Let an engineer hear the first reading, especially an engineer from a land lacking in abundant water, and immediately thoughts of damming or diverting the stream flowing from the temple and running down the streets might occur. All that plentiful, seemingly wasted water! But our God is often not practical but rather to us seems extravagant and frivolous pouring forth grace such that a dead sea can support life and the barren lands can bloom and bear fruit. Like the engineer we may at times think to channel God's grace or store it or somehow put it to a more practical use as though we could advise God.

In the gospel the sick person near the pool called Bethesda had been sick for thirty-eight years. We don't know how long he had been frustrated at the pool, hoping for healing. However long he had been at it, it wasn't working. Sometimes persistence is a virtue and sometimes it is not. A square peg is not going to fit into a round hole no matter how many times we make the attempt. Either the peg or the hole has to change before the one can enter into the other.

Jesus heals the sick person and tells him to make a new beginning and not fall back into old ways which did not work in the past and will work no better now or in the future. Are we stymied because we think we know what should be done? What we may need to do is be open to hearing Jesus calling us to something new, something different.