‘…must we change everything? Maybe’

May 22, 2022

Scripture: John 5:1-9

        Jesus had been traveling much as of late.  Just the week before he had taken a shortcut through Samaria on his way back to Galilee.  While traveling through, Jesus had an encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, after which he had stayed there in their village for two days.  From there he went on to Cana in Galilee where he was sought out by a certain Roman official whose son was very ill.  He had asked Jesus to come back with him in order to heal him but Jesus had told him just to go home and that his son would be well.  The man did as he was told and heard from his servants on the way home that indeed the moment Jesus had told him his son would be well, the boy had been miraculously healed. Jesus stayed in Cana for a short time and then headed up to Jerusalem for a Jewish festival there.

        Now the city of Jerusalem was surrounded by a large wall, built there for protection in times of warring and conflict.  And in that wall there were a number of gates through which people and commerce might pass on their daily travels.  One of those gates, on the eastern wall was a small gate called the Sheep Gate.  It was believed that this was one of the first gates built in the wall for it was through this gate that sheep and lambs were brought in for sacrificial purposes in the Temple.

        And very close to this gate in the wall there was an enclosed spring fed pool called Beth-zatha.  The pool was overshadowed and surrounded by five covered porches.  And within the shelter of these covered areas many who were sick or invalid including those who were blind, lame, and paralyzed, gathered each day.  They came there early each morning and stayed all day hoping to see a stirring of the waters in the pool.  For it was believed that from time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters, and that the first one into the pool after each disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.

        One man was there that day who had been ill and unable to walk for thirty eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there for a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well’?  The sick man answered, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me in 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 healed and he took up his mat and began to walk.  The word of our Lord…thanks be to God.

        ‘Do you want to be made well’, Jesus asked the man…and you know…the man never said ‘yes’.  In fact it is almost as if all he offered instead were excuses as to why he had been there in the same position, doing the same thing, day in and day out for the past 38 years. Almost as if he really didn’t think that wholeness and healing had ever really been an option for him.  Instead his life was very much a sad routine…each day pretty much the same, with nightfall bringing only the prospect of going back to it the next morning.  I wonder if that sounds at all familiar in looking over our own lives from time to time…

        In fact, it is surprising to me how many people seem to feel trapped in a life that is similar in some ways to the man in our story.  How many people appear to be almost resigned to the circumstances of their work-a-day lives, as though it is just the ‘lot’ that they happened to draw.

I remember years ago when a dear friend tried so hard to convince me that her own ‘lot in life’ was to swallow hard and to put up with a marriage that bordered on being abusive.  She was convinced that it was just something she had been given by God to do, something she had to bear. And furthermore that even thinking about trying to change it was out of the question.  And I remember feeling so frustrated because I felt that somehow, somewhere, that was not at all the life that God had in mind for her…or for any of us for that matter.

        And for a long time I struggled with this whole idea of one’s ‘lot in life’, until I realized many years later that any time we allow ourselves to become resigned to difficult circumstances in our lives, then we are in fact giving in to a life that is less than what God intends.  I still believe that God never intends that we should abide evil or abuse in our lives, but somehow, agreeing to live lives with little to no meaning seems almost as far from grace as well.

        And I think that the man in our story who hadn’t walked in 38 years had also given up hoping. He too had become resigned to his own ‘lot in life’. He was so sure that he would never be healed, almost as if the next thirty eight years would surely be the same as the last…no change…just go to work…put in a day…go home…come back the next day…wash, rinse, repeat.

        And so I wonder if the question our scripture poses to us today is the same as Jesus asked that man…namely, do we want to be made well?  Do we have any interest in beginning to live a life that might be vastly different from our current routine…are we at all interested in living a life that may have a whole new set of reasons behind everything we do or say? Are we at all interested in finding out if God has more in mind for each one of us…perhaps a very different path, a path that just might be an integral part of bringing about a whole new world order based on love and compassion…rather than an order, a way of living within a system that seems governed solely by the pursuit of power and privilege. Or, is our ‘every day schedule’, our daily ‘visit to the side of the healing pool’, hoping for change that just doesn’t seem to show up, okay with us? Something we have perhaps unknowingly grown accustomed to, or become comfortable enough with? 

How might we answer if Jesus came to us and asked the very same question that he asked the man who was lame?  ‘Do you want to be made well…do you want to be made whole?’ Would we say that  everything was pretty much okay, not great, not perfect, but a far cry from not knowing what each new day might bring. For I imagine that uncertainty, and a lack of routine may seem a far more frightening proposition at times than whatever it is that we have become used to.

        In his essay titled, Courage to be Whole, Kyle Childress touches on these same notions.  The idea that just perhaps the lame man by the pool was more comfortable with what he knew, then what life might be like on the other side…over on the side of wholeness and health.  As though the responsibility that comes with wholeness and health might somehow be more challenging than what was required of him if he remained but a ‘victim’.  

Childress quotes William Sloan Coffin who says, ‘That if it is hell to be guilty, it is certainly scarier to be responsible’.  Then Childress expands on the meaning saying that it is one thing to be simply responsible for our own lives…and to dwell somewhat responsibly within our own individual worlds.  However, it is a far different thing, at leastfrom a faith perspective, to be ‘response-able’. Which he says is the ability, or perhaps the willingness to be ‘able to respond to God’s call, able to respond to the word and love of Jesus. When we cease being a victim – when we stop saying, ‘I can’t get to the water Jesus; there’s always someone else who gets there first’ – when we start being response-able, then our legs are strong enough for us to walk beside others who are in pain and need help. Our arms are empowered to embrace our enemies and the outcasts. We no longer make excuses; instead we walk forward to new life in Jesus Christ and go to work serving, healing, hoping, and living a life of joy and fullness.’

        Which all sounds really good…and quite ‘holy’…but in this day of ours, as we live through these times and in light of all that seems bent on tearing apart both routine and civility going on all across the country, it surely seems to be asking quite a lot indeed!  For many of us, I would argue, have become quite accustomed to our already busy and chock-full-routine-driven-lives. Wholesale change in the way we go on about our lives seems like way too much and potentially way too uncomfortable. Truly immersing ourselves in social action at the front of any one of these issues takes courage and resolve…which may be too much for those barely comfortable with the status quo as it is.  

We don’t feel like we have a whole lot of extra time to get involved in the large and seemingly intractable issues currently crowding the airwaves and much of social discourse and concern. Issues like finally agreeing to stand fully for civil rights, or the racist roots hidden in the history and makeup of our way of life, or the fact that so many powerful men seem dead set on making decisions about women’s health and women’s bodies. There is just so much out there in the ether we all breathe in that is just so challenging…surely way too hard, and way too big for ‘little old me’ to be able to make any sort of significant difference.

This past week in Buffalo, and again at the Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Southern California were horrendous…and yet they seem to happen so often…so often we hear ‘never again’…and yet any change that really could begin to make a difference just never  seems to be acted on. Do we really want to get involved in trying to change these issues that can so easily feed our fear and concern? And so quickly cause a desire to look away…or to leave that wounded Samaritan over on the other side of the road?

I think Jesus would say we have to engage with these difficult issues…with any and all that opposes his message of love for one another, regardless of how different they may appear to be. This truly is the call to discipleship he sounded. However, deciding to become more ‘response-able’ in cases such as these will not be easy. It will be difficult and will require sacrifice to say ‘yes’ to something that seems far larger than our own abilities or our own strength…even as a group of those seeking to serve or to love more authentically.

In truth however, this is a ‘normal Christian life’. It is a life of wholeness and well-ness that is so very different from anything many people have ever experienced. It is a life of complete openness to the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit each and every waking moment of the day. A life that has rejected the world’s ways, and has instead opted for living life on the edge by the grace and empowerment of the Holy Spirit within us all.   A life committed to consciously and firmly rejecting systems and structures of evil that are so entrenched throughout so much of modern life. It is a life that stands boldly for love, and opposed to those ‘powers and principalities’ which Paul refers to…powers that have come into being largely as a result of humanity’s deep obsession with ‘sameness’, and firm rejection of the ‘other’. 

Truly being ‘response-able’ to our Lord means standing against all these structures of evil and injury, and beginning to make a real difference in the lives of those around us who are hurting and in need of true grace compassionately extended. But that much change is never easy… it is downright hard and scary to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, even if we think we want to…and even if Jesus specifically asked us to love every one another…every Samaritan, every tax collector, every ‘victim’ sitting alone by the side of the pool.

It is a choice, and it is individual. It is a choice as to whether or not we wish to continue on with our everyday ‘lot in life’, our day in, day out routine, wash, rinse, repeat. Or, if instead we are willing to let go enough of what life currently seems to consist of. If we are willing to listen for and to hear the whisper of the Spirit calling us into a new day of what can be. 

It will be so difficult…but what else is there?  How else can we claim to live an authentic and yes, ‘normal’ Christian life if we can not agree at least to lean on and to learn from this One we claim to follow?  How different is it to be ‘made well’ in the ways Jesus asked the man there by the pool?  What makes it so that one can be ‘in’ the world but not ‘of’ it? 

Perhaps it all comes down to being willing to listen, and then responding.  Perhaps ‘response-able’ and ‘response-ability’ are in fact gifts from God, gifts given to those who are willing to at least entertain that God is still seeking more from all of us, and, for all of those who do not yet know of his mercy and infinite grace.  We need to learn how, and be willing to live ‘healthy and whole’. To live lives characterized by a balance of hard work, joy, tears, challenge, victory, exploration, discovery, peace, honest question, and yes, confession…lives graced overall by love for ‘others’…

…may it soon come to be so for all of us…

…amen