Paul Walker, “The Bleeding Charity”

 If you are looking for a rousing coming of age story, look no further than Somerset Maugham’s bildungsroman called Of Human Bondage. It was published in 1915 and is over 700 pages and is entitled Of Human Bondage, so maybe not your breezy beach read, but still a gripping story replete with insight into human nature.

     The protagonist is named Philip, an English boy orphaned at 9 years old, sent to live with his aunt and uncle. His uncle is the Vicar of a small village, and like many clergy in British novels, he is a selfish and cold guardian.  And like many English boys, Philip is sent away to school at age 10. His sadness and loneliness are compounded by the fact that he has a club foot, a source of deep shame to Philip. 

     I won’t take you through the full 700 pages, but I do want to share Philip’s insight at the end of the novel, as he nears 30 years old, having qualified as a doctor after all kinds of trials and tribulations. 

     Reflecting on his own club foot, “he saw that the normal was the rarest thing in the world. Everyone had some defect, of body or of mind: he thought of all the people he had known, (the whole world was like a sick-house) he saw a long procession, deformed in body and warped in mind, some with illness of the flesh, weak hearts or weak lungs, and some with illness of the spirit or a languor of will, or a craving for liquor.

     In our reading from Matthew today, Jesus gives us the clarion call of the gospel. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”  This is the true gospel. It is not the false gospel of God helps those who help themselves. I’m not sure where that ubiquitous saying comes from, but you could not find a more acute perversion of the gospel that that. It is the real gospel of God saves those who cannot help themselves. In one way or another we are all in the sick-house.

     Maybe you are a person or know a person who tries to hide his weaknesses. My wife knows such a person extremely well. These kinds of people will do anything to appear strong and in control – to be “the normal”.  But what they fail to realize is that all pretending to be perfectly put together does is put people off.  Not to mention, it is an exhausting way to live. Or maybe they do realize all of that but just can’t help themselves because they are so afraid of weakness, and sickness, and failure.

     Here’s the thing, though. Jesus is not interested in your strength or your good looks or your accomplishments. Jesus has nothing to say to your health and your righteousness. Instead, He speaks directly to you in your weakness – your anxiety, your anger, your lust, your lack of self-control, your illness of spirit and languor of will.

      He speaks directly to your guilt, your shame, your failure to do what you said you were going to do. He speaks directly to what you did that you wish you could take back. He speaks directly to what you regret and to what you will keep doing over and over and over again despite your best intentions. That’s because those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. He has come to call not the righteous, but sinners.

     If you are going to divide the world into two types of people, you could say there are those who are sick/broken/unrighteous and admit it, and then are those who are sick/broken/unrighteous and try to hide it. There is an amazing interchange between these types in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce. The book imagines a bus trip of people from Hell to the outskirts Heaven. The Solid People in Heaven meet the vaporous ghosts of Hell and try to help them find their place in Heaven.

     Len, a Solid Person, meets his old boss, a Ghost.  While on earth, Len murdered a man named Jack, yet here he was in Heaven. “Don’t you know me?” he shouted to the Ghost. ‘Well, I’m damned’, said the Ghost. I wouldn’t have believed it. It’s a fair knock out. It isn’t right, Len, you know. What about poor Jack?’ ‘He is here,’ said the other. ‘You will meet him soon, if you stay.’

     ‘But you murdered him.’ ‘Of course I did. It’s all right now.’ ‘All right is it? ….What I’d like to understand,’ said the Ghost, ‘is what you’re here for, as pleased as Punch, you, a bloody murderer, while I’ve been walking the streets down there and living in a place like a pigstye all these years.’

     ‘That is a little hard to understand at first. But it is all over now. You will be pleased about it presently. Till then there is no need to bother about it.’ “No need to bother about it? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” ‘No! Not as you mean. I do not look at myself. I have given up myself. I had to after the murder. That was wat it did for me.  And that was how everything began.’

     ‘Personally, I’d have thought that you and I would be the other way around. I gone straight all my life. I done my best all my life. I never asked for anything that wasn’t mine by rights. I done my job, see? That’s the sort I was and I don’t care who knows it.’ 

      Brilliantly, Lewis has the Solid Person reply, ‘It would be better not to go on about that now.’ ‘Who’s going on? I’m asking for nothing but my rights! I’ve got to have my rights!’ ‘I haven’t got my rights, or I should not be here. You will never get yours either. You’ll get something far better.’

     Finally, the Ghost cries out, ‘I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding charity.’ And the Solid Person replies, ‘Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything here is for the asking and nothing can be bought.’

    “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”  God is not interested in helping those who help themselves. We, the sick and the unrighteous, simply look to the cross, where we see the Bleeding Charity. In Him, everything is for the asking, and nothing can be bought.

     Amen.