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| Ready for worship |
It's a sunny Memorial Day Sunday as I head to Good Shepherd Faith. Folks are talking about the holiday. And Fleet Week. And the Yankees...Pam starts the service by playing "Eternal Father Strong to Save," the Navy hymn. And I think of my father, and what that hymn mean to him. After the scripture is read, it's time for my reflection, or "prompting," as they call it here.
So it's been a busy week in the city. Graduation week. The streets uptown were filled with Columbia blue robes. The subways with NYU purple. And all around Times Square with sailors in their dress whites and marines in khaki and blue. Fleet Week. Not sure why, but I always enjoy this annual visit of the navy ships to our city. And now, Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial beginning of summer. And the beaches are open. And we are here, still in Eastertide. Alleluia! Christ is risen. (Christ is risen indeed!)
I chose this passage this morning because it's a weird one. And I wanted to wrestle a bit with it.
We're at a pool in Jerusalem ,at a time of an unnamed festival. Beth-zatha, probably the same as 'Bethsaida'or even "Bethesda." Meaning "House of newness" or "house of kindness." There's a back story here you don't have. The tradition was an angel would stir up the pool and the first one to make it into the water would get healed. We don't know exactly what was wrong with this man except that he'd been ill for 38 years.
Apparently he gets beat out every time he tries to get to the water. No wonder he sounds bitter. It's perhaps the strangest of Jesus' healing stories. When Jesus asks him "Do you want to be made well?" you expect, as is usually the case, to hear an affirmation of faith followed by either a statement of Jesus about faith or forgiveness followed by a healing.
But what do we get? A complaint. No one will help me..And how does Jesus respond? He says
"Stand up, take your mat and walk." And he does. Our lectionary ends with Now that day was a sabbath.
If you're paying attention, that means trouble. Because pretty soon Jesus will be accused of healing on the sabbath. Which was forbidden. And there's no note of gratitude on our man's part. Never even bothers to say thanks, just goes on.
And later, when confronted by the authorities for carrying his mat on the sabbath, he tries to deflect the blame back on Jesus whose name he didn't even bother to ask. When he learns Jesus' name, he immediately goes to tell the authorities. Maybe hoping they'll leave him alone.
On the one hand, it's the nature of living under occupation. It reminds me of the popular current Broadway play "the Ferryman" where the IRA (no worse than the British) coerce and manipulate people into informing on each other. In the East Germany, during DDR years, some 260000 people were recorded as being informers. One never knew who to trust. Likewise with Palestinians today and their Israeli overlords.
This healed person is the least heroic, let alone faithful, loyal or even thankful of all Jesus' healings. So what's up here?
A simple answer might be that Jesus is promiscuous in his love....not just for the worthy or deserving, it's for all.
But maybe there's something deeper going on here. Three images come to mind:
* First, I remember John Lennon singing "War is over if you want it"....sounded overly simplistic, but.... that's kind of how it starts.
Or the lesson I learned that if you want to play music, the only way to do that is to play music.
Or the exercise I've seen in retreats and you're in a group and they tell you to imagine you are surrounded by an invisible box then are asked how do you get out of the box. There are usually overblown strategies or dead silence. The answer of course? Step out of the box...
So Jesus tells him to pick up his mat and walk. And he does. It's that simple. No faith has made you well. No sins are forgiven. Just "Stand up, take your mat and walk." And it works...
So what do we see here? Sometimes the answer is right in front of us. And we can't see it because we believe theres no there there. And so we keep on waiting for someone to carry, drag or pull us down to the pool. Or take us out of the box. So we refuse to take the first step or even try because you know, we can't, right? And 30 years or more go by and we're still bitter, lying there beside the pool. Waiting.
And Jesus says, "Yes you can, pick up your mat and walk."
Where have we been stuck? What are we waiting for? Are you ready to take that step?
"Stand up, take your mat and walk."
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (Christi is risen indeed...)
Amen.
We talk. Neil, who does flower arrangements, says it's often the ones who get something for free that are most demanding and least appreciative. We talk about gratitude, how important it is to get us moving. And how hard that step can be. And about the Jewish Passover story that the Israelites had to go into the water up to their noses before God parted the waters. We finish by singing "How beautiful for spacious skies" and I mention the irony that this much beloved hymn, as someone reminds us, was written by Kathy Lee Bates. How conservatives don't even realize it was composed by someone who could so clearly fit that general category of queer. And of course, the conversation turns to Ray Charles....
Gospel John 5:1-9
1After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many invalids-blind, lame, and paralyzed. 4, 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When 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?" 7The 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." 8Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
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