At a stoplight in the Denver metro area a man was holding a sign that read, “Trying to heal, wishing I had a home and a job”. I thought it was an interesting commentary for one’s life and it reminded me of the man, an invalid for 38 years, who laid beside a pool. Jesus said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 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 going another steps down before me.” It occurs to me that busy traffic intersections have become the equivalent of a modern day pool called Bethesda. I can imagine Jesus saying to those carrying signs the same thing he said to the invalid, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” (John 5: 6b-8 ESV)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----We don’t know whether this man was trying to heal or just panhandling. The probability of the circumstances opts for the later, but probability is not certainty. If he was trying to heal, he was delivering the right message through the wrong means. If he was simply panhandling, he was delivering the wrong message through the right means.
-----If there is anything similar between Bethesda and the intersection, it is that people are coming and going with their own interests at heart. Of course, minimal rules of propriety are observed at both, traffic obeys the street laws so accidents are minimized, and the folks at Bethesda at least do not step all over each other so neighbors are not dehumanized. But if this man had been laying at Bethesda a long time, I would think the law of averages would have brought someone by with enough generosity to help him be first into the pool, or at least there would have been a few days in which the competition was minimal enough for him to get his chance. I have always been a little suspicious about his sincerity.
-----The man at the intersection trying to heal must engage two worlds, the world of others where opportunities are found, and the world within himself where opportunities are realized. If he was being honest his message was right, because it was straight forward. But he has taken it to the wrong place, haven fallen for our society’s bumper-sticker and sound-bite expressions. People passing through the intersection are going somewhere other than right there. They will be there only momentarily. This man needs to introduce himself to people without the use of a sign. So he needs to go where people are going, where they will be long enough to actually meet him. Then he needs to express to them a truly mutual character through actions, one that shows he has benefit for them as well. He needs to be cheerful, courteous, respectful, and helpful. These are the least we do for one another, and yet their effects are in their own ways the most important. They deliver to another person emotional vitality which makes tackling their own problems easier. So they demonstrate mutuality, and they open channels of communication through which opportunities flow. Jobs come from opportunities, and homes from jobs.
-----But if the man was trying to panhandle, then he must be honest. He was in the right place, for he needed no more contact with others than to momentarily receive a handout. For sure, he would provide a small mutual benefit to his benefactors in that their handing him a bit of cash validates their own generosity. But his tricking them with a deceitful sign dilutes their validation by giving them opportunity to doubt his sincerity. His sign might better read, “Want more than I am earning. Feel good, feed my desires.” My guess is that he would have gotten more cash, and I am more sure he would have better benefited his benefactors through their opportunity to reflect upon what they had just done.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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