This morning’s daily readings included the story of the man begging by the Beautiful Gate. Peter says to him, “Look at us,” and as the story says, “He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them.” Only they had no money. Peter pulled him to his feet and healed him instead.
I’ve always thought of this story purely from the perspective of the miracle—how wonderful for this man, crippled from birth! But this morning it really struck me that a healing like this forces a huge paradigm shift in the life of the recipient. Presumably this man had spent his life earning his living by begging, and it was socially acceptable because he couldn’t do anything else. But now that he’s healed, he has to go find work to support himself. Now the social niceties and expectations he probably could have let slide his whole life are going to come down full force.
This sparked a couple different thoughts. First, it occurred to me that I’ve never once heard anyone say about Biblical beggars the things that are said about modern-day ones. (They’ll just use it to buy drugs; I tried to give a meal to a homeless guy once and he yelled at me because he wanted money for booze, not real help, etc.) It’s like we can assume the best of those in the pages of Scripture in a way we’re not able to do with people in our own time. I’m sure there are sociological reasons for this—the existence of social safety nets, etc. I’m not trying to pick a fight; it just really struck me this morning that it would have been entirely believable that the man at the Beautiful Gate would be like, “Dude, I didn’t ask you for healing, I just asked you for money!”
But he didn’t. He embraced the gift that wasn’t the one he’d been asking for. And this brings me to my second thought, which is about people like me, utterly ordinary middle-class Americans.
It’s easy to get laser-focused on what it is I think I need, and fail to appreciate–or sometimes even recognize–the actual gift I’ve been given. Easy to get rigid in my view of the world and see only the obstacle that’s just plopped down in my path, and fail to recognize that maybe what I see as an obstacle is actually an opportunity. One thing writing has taught me is that brick walls can’t be beat through, but if I go looking for a path around it, it’s even odds that I’ll find out I’ve just stumbled on the path I was supposed to be following all along.
Kathleen M. Basi 