Walk the walk

Response to May 13th Sermon - (Reading from John 5:1-9)

It was one of those Sundays; when the sermon is aimed straight at you and you know it, even if the preacher doesn't. Well, she probably does, you just hope that's not the case. I sat around a lunch table after church and breathed a little sigh of relief that I was not alone in feeling this bit of teaching pierce like a poniard.

We've all heard this story before, and many other healing stories like it. The gospels are full of them. If you're like me you find them repetitive. Maybe you are just a bit wary as well. After all, what good is the healing of a leper thousands of years ago to us today? What good healing one, twenty, even a hundred when those we love grow sick, or weak, or old?

S did what she often does; she turned the old story on its head. It stopped being just one more healing story. Christ spoke out of the pages of the gospel and straight at each of us. Go on, go read the passage, this won't make much sense otherwise.

(I'll wait...)

Back? So, the sermon? What is important here isn't what happened. It isn't that Jesus healed this man. It was what he said to him first. "Do you want to be made well?" The man doesn't say "Yes, Lord!" He doesn't beg for healing. In fact he makes no positive response at all. He only complains, and shifts the blame for his lack of healing to others. And Jesus? He doesn't tolerate it, he doesn't coddle or comfort him. He tells him to stand up and walk! I could hear the exasperation in his words.

That man sat for 38 years and blamed his problems on everyone but himself. I suspect he was afraid to be well. That would have meant having to go get a job, raise a family, care for a home, and take part in his community. Being well means hard work. Its easier to complain. Its easier to blame everything that goes wrong in our lives on someone else.

I have gone to the same church for 30 years. As I sat in church on Sunday and listened to S speak I knew she was right. She sees us, me, more clearly than anyone has before. She sees where we sit, beside the pool that could make us whole and well. She hears the excuses we make. She hears us blame everyone but ourselves for our problems. We are afraid to step down into the water or ask for help. Mostly, we have been afraid to be well.

If we were well we would have to change. We would have to grow and move forward. We would leave behind things and people we knew. We would do hard work. We would risk. The safe thing, the comfortable thing is to lay on our mat beside the pool. The safe thing is to blame others for why we fail to get better. (And I won't say anymore. This is a public forum but I think anyone familiar with the Church will understand.)

It is not the gentle, meek coddling Jesus we need in this place. Jesus who will pat us on the head and hold our hands and listen to a long list of 'poor me.' We do not need someone to love us where we are. We need the Jesus of the gospel; who ignores our whining and our excuses and commands us: "Get up! Walk!"

I was sitting beside that pool. I have blamed "them." I have blamed our past. Always it was someone else. I even analyzed and evaluated. But I stayed stubbornly beside the pool. Until now. I do want to be well, no matter what that means. Those first few tentative steps have been hard. But I am standing. I am walking. I am speaking. I have been given a command and I will listen this time.

I am standing, Lord.
Show me where You would have me go,
only let me not go alone.

I am speaking, Lord.
Teach me the words to say,
only let them be Your words.

I am working, Lord.
Direct my hands to Your labor,
only never let them go.