Transforming Questions

Grace works through facing big questions

This week I did a deep dive into the questions that Jesus asks people. Questions help us face the next step in our journey. I noticed how many times questions lead to healing and transformation. We often look for answers, but maybe we should be looking for better questions.

John 15:1-15

In Rabbinical teaching, the questions asked are as important as the answers given.  A Rabbi might ask their children at the dinner table, “How many questions did you ask at school today?”  Major sections of the Talmud are structured around important questions, and the answers famous rabbis gave.  The Pirkei Avot in this format:

"Who is wise?":"One who learns from everyone,"

"Who is strong?": "One who controls his impulses,"

Someone once asked a Rabbi why he often answered a question with another question.  The Rabbi replied, “What’s wrong with a question?” 

In the four Gospels, Jesus asked 308 questions, he was asked 183 questions, and he directly answered on 8 questions.  Instead of having bumper stickers that say, “Jesus is the answer,” it should read, “Jesus is the question!”  Jesus asked interesting questions like:

What are you looking for?

Where is your faith?

Why are you afraid?

Do you want to get well?

What do you want me to do for you?

Who do people say that I am?

Who do you say that I am?

My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?

None of these are “yes” or “no” questions. You won’t find the answers on a Google search or from Chat GPT.  You might answer the question differently on Tuesday than on Monday.  These queries require reflection and encourage probing for self-knowledge.  The word “question” contains the word “quest.”  

Question

Quest

The asking takes someone on a search.  A quest goes to new place you have not been.  If the answer is easy and covers old ground, there is no quest.  Jesus does not ask questions for information, but for transformation.  Let’s hold onto that perspective as we look at the context to Jesus’ question in our scripture.

A paralyzed man sits by a pool at the Sheep’s gate near the entrance of the Jerusalem Temple, likely used for ritual purifications necessary for someone who is ceremonially unclean.  Some ancient manuscripts include the detail that an angel would periodically stir the waters, and the first person to go into the water would be healed.  Jesus discovers this man has been sitting beside the pool for 38 years.  Since I worked in a shelter for people without homes for eight years, I have dozens of questions.  How did he become paralyzed?  How does he eat?  Does anyone help him?  Is this where he sleeps?  Does he have a mental health diagnosis?  But Jesus is not interested in all these informational questions.  He deals with the transformational questions.  So, he asks the man, “Do you want to be well?” 

Why wouldn’t the man want to be well? He has been sitting there for 38 years.  Notice Jesus doesn’t say, “Do you want me to heal you?”  This question is consistent with at least four other healing stories.  Bartimaeus blindly calls out for Jesus to have mercy on him.  Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”  Isn’t it obvious that he wants to see?  Perhaps Jesus doesn’t want to rush in and fix people.  He wants to make sure what people really want and need. 

Consider the question, “Do you want to be well?”  Does everyone want to be well?  If you ask a doctor what their major frustration is, they often say lack of patient follow through.  Only 50-60% of people take medications as prescribed to them.  Only 30-50% of people follow through on lifestyle changes like diet and exercise.  People often drop out of physical therapy too soon.  Despite mountains of evidence about what makes us healthier and live longer, most of us struggle to do these things.  Do we want to be well?

When I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in my 30s, I struggled to change my life.  I didn’t like the idea of taking medication the rest of my life.  There might be side effects.  I really liked my diet of regular doses of pastrami and Swiss on rye, and pepperoni pizza with extra cheese.  I would stick with the program until I felt well, then I felt cured, and returned to old habits.  This attitude prolonged my suffering.  I remember preaching on this text and asking myself, “Do I want to be well?”  Of course, I want to be well!  Doesn’t everyone want to be well?  But the still, small voice wouldn’t be silent.  If you want to be well, why aren’t you taking more action? Todd, you are a smart guy, so what is holding you back? 

These questions turned into a quest.  Here is what I discovered.  First, acting for change in my life meant accepting and embracing reality.  I did not want to accept living with a chronic illness at age 30.  My self-image was of a person who still had the school record in the mile run and could log 50 miles a week.  Runners learn to push through physical barriers to win the race.  When I applied that attitude to balancing work and family life, and living with a chronic illness, it was a disaster.  Embracing wellness meant accepting limits, and I did not want to do that.  I wanted to be cured, so I acted like I was fine instead of taking action for my health.  The paradox is that I got well when I accepted my illness, along with diet, medication and better managing my energy and calendar.  I changed my view of wellness and wholeness.  It is not a magical cure.  I still have Crohn’s Disease.  But I am well.

Let’s travel back to Jesus and the paralytic man.  Listen to the man’s answer to Jesus:

“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.”

Notice he doesn’t answer the question. He is focused on the reasons he can’t get well.  He has no help.  Other people are faster.  He has just had bad luck for the last 38 years.  I wonder why he felt the need to explain his situation.  Please understand I’m not blaming a man who is paralyzed from not being well.  I assume he didn’t cause his paralysis, and positive thinking was not going to overcome his affliction.  I can only imagine how helpless, hopeless, and frustrated he felt.  I would not blame him for giving up.  He is downtrodden, but he is still hanging out by the healing pool. What made him stay there?

Other people approached Jesus with a great desire to be healed.  When Jesus asks Bartimaeus what he wanted, he boldly said, “I want to see.”  A woman who was afflicted with a hemorrhage for many years thought to herself, “If I could only touch the hem of Jesus garment, I will be healed.”  Those two wanted to be well, and literally reached out and grabbed it.

When Jesus brings healing to the man, he beckons him to act.  “Pick up your mat and walk.”  Jesus often healed people on request without any requirement, but this man is challenged to act in faith.  He could have told Jesus he was insane, because he hadn’t walked for 38 years.  He had no muscle tone.  How dare Jesus give false hope or perhaps he was teasing.  I would have loved more detail of his shaky ascent, like a newborn colt trying to get on its legs.  John gets to the point and the man stands and walks away with his mat.  He doesn’t shout, or thank Jesus, or even get his name.  Once he acted, he didn’t look back. 

But the story doesn’t end with “he lived happily ever after.”  This newly mobile man faces opposition.  Someone says to him, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”  But the guy who healed me, told me to pick up my mat.”  What? Someone healed on the Sabbath? Rabbinical law held that if someone was going to die, you were mandated to help them on the Sabbath, but if they had a chronic condition, you should wait till the Sabbath was over. 

I wonder if the man thought things over before he picked up his mat on the Sabbath.  Did he know he was breaking the rule, however ridiculous it might seem? Let’s assume he knew.  He wanted to be well even if he had to face disapproval. 

People won’t always applaud us for taking steps to be well.  Sometimes when we make a change in our attitudes and behavior, other people feel threatened by it.  When I stopped over-functioning in my church, at first everyone agreed that I should work less.  But when I cut something, someone was always affected.  Pastor, slow down, just don’t stop doing the things that I like.  Most journeys of transformation face resistance from people who are comfortable with the way things are. 

Questions are one of the most powerful ways God works in our lives. At first, the inquiry is uncomfortable, maybe even insulting.  But when we ignore investigating, we might end up waiting 38 years for an angel to stir the pool.  Every good question opens us to grace working our lives.  Remember the questions Jesus asked,

What are you looking for?

Where is your faith?

Why are you afraid?

What do you want me to do for you?

Do you want to get well?

The Holy Spirit works in these questions.  Take a quest and answer them.  Pick up your mat, or pick up your question, and walk.