First Congregational Church
May 22, 2022
6th Sunday of Easter
John 5:1-9
“Time and Prayer and the Aid of the Holy Spirit”
Rev. Dinah Haag, preaching

Two people were out hunting and come upon what appeared to be an abandoned farm. The barn was sagging, the house was in disrepair, and there were junk cars and parts lying around. The only things that made it a working farm were a few chickens pecking away and a goat wandering around. As they entered the yard, they came across an old well. One asked the other "Wonder how deep it is."

The other said, "We'll have to drop something down and listen for the splash." They look around for something to drop down the well, but the only thing close by was an old car transmission. They both hauled it over to the well and dropped it in. They counted and waited a long time for the splash. It was deep, deep one all right. They turned to leave and saw the goat was charging at them, head down, horns headed straight for them. At the last moment, they jumped aside, and the goat went right past them and straight over the side and down the well. They looked at each other in amazement.

As they started to leave, the owner of the farm came up. They chatted for a moment and eventually got permission to hunt on his land. The farmer asked, “By the way, have you seen my goat?" They said, "Your goat almost killed us charging at us. You should have had that goat tied up.” The farmer, "He was, I had him tied up to an old transmission.”

This morning, the lectionary brings us a passage in which Jesus is going to Jerusalem, but not the trip during his last week. He was going there for a feast day, probably the Passover, although we are not certain it was that particular feast day.

As Linda makes her way up here, I will point out to those using the pew Bibles, that there is an oddity at the end of verse three. There are two sorts of original documents when it comes to Bibles: by date and by quantity. The oldest manuscripts, as they are called, didn’t have verse 4. In most of the many of those discovered later, verse 4 was a part of the document. The pew Bibles have the fourth verse at the bottom of the page, and Linda will be reading the whole of it, as in the later documents.

John 5:1-9
1 Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie--the blind, the lame, the paralyzed (and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.)
5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 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?" 7 "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." 8 Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,

Thank you, Linda. A wealthy man threw a party at his mansion, complete with a new saltwater pool. During the party, live sharks were released into the pool and the wealthy man offered a million dollars to anyone brave enough to swim across the pool. Immediately there was a splash and someone started swimming across the pool at record speed. The swimmer jumped out of the pool, completely out of breath and everyone congratulated him on his courage. The man said, "I just want to know - WHO PUSHED ME?”

The passage this morning is unlike other healings, beginning with the pool itself. Bethesda means "house of mercy” or house of grace.” For a long time, it was thought to be a mythical place, but excavations in the 1800s and since have revealed its authenticity. It wasn’t a mineral spring or particularly holy water. And at completely random moments, the water was “troubled” - sounding almost human.

We don’t know how old the man was, but considering that life expectancy was not much more than 40 years for males, a good share of his life had been spent with his mat. Imagine the monotony, waiting, watching, hoping, while nothing changed. Unable to see that his life was more than this pool, he was convinced that life would bubble up outside of him in that magic pool.

Of course, I want to know who took him there, or did he actually live there? Who supported his ability to be there. Someone helped, but maybe that was all they could do - like each of the pieces we do in helping others. And if he was sitting there every day, then he wasn’t going to the synagogue for any spiritual healing either. It is not new news that being ill or challenged in one way or another has ramifications on other parts of our lives - including our mental and spiritual health. The Bible doesn’t tell us, but the man probably didn’t have much faith to fall back on. Add that to the lack of people to come alongside him in his healing, it makes sense that maybe he was a little defensive, completely avoiding the direct answer to the direct question with excuses.

And who would blame him, really? He’s sick and tired of being sick and tired, and maybe his answer is more defensive because if you think about it, it can feel like Jesus is suggesting that this guy’s circumstances are of his own making - his own fault.

I remember years ago, preaching on this passage, and I had used Jesus’ words for the sermon title. “Do you want to get well?” Those who remember Jack Frost, he commented - before the service - just enough so I could hear - I didn’t know I was sick! And isn’t that the truth! Sometimes we don’t know how sick we are until we start feeling better!

For this man, maybe this mysterious, chronic condition has become a sort of badge of courage that he enjoys talking about, that gives him some power or family position that he wouldn’t otherwise have. There are those folks that somehow come to enjoy their ill health, either because it’s familiar and oddly comfortable in knowing what it’s like, or that it’s the lazy way out, because getting well will take some work.

Chelsey Harmon of Calvin Theological Seminary makes a very pointed observation. “It strikes me that the attitude we ascribe to this man laying at the pool is very likely an identification with something in our own lives, revealing how we might react to being questioned by Jesus.

She goes on. “I didn’t read any of this defensive attitude in the man. Instead, I heard a man who matter of factly describes his situation. This is probably because I identify with this man physically more than spiritually: I too have physical disabilities and there have been so many times on the road of seeking healing that I have felt so very utterly alone, “without a person to help me.”

Going to a slew of doctor and care provider appointments, trying to learn about what I’m being told is going on in me, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the next specialist… it’s exhausting and it’s easy to feel like you aren’t going to make it. You struggle to change your frame of reference and your standards for your lifestyle so that you don’t fall into the trap of believing that because you can’t do things, you’re giving up.” I think there are a lot of folks who are in a similar spot.

And then we’re all wired differently. There was an episode of Chicago Med in the last months in which part of the story was around a man living in an iron lung who was somehow able to amass a fortune in his own beautiful glassed apartment. With people able to come in and help him, the man had written books - as I recall - and despite all the obstacles, was still able to maintain a positive outlook on the world, to the point of being able to help those caring for him. And I know it’s a tv show, but still, it’s a great way to see how people are created so differently.

Putting all that potential of the man aside, taking the passage at face value, the man had thrown himself on the mercy of God, - waiting for God’s angel to do what only God could do. But what he hadn’t counted on was God own self showing up. There’s no indication in the story that he even knows who Jesus is.

When it comes to Jesus, there’s no prerequisite of faith needed for this man, no going to wash in a lake first, during or after, no spit mixing with mud to cover an eye. In fact, if you noticed, the man didn’t even ask Jesus for healing and Jesus doesn’t help the man into the water. No introductions, no real small talk, no sermon. Just a question.

He doesn’t heal anyone else, and we don’t know why this particular man was chosen out of the rest. Nor do we know the inflection of Jesus’ voice - was it a challenge or an invitation or a simple query? Jesus’ deep compassion - in all of the Gospels - for the sick and disabled is always upfront and center, correcting cultural misunderstandings at every opportunity. He doesn’t respond to pain or illness with contempt, mockery, or condescension, nor does he tell a sick person that their illness is their own fault.

We don’t know about all those others there that day, but for this one man, Jesus speaking to him means that the man is no longer alone, that he is being acknowledged as a human being, with the right to make his own decisions, even if those decisions are not necessarily in his own best interest. I’m still trying to learn the lesson that my niece and nephew, despite having a most amazing and wise aunt, get to make their own mistakes, just like I did when I was their age.

Jesus doesn’t tell the man, “Your faith has made you well,” because that would be a lie. Notice that Jesus doesn’t dwell on the man’s past; he doesn’t dredge up the loss and waste of the thirty-eight years the man can’t get back. And notice that he doesn’t heal the man on the man’s terms — by helping him into the pool when the angel stirs the water. Jesus simply tells the man to get up and walk. And he does.

Methodist founder, John Wesley, traveled 250,000 miles on horseback, riding twenty miles daily for forty years, and preached forty thousand sermons. Compared to 40,000, my mere 1,200 sermons sound inept. Wesley produced four hundred books, knew ten languages, and at eighty-three was annoyed when he could not write more than fifteen hours a day without hurting his eyes. At eighty-six, he was ashamed that he could not preach more than twice a day. He complained, in his diary, that there was an increasing tendency to lie in bed until 5:30 in the morning.

If we take all this magnificent knowledge and insight and put it together, we have some amazing opportunities for reflection. We can dip our toes into the stubbornness and defensiveness at the idea that we have more to do in our maturation process, that this knowledge will require effort to change, and that change isn’t always giant and horrible. Sometimes it’s Jesus kicking our butts a bit and telling us to get up off our () mat.

And even this whole scenario carries a tinge of radical evolution: there was Jesus - healing - on the Sabbath - and telling the man to carry his mat - also forbidden to do on the Sabbath. And yet, what a way of showing us how to respect our own selves, that we are worthy of better and greater - regardless of the day or time. That we are not people of “as soon as” life. Like children say, “As soon as I get big, grow up, I will ….” As soon as I graduate, get a job, get a better job… As soon as I retire. As soon as he changes the way he acts. As soon as she apologizes.” The thing is, there will always be another Pool of Bethesda.

We are not the people of “on hold.” And oftentimes, it’s not even so much that our circumstances change, but our way of being, seeing, acting, speaking, and thinking changes. Circumstances are important, and they do affect us. But we are more than them. Life is not to be found outside our various situations or circumstances but within them.

Jesus’ question doesn't imply that life will be easy, but it can be more manageable if we drain the power of the pool over us. Through “Time and Prayer and the Aid of the Holy Spirit”, we get glimpses of that sort of healing in others and ourselves, healing that is oftentimes nothing like we envisioned. Better than. The question might be a little uncomfortable, but the answer is very likely to be heavenly. And so we should pray.

Gracious, Healing God, thank you for coming to us, simply, individually, genuinely, and treating us with the dignity of being able to make our own decisions. Enable us to reflect your respect and dignity to those around us so that we might all glitter with the sparkle of wholeness and mercy and grace. Give us sharper vision when looking at our histories, to see the effects of time and prayer and the aid of your Holy Spirit to bring us to this place in our lives. And may that vision encourage us into the future - all your children - as we all say, Amen.