What Do You Want?

It is one of my favorite scenes in film. In 1989, Kevin Costner starred in “Field of Dreams” as Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer whose visions lead him to uproot his crops and replace his farm with a baseball field.

Those visions lead him to find Terrance Mann (played by the incomparable James Earl Jones), a former activist and author turned reclusive hermit. Kinsella is insistent that he take Mann to a baseball game at Fenway Park. As they arrive at the stadium, a conversation ensues.

Ray asks, “So what do you want?”

Terrence responds, “I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader. I want them to start thinking for themselves. I want my privacy.”

“No, I mean, what do you want?” Ray clarifies, gesturing to the concession stand nearby.

“Oh. Dog and a beer.”

Though I’ve seen it 25 or more times, I still laugh with every viewing. Likewise, I cannot see this scene without thinking about another scene from the Gospel of John. Jesus had traveled to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish Festivals. He passed by a pool where disabled individuals often sat. According to the text, one particular man had been sitting there for 38 years. John describes the scene this way: “When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’” (John 5:6).

What kind of question is that? The man has been lame for 38 years. He is probably a social outcast. This illness had taken over and defined his life. Of course he wants to be healed!

But not so fast. Did you catch that last phrase? This illness has defined his life.

Do you know anyone suffering from chronic illness? Do you know folks for whom pain has become a way of life, destroyed their immune system, or left them weak and exhausted?

“I can’t spend time doing what I love to do — it hurts too much.”

“I can’t go out — I might get sick.”

“I can’t spend time with my children/grandchildren — it could literally kill me.”

“I can’t eat where I used to eat — my wheelchair won’t fit.”

Maybe it is debilitating arthritis, HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, lung or heart disease, cancer, or any number of other issues. Then again, maybe it is not physical at all. How many people have been defined by their addictions, mental illness, depression, or emotional struggles? oHow many have been defined by their victimhood and what has been done to them?

In each of these instances, the question then becomes — do you want to be well? Do you want to be redefined by the new life that Jesus offers? To experience healing is to simultaneously experience loss — to be forced to die to who we were in order to become something new. Spiritually dying and being reborn through conversion (even if it does not change one’s physical limitations) makes possible a wholeness that can redefine disability, brokenness, and victimhood. It empowers individuals to see their circumstances through a different lens — if they want it.

Therefore, I ask you: what do you want?