We Don’t Have to Take This Lying Down

the Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

May 25, 2025

Text: John 5:1-9

As you may have expected and possibly seen on social media, over the past several days, I have attended or participated in numerous events commemorating the 5th anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. What may not be visible is how often these events began with prayer. To me, that signifies the hope that remains. When people have the presence of mind to join in prayer, it clearly indicates that they believe change is possible, that the current situation is still open to movement, shift, or transformation. And if people still believe, we have a chance to attain justice, not just for George Floyd, but for everyone suffering under the machinery of domination. George Floyd’s family and the community that stewards George Floyd Square have branded the commemoration Rise & Remember. And I find in the Gospel of John a prescient resonance with the idea of rising from while remembering the suffering that we witnessed.

I think it’s worth our time to appreciate how a story like this can come into being. The evangelist of the Gospel of John isn’t just a storyteller looking to capture us with plot, style, characters, and conflict. Of course, all of that is there. However, to tell the story of Jesus and this particular healing of a stranger, evangelist of John knows all of the backstory that creates punch in this scene, which becomes an intriguing invitation to us to consider what Jesus wants for us and to see what kind of world Jesus is advocating for. Even as Jesus encounters a man who has been ill for 38 years, there is a history, a tradition, social narratives, and cultural and religious worldviews at play, prescribing who matters and who doesn’t, who is seen and who is safe to ignore, and whose humanity is worthy of honoring.

John tells us Jesus saw the man. We don’t know how it is that Jesus saw this man among the many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people gathered around a pool rumored to have healing properties, but that Jesus saw a man whom for 38 years nobody else noticed or cared about is an invitation to witness. Thirty-eight years of waiting. Thirty-eight years of waiting to be seen. Thirty-eight years of waiting for someone to care enough to help. Thirty-eight years of accepting that this is just the way it is, because that’s what the world told you it is. And Jesus breaks the cycle of neglect, bondage, and injustice by seeing.

The man does not ask for help, yet Jesus saw his suffering and intervened. Jesus asked, “Do you want to be made well?” Do you want to be freed from your suffering? It’s a yes-or-no question, but the man doesn’t answer it. The man lost all hope and cannot imagine that anything could be different for him. He has been suffering, not just from his illness, but also from the weight of a history, a tradition, social narratives, and a cultural and religious worldview that prescribed his low status on the margins, such that he is unable to answer yes or no. That Jesus would intervene in this way is so unusual and unexpected that the man responds by telling Jesus a story about how often people do not help him, how people push ahead of him to get a chance to be healed. He testifies about how frequently he is left behind.

Jesus intervenes to bring healing, and that’s all that matters. The man who was ill for 38 years did not have to take this lying down. But I want you to notice something. Jesus had an out. In the middle of a festival of the Jews and on the Sabbath, nobody would have expected Jesus to get involved, especially with some who didn’t matter, who it was safe to ignore, and whose humanity the people around him did not honor. Against the full weight of a history, a tradition, a social narrative, and a cultural and religious worldview that told Jesus it was okay to ignore a man who was less than whole, Jesus sees, cares, and intervenes. We don’t have to take bondage, dispossession, and injustice lying down.

With Jesus’ act of healing when there was an expectation that he shouldn’t and couldn’t, we witness a confrontation of the radicality of God’s grace with the normalcy of civilization that sees suffering and oppression as just how things are. Jesus disrupts all the narratives, traditions, and expectations that would have left the man in his condition of bondage. This act of liberation for this man meant that the condition of lack, bondage, and otherness doesn’t have to be permanent, and nobody has to be left behind. Jesus demonstrated that if there is a choice between healing a person who is suffering and upholding the narratives, traditions, and expectations of any culture or religion, within God’s household and economy, we choose people. Jesus’ implicit message to the man who was ill for 38 years was “you don’t have to take this lying down… Stand up, take up your mat and walk.” For Jesus, there is no good enough reason to abandon the man who is ill. He will not leave him behind to languish unhealed on the margins.

And I don’t want to mislead you. Jesus and the now healed man paid a price for this healing. The religious authorities did not celebrate the sick man’s liberation because all they could see was a violation of rules and tradition. And the backlash was swift and merciless. The religious authorities harassed the healed man, accusing him of violating the rules. They harassed Jesus and let hate and murder take up room in their hearts. But despite the backlash, we are surrounded by God’s healing presence. The divine will is for our healing, liberation, and wholeness, not languishing and waiting for others to facilitate our most profound need for justice. Knowing that God ordains our well-being, we need not doubt the call to realize healing and justice. We don’t have to accept the narratives that tell us that justice will just have to wait. We don’t have to take the narratives that justify why some people don’t deserve to be treated fairly, humanely, or with compassion. We don’t have to accept narratives that reinforce the worst stereotypes and biases as justifications for disproportionate policing and violence toward Black and brown bodies. Jesus’ command works for us today: we get up, take our mat, and walk. Not wait. That means that we may have to intervene to interrupt the history, traditions, social narratives, and cultural and religious worldviews that bind humanity in sickness, bondage, disconnection, and estrangement.

Five years ago, during the disorienting shutdown of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, police officers from the Minneapolis Police Department were called to respond to a report that George Floyd had attempted to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. In that encounter between George Floyd and Derek Chauvin, the weight of history, tradition, social narratives, and cultural and religious worldviews that held that Black lives do not matter came crashing down on George Floyd’s body. A history of lawless police violence, narratives of Black criminality, pathology, and inferiority, and the politics of policing that failed to demand accountability left George Floyd at the mercy of police officers who felt no need to see his humanity and who could not muster a modicum of compassion to show him mercy. Derek Chauvin pressed his knee to George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. History, tradition, narrative, and a prevailing worldview gave the police license and justification to ignore Floyd’s cries for help and mercy. Hundreds of years of violent oppression of the Black body have created justifications for all manner of injustice that prevails today.

During those first few weeks after, I kept asking, “God, where were you.?” But just as Jesus saw and cared for a man ill for 38 years, the healing power and presence of Jesus were there with George Floyd that day. Jesus was there, moving in and through the people, screaming at the officers to let George Floyd go. Jesus was working through those bystanders, trying to intervene to stop Chauvin from holding George Floyd down so violently and relentlessly, and receiving threats from the police to move on or shut up. Jesus was working in the courageous, quick thinking of a 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, who decided to intercede with the only power she had. She picked up her phone, started to record what she was seeing, and the whole world changed. All of those members of the community on the street that day didn’t care about history, tradition, narrative, or a prevailing worldview. They weren’t going to take this injustice lying down. They knew that even if George Floyd couldn’t speak for himself or get up from that street, they didn’t have to take this lying down.

And we don’t have to take what’s happening in our world lying down. We don’t have to accept the police killing of unarmed people lying down. We don’t have to take the deportation and disappearance of immigrants lying down. We don’t have to take the disruption and destruction of the social safety net for the most vulnerable among us. We don’t have to take the cruelty and autocratic, illiberal attack on our democracy lying down. But history, tradition, narratives, and worldviews are stubborn realities. Those who have tired of the mantra “black lives matter” have revived the old narratives of Black criminality, pathology, and inferiority: George Floyd was a drug-addicted thug; Derek Chauvin is a hero and a victim of the anti-police rhetoric. But I hear the divine question of mercy, echoing in our time and context: Do you want to be made well? Are we going to all the machinery of dominance to put its knee on our necks? Are we going to allow old narratives to make us believe that planting a knee on someone’s neck is just a regular part of living? I pray that we allow God to endow us with sight and insight to see like Jesus saw that man who was ill for 38 years. See beyond the history, traditions, social narratives, and cultural and religious worldviews that keep us stuck in an endless loop of oppression, domination, and discrimination against Black people, migrants, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. We don’t have to take this lying down.

A deep need for food, healing, safety, housing, opportunity, and community surrounds us. Every day, we have to choose to demonstrate the radicality of grace in a civilization formed, shaped, and reinforced by history, tradition, social narratives, and cultural and religious world views that hold that only people of certain races, sexes, and nationalities are deserving of the blessings of a good life. But the healing power and presence of Jesus remind us that we don’t have to take the injustice we see lying down.