May 22, 2019: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s alone be heard. Amen.
So good to see so many of you on this very hot weekend. And isn’t it appropriate that our gospel reading features a pool? I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind having one right now to dive into, right?
Now, the passage we heard tells of a lame man who had been lying by a pool in the hope of being healed by the waters when they were stirred up. “The earliest manuscripts of John do not explain why the invalids are there, but later scribes added an explanation that appears in certain manuscripts. According to this explanation, people believed that an angel of the Lord would come and stir the waters, and that whoever was the first to enter the pool after the waters were stirred would be healed of his or her [illness].”[1]
So, this guy…let’s give him a name…I will call him Larry. So, Larry keeps trying to enter the pool first, but others push past him when the water is stirred. For 38 years – day after day – Larry has attempted to be healed in this way. Nothing ever changed.
It’s a great story, and one of the things that really stands out is that when Jesus encounters Larry, this guy who has been lame all his life, hoping to be healed, he says to him, “Do you want to be made well?” Now, it seems to me that is sort of like when your mother-in-law says, “Do you want some advice?” – I mean – what kind of question is that? And Larry explains to Jesus that he keeps trying to get into the pool every day – has been for 38 years – but never makes it.
Now, Albert Einstein once defined insanity as, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Maybe Jesus’ question isn’t all that silly in light of that, but I am guessing that Larry has over time become lame in more than just his legs. He is paralyzed – not only physically, but spiritually too. And this spiritual paralysis has come from those who do not see him, push past him, have no compassion for him.
As a result, Larry’s entire life has boiled down to a single minded focus on the pool as the source of salvation. He has blocked out all other ways of living, of being. His mat, the pool, it all becomes something he is so used to that when Jesus asks him if he wants to be made well, Larry doesn’t respond with “Yes!” but with an explanation of how he can’t seem to get into the pool ahead of anyone else. He is in a rut – physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
When I think of this man on the mat for 38 years, trying to get to the same pool day after day after day, I always think of a little poem “Autobiography In Five Short Chapters” written by Portia Nelson. I read it to you last time I preached on this passage, and I want to do so again because I think, perhaps, we need to hear it now more than ever. It goes like this:
Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost …. I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
Chapter Two
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit … but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter Five
I walk down another street.
“I walk down another street.” Brilliant!
So, maybe the question Jesus asks isn’t so crazy after all.
“Do you want to be made well?”
It’s not a bad question when you think about it, because in some ways, this man, Larry, has been traveling down the same crazy street with the same deep hole in the sidewalk and expecting different results. When Jesus asks that question, Larry is being asked to consider his life, not just his infirmity. Jesus was asking him to choose another street – to look, not at the pool, but at Jesus, and the healing Jesus offers to him was that he have the courage to get up, take his mat, and walk.
Today, the question Jesus would be asking is “Do WE want to be made well?” After the news out of Buffalo just 8 days ago, when a young man went on a racist rampage killing 10, and injuring others, with plans to continue shooting more black people, Jesus is gonna want to know – we need to answer the question – do we really want to be made well?
On that day in Buffalo, we were only into the 19th week of this year and the US, just our country mind you, has already seen 198 mass shootings – 198! But lest we become numb by the mindboggling numbers of the dead and wounded, let us remember who we lost on May 14th – let us say their names:[2]
“Sixty-five-year-old Celestine Chaney was a grandmother to six and a loving and caring person.
Roberta Drury, 32, moved to Buffalo around eight years ago. She dedicated much of her time to helping her brother with his leukemia treatment and assisting her family with running their restaurant…”
Katherine Massey, certainly wanted us to be made well. She was 72, known as “Kat,” and was an activist who…often wrote about issues affecting the Buffalo community…A year ago, Massey wrote a letter to the editor of the Buffalo News urging federal action to prevent needless shooting deaths.
Margus Morrison, 52, was out buying snacks at the grocery store for a weekly movie night he had planned with his wife…As a school bus aide of three years in the Buffalo area, [he loved the] kids he worked with and they returned that love back to Morrison…
Heyward Patterson, 67, “took pride in helping people…[and] was a …taxi driver who was waiting for passengers outside the supermarket when he was gunned down. His nephew recalled that even “if the person had little or no money, he would still give them a ride. He had a big heart. Heyward was also a beloved deacon of his church.”
The “hero” security guard who engaged the suspect but was fatally shot was Aaron Salter, a former Buffalo police lieutenant, who “fired multiple shots at the suspect” when he entered the store, … but the suspect was wearing tactical gear that protected him from the guard’s gunfire.
Geraldine Talley, 62, was doing her regular grocery shopping with her fiancé. She was an avid baker and the mother of two beautiful children.
Ruth Whitfield, 86, was the mother of former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield. The Mayor saw him near the scene and asked if he was there to lend a hand. “Garnell said, ‘Yes, mayor. But I’m here because I’m looking for my mother,'”
Pearl Young, 77, was a “true pillar in the community,… a long-term substitute teacher with the Buffalo Public School District and recently worked at Emerson School of Hospitality,”
And finally, Zaire Goodman, 20, who was working at the supermarket, and was shot “through the neck.” He has survived.
These are ones killed or some of the wounded on May 14th, 2022, just a few days shy from the two year anniversary of George Floyd’s brutal murder by one entrusted to protect and serve. And every day, women – the number one victim of gun violence in this country and around the world, with an average of 70 women shot and killed by an intimate partner every single month!
All of this on top of so many other ways we harm our sisters and brothers every day by our bigotry, our hate, and our love of assault weapons more than our love of God and one another. So, we really need to be asked the question:
Do we want to be made well?
Racism – our national sin and disgrace reared its ugly head once more on May 14th. Our worship of weapons of war has left children of God dead in yet another bloody massacre. And I don’t know about you, but it seems to me we just keep walking down the same crazy street. We seem to lie by a proverbial pool of longing for change day after day, year after year, decade after decade, in the hope that someone, somewhere, will come and save us. We need to be healed alright, but we have to want it first – really have the courage to take up our mats.
Folks, we need a day of reckoning!
We need to consider the mats on which we live – anger, fear, grief, brokenness, greed – and who or what stands in our way, and are we a part of that for others – refusing to see the people on the margins, impeding that arc of history from bending toward justice.
Perhaps we need to think about what streets are we walking every day expecting a different result? Do we need to try a different street – a different path toward healing, reconciliation, justice, and love?
Lying on the sidelines hoping something will change, yearning for healing but never considering a change in our approach, impeding the movement of others toward what will heal them and us… something’s gotta give – something’s gotta change folks.
Because our hate and our love of assault weapons is killing our sisters and brothers – killing us all.
But there is hope. There is always hope.
Because standing before us – here with us now – and always at our side – is Jesus. And he is asking us “Do we want to be made well?”
There are many inside and outside the church who will say that we have no business being so “political.” Well, here’s the thing about this – it isn’t political, it is scriptural. Our bible tells us that we are all made in God’s image, so any time a human being is abused, neglected, marginalized, or killed – the very image of God is being abused, neglected, marginalized, or killed. And our savior Jesus taught us that in the stranger, the imprisoned, the poor, the hungry – the very least of these – we will find him.
That grandmother lying in a pool of blood at that grocery store in Buffalo – she is Jesus – the very image of God.
The immigrants on the border suffering – they are Jesus – the very image of God.
The trans teen beaten – he is Jesus – the very image of God.
The homeless woman – she is Jesus – the very image of God.
The retiree addicted to opioids because of corporate greed – he is Jesus – the very image of God.
And all of us, no matter what political party we claim, where we live, what we do for a living, who we love – all of us are Jesus and made in the very image of God too – and that comes with responsibilities for followers of Jesus – ones we committed to in our baptism.
Our late great archbishop of South Africa, the Most Rev. Desmond Tutu, put it this way: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
And while not speaking about this passage, he did really get to the point of the situation in which we find ourselves – by our proverbial pools of hope, when he said, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”
This is a world filled with those who wait by pools – people broken by fear, homelessness, poverty, bigotry, and violence. We have ourselves waited too long bemoaning our pain and hoping for change. Yet Jesus is standing beside us, hoping we want to be made well, hoping we will open our hearts to receive his restorative healing in the Eucharist.
So let us take up our mats and walk upstream – let us answer Jesus with a resounding YES – YES we want to be made well!
Let us commit our lives to Christ – living as he did – on the side of justice, going to those in need of healing, and speaking for those with no voice. Because there are a whole lot of folks in dark holes on crazy street, or pushed to the margins far from pools of hope. It is up to us, as the body of Christ alive in the world today to see them, and to join in the work that the Holy Spirit is already doing in the world – spreading the healing word that everyone, everyone, is a beloved child of God – loved unconditionally and for all time – no exceptions. If we do this, if we live our lives in Christ in this way, then one day, we will live into the very vision of shalom – of the Beloved Community – that God hopes for us all.
I will leave you with one last quote from Archbishop Tutu, and it is one I love very much: “God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion. In God’s family, there are no outsiders, no enemies. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Buddhist, Hutu and Tutsi, Pakistani and Indian—all belong. When we start to live as brothers and sisters and to recognize our interdependence, we become fully human.”
May we have the courage to become fully human, to be made well by Christ, and then to take up our mats, go upstream, and heal the world.
Amen.
For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):
[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-john-51-9
[2] The following information about the victims came from this CNN online article: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/15/us/buffalo-shooting-victims-what-we-know/index.html
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
May 22, 2022
Sixth Sunday of Easter – Year C
1st Reading – Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
2nd Reading – Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
Gospel – John 5:1-9
