From Where Will My Help Come? – Sermon May 9, 2010
May 9, 2010
Scripture: John 5: 1-9
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Sermon: From Where Will My Help Come?
By Rev. Doreen Oughton
Has anyone here ever played the game spoons? In this game, the deck of cards is limited by the number of people playing. If four are playing, you use all the aces, kings, queens and jacks. There are a row of spoons laid out, one fewer spoon than players. The cards are shuffled and dealt four to a player. Then all at the same time, everyone passes a card face down to the person on their left. When someone gets four of a kind, they are to take a spoon. As soon as the first person takes a spoon, everyone else is free to grab one. The person left without a spoon gets some sort of penalty that gets them closer to elimination. So one strategy of play is to notice when a spoon is being taken, but not to alert everyone else to that fact. Because they might be quicker at the grab than you are. It can be a loud and rowdy game, lots of grabbing and wresting of spoons.
At the healing pool by the Sheeps Gate, the legend was that every so often an angel would come down into the pool and stir up the water. The first person who stepped into the water after this stirring would be “made whole,” cured of whatever ailment troubled them. So the lame and infirm would gather in the porticoes around the pool, watching with stealth, trying to observe the water, observe the observing of the others, ready to get into the water fast before others noticed the effort and perhaps knocked them down to beat them to it. But just like in a game of spoons, I’m guessing it was a loud and raucous scene the minute there was any movement toward the water. The stakes and the odds were so much higher though. In spoons there is only one loser in any hand. At the pool there was only one winner when the waters were stirred.
I’ve been trying to think of a modern-day analogy for this place. Now I’ve never been to site with a reputation for miraculous healings – no hot springs or shaman, not even to the Russian who has cured hundreds of nicotine addicts. What I connect with as similar to this scene, the combination of hope for a cure mixed with habits of illness, resignation to the search for a cure rather than living into a cure, the intense observation of what advantage others might have, the sense of competition – is the methadone clinic. These clinics were established with the idea of helping a narcotics addict step out of the debilitating symptoms of their illness by taking a dose of methadone that would prevent any withdrawal symptoms but leave them clear headed. If the dose is missed, or if a tolerance for it occurs and the dose is not increased, withdrawal sets in. The addict is not cured of the addiction, but the physiological dependency is switched to methadone, disbursed in a professional setting, hence hopefully safer. The people in treatment go to the same clinic day in and day out to get their dose, often year after year. There are often people who continue to use and try to sell other drugs, drugs that are enhanced by the methadone. Too often the person’s hours and days and attention are wrapped up in this world. The initial hope for a cure becomes buried in habits of illness, of making excuses, of fantasizing about a full life, dreaming of the miracle of being the first one into the pool rather than getting on with living as wholly and fully as possible.
And yet for some people, the methadone treatment is the very thing that turns their life around, that allows them to pick up their mat and walk into a full life. And people seeking help in a variety of ways – therapy, medication, 12-step programs, can still get stuck hanging around waiting for the angel to come down too.
I don’t mean to sound judgmental or critical, not of treatment options or people seeking them. I am looking for the message in today’s gospel for us here today. What is it about what Jesus does that may speak to us as much as it did to the man who had been ill for 38 years. I’m finding it difficult because I want to put myself in the role of Jesus. I want to check the motives of others, ask if they want to be made well, and have the answer for them if that’s what they really want. I spent a lot of time reading through my resources about helping others – the important of finding a way that is uplifting to all, a way that respects the dignity of people seeking help. I read examples of people who offer nothing but their love and companionship even if someone in need does not really want to get well. I read and thought about how much each of us has to bring in terms of healing and uplifting the human condition. I pondered how hard it is to wander with Jesus over to the porticoes, to go and see the suffering of others up close, to open my heart to it. I read inspiring story after inspiring story of people reaching across the doctor-patient, social worker-client, helper-helped divide until it all blurred into human beings relating honestly and deeply to each other. It was a wonderful afternoon. Is this the message here? I like it – let’s emulate Jesus in the way he respects this man, and still calls him to a fuller life. I want to do that for all of you. I want to do it for my children and family, to the lost souls I encounter on my journey through life. Anyone else up for that?
And yet, I wonder, could there be a little hubris there? What if I am not supposed to identify with Jesus in this story, but instead, am invited to see myself as one of those hanging around the pool? What if I am supposed to hear Jesus’ voice in my ear, “Do you want to be made well?” What if I am supposed to recognize the lack of clarity I have about that question? Even defensiveness – I’m here at the pool aren’t I? It’s not my fault I can’t get down there quick enough for the big miracle that would change everything. I’m used to coming down here to the pool everyday. See the same faces, know what to expect in my day. Is there somewhere in my life, in your lives, where we are being told to pick up our mat and walk, where God is ready to heal us before we even know what hit us.
I’ll let you ponder that on an individual basis, but it occurs to me that perhaps there is a message here for First Congregational Church as well. In my research, I learned that in the culture Jesus lived in, there were distinctions between illness and disease. Disease was considered a more physiological thing, and illness was at least as much relational. To be ill meant your relationships with others were affected, you might be isolated, with limited social contact. That was true for the man in today’s reading. He said he had no one to put him in the pool.
So I wondered, what if FCC is not diseased, but is ill. We talk about wanting to grow, to get back to the picture of health that existed at one point, with pews filled, classrooms filled, choir loft filled, offering plate filled. Maybe we dream of the miracle of beating other churches to the pool. Maybe we watch the water, looking for the ripple, and observe the other churches as they watch the ripple. Who has been blessed with that charismatic leader, or that fabulous program that brings people in, that restores a church to health? When will the angel come and restore us to wholeness and glory? Could it be that we have grown comfortable with the dream rather than walking into the reality? What would happen if we were whole and full? There would be more people here, and maybe they would have different ideas about what it means to be a church. It’s not included in this morning’s reading, but right after he is healed, this man is challenged by the religious authorities for carrying his mat on the Sabbath. Maybe, if our relationships grow with each other, with other church bodies, with people outside these doors, we too will be challenged by some, criticized by others. We may be asked to be more responsible, to take more risks, to step outside of our comfort zone and really stretch. Hanging by the pool waiting might feel a lot safer, a lot more comfortable. Jesus’ idea of wholeness and restoration may not be the image we hold of it. We may not be able to go back to what was, but only forward into a new way of being.
There will be a meeting here regarding church growth on Thursday, May 20. Details are in the bulletin. But I ask that in the meanwhile, we ponder this question together, “Do you want to be made well?”
