Lose the Labels

  

John 4:46–54

Let’s take a moment to talk about the discipline of following a lectionary—a prescribed set of readings that forms a rhythm for our life of faith. For almost three years now, we’ve been using the Narrative Lectionary, a four‑year cycle that traces the big story of God through the lens of one gospel each year.

I like using the lectionary because it keeps me from choosing scripture willy‑nilly based only on my preferences—preferences that, on good days, I might argue are holy nudges from the Spirit. The lectionary grounds me. It reminds me that I’m not in charge. It reminds me that the big story of God has meaning for every day, if I’m willing to pay attention.

Some weeks, though, it’s harder to submit to it. This week, I wanted another fiery scene—Jesus flipping tables or sparring with the Pharisees. Instead, the lectionary hands us a simple story of healing. It’s often interpreted as a story about faith—faith that asks for help, trusts help will come, and reorders our commitments once it does.

But I also think, given the pain of another week of heartbreaking news about the mistreatment of immigrants, the shock of racist messages posted by those in power, and the anxiety of international threats—this story is also about a love that reaches beyond labels, identities, and offices to bring genuine healing into someone’s life, ultimately reshaping the lives of those around.

In today’s reading, Jesus has returned from Jerusalem to Galilee—specifically to Cana. You may remember that just a few weeks ago Jesus performed his first sign there, turning water into wine and gifting an entire community with unexpected abundance.

Today in that same town, a royal official approaches him. His son in Capernaum is gravely ill. The official has likely heard rumors about this wandering rabbi. Out of the very human mix of fear and hope that only a parent can know, he tracks Jesus down and begs him to come heal his child.

Then we get one of those moments in John’s gospel that can sound like “grumpy Jesus.” Echoing his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus suggests the man will only believe if he sees signs. But the official persists. And Jesus simply tells him to go—his son will live.

For a moment, without touching anything too tender, imagine being asked to trust someone’s word—whether a miracle worker or a medical professional—without being able to see them touch and treat your child. Go. Trust me. Your son has been healed.

What would you do? What would each step of that walk home to your child feel like?

The man goes. And on the way he is met by members of his household who confirm the miracle: his son is alive. When they compare timing, the father realizes the healing happened at the exact moment Jesus spoke the words. Every remaining step home must have felt different.

It’s a short story, light on details. It ends with the man returning home and he, along with his whole household, believing. Believing what? I suppose that Jesus is the Messiah of God—the one who performs signs and wonders, including healing from a distance.

I want to place this story in the context of the last few weeks of scripture we’ve examined. After Jesus flips tables in the temple and challenges the religious institution, Nicodemus—a learned religious leader—comes to him. Next, Jesus travels into Samaria, where most Jews would not go, and sits with a Samaritan woman in the noonday heat. Today Jesus heals the child of a royal official—likely someone aligned with the occupying power—without ever seeing the child.

Throughout John’s gospel, belief is about relationship with Jesus. And in these past three stories, the people who come into relationship with him are not insiders. They’re not disciples. They’re people the disciples would have seen as “other.”

But Jesus doesn’t see “others.” He sees people—human beings standing in front of him with real needs, real questions, real stories.

That is a radical way of being in the world. How do we follow that way?

We who claim to follow Jesus can look at the events of recent weeks and identify places where people deemed “other” by those in power continue to be dehumanized. And maybe, in watching that unfold, we’ve caught ourselves dehumanizing the people doing the harm. It’s so complicated.

“Stop being a racist.”
“Stop being a xenophobe.”

But what of Jesus?
Jesus doesn’t greet Nicodemus with, “Stop being an institutional prat.”
He doesn’t greet the Samaritan woman with, “Stop thinking your religion is superior.”
He doesn’t greet the royal official with, “Stop serving Rome.”

In each of these encounters, Jesus meets people in the truth of who they are—doubts, questions, histories, and roles included. No prerequisites. No demand that they fix themselves first.

Maybe that is the invitation for us today. In a world that divides and categorizes and hardens us against one another, Jesus keeps showing us another way—one compassionate, attentive encounter at a time. He doesn’t ignore injustice or pretend harm doesn’t matter, but he also refuses to use contempt as the tool of healing. He sees people truthfully, and somehow that truthful seeing becomes an opening for grace. And in seeing, those he has seen experienced a transformation that they ultimately shared with those around them.

So perhaps this story isn’t simply saying, “Have more faith,” though that’s part of it. Maybe it’s also calling us to see the person in front of us. To loosen our grip on labels—both those we carry and those we assign. To trust that God is already at work in surprising places. To remember that healing can happen across distance, across difference, and often long before we see any evidence. To see that relationships make a difference.

This week I have been wrestling mightily with our bapstimal vows.  The ones where we renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world and repent of our own sin. The ones where we accept the power God gives us to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.

And I realize we can’t fulfill those vows holding those different from us at arm’s length. Like Jesus, we have to draw near. We have to remember that as Christians we are called to community, to community where we nurture in others the strength and wherewithal and longing to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness and to resist evil, injustice and oppression.

So in truth, I often want to yell and scream and name-call. But I hear the Holy Spirit reminding me that relationships matter. Draw near to those who are already within reach.

As we walk our own paths this week—sometimes with doubt, sometimes with hope—may we discover that healing is already unfolding. May we practice the radical mercy of Jesus, who never seems to meet an “other,” only a neighbor. And may we, like the royal official and his household, find ourselves drawn into deeper belief—not because we have seen everything, but because love has found us anyway.

Amen.