, under a more "centralized faith system," God never had a problem recognizing people of conscience and spirit the world over. God liberated the Jews and set them apart to be a blessing to the world... but God did not call the Jews to have the market cornered on spirituality itself - like some exclusive club - the ONLY people who "belonged to God." In reality, the most "true" form of Judaism was never anything but an inclusive one. 

It would seem beyond apparent then that God's way of designating "God's people" has always ultimately been the same way Jesus made so apparent, and even blatant: God has always had higher ideals than any certain set of temple practices or religious rituals (and again, the great weight of prophetic voices adamantly and repeatedly has exactly this to say). Ideals of others-centerdness. Ideals of generosity. Ideals of conscience. Ideals of LOVE... Micah summed it up this way:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

It stands to reason that if all of this could be true then, it remains just as true today. In an age where Jesus has torn the veil of the temple and promised the Spirit of God all the more liberally, how could it not be at least as true as it used to be? Jesus modeled so much of this while spending time in the margins, and on the perimeters of those places of gathering and healing that religious society had designated as its own... And so, wherever we might set up four walls, and hear our own voices echo those of our ancient sisters and brothers in faith... "We are God's chosen people. People of grace. People of the new covenant. We have the correct beliefs, services and moral stances. We're set apart and properly-affiliated. We're 'in' by default." ...We must understand the crucial truth that, though the wording has changed a bit, the core assumption we make is the same.

And Jesus would have no problem whatsoever in shattering that assumption.

Let's bring this back home.

At some point, we must admit that there are people who know that God knows them, and that they are loved by God, and who desire to know and love God themselves… and yet who find the “church” to be a hurdle (at best) in that pursuit. Many Christians cannot come to grips with this reality, and openly dismiss anyone who is unwilling to “come to Jesus” via them and their words, their programs, their methodologies, their formulas... It’s as though they believe they are “the way, the truth and the life,” since they have a hard time accepting a God who is bigger than their perception of who’s “in” or “out” according to their classifications… But be certain, God is very much in the habit of working beyond the expectations of the religious, and God is very much at home on the perimeter. So when we say, "This pool is all we need. We have the place and process mapped out. We recognize the action of God here and here alone," Jesus says, "My friends, I'm doing just fine out here on the perimeter, thanks. Come out sometime if you want to indeed be free."

This is the God of the Exodus. This is the God who was happy to dwell nomadically in tents (tabernacles) and never demanded a temple, and who never was limited exclusively to a temple despite allowing one. This is the God who is so powerfully known and made known to those in exile. This is the Spirit-God who is compared to “wind” and “fire” and “water” – things which move and flow freely. And if we’re uncomfortable with a God on the perimeter – a God outside of our pre-established institutional meeting places and times – we really haven’t come to grasp the overarching narrative of scripture, which consistently shows a precedent of non-precedent for whom God calls, and when, and where, and why… and how those women and men are called, moved and changed in ways we would least expect. 

If we question why God is working so much in the margins, and in ways we are uncomfortable with and unaccustomed to, we really must reexamine our own places of gathering, our own systems of healing. If they distort the heart of God and abuse the people of God as Bethesda did, they will ultimately repulse the person longing after real healing, spiritual formation, wholeness, and peace… And being repulsed by such a system? That’s no discredit to such a person. It’s a discredit to us. For them, it is actually a sign of integrity and conscience - they demand more than a selfish system of inequality from a spiritual people. They demand more of any "God" they would determine is worth believing, not to mention believing in. And to not concede this point takes nothing away from them or the potential reality of their God-encounter... but it does show plainly our own obsession with that stagnant old pool. 

Can we not see? 

For so many of us - while we long for even a glimpse of a stirring in that water - we ignore the great and torrential ocean of grace and liberty which exists out on the perimeter. Who among us would have the courage to come down from the known safety of our structures, or to leave the familiar embrace of our formulas? Who among us would seek Jesus even if it means heading into the uncharted territories? Who among us has the tenacity of faith, hope and love required to find (and to become) a new kind of "healing community?" A people who do not abuse or neglect one another while claiming they're being healed... a people who do not fight over a prize and miss the prize that exists in each other? 

Who is yearning to live a life of radical, practical faith without the crutch of being bound to the same old Pool, staring into that stagnant water? Who is ready to chase after being made well without limiting such an aim to whatever Bethesda they've known? If that's me, and if that's you... We have to learn to live in the tension of the perimeter. 

Who is ready to be a Perimeter-Person?


NOTES Do I need to be more blatant in what I'm implying? I don't think so. Those who resonate with these words wouldn't need me to, and those who loathe what I'm saying wouldn't benefit from me beating them over the head with it either.

Am I building an entire position out of one passage? Absolutely not. Bethesda was a catalyst for me - a point of reference in which I could see my overall understanding of scripture reflected in its waters.