Children's talk (of course, there weren't any children, but I gave the talk anyway): Shalom
This Sunday we had two choices of Gospel reading, so I thought that,
for a change, we’d have both of them. We’re going to read the
second one in a bit, and I’ll talk about it, but for now, let’s
all look at something Jesus said in the first reading.
He
said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give
to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do
not be afraid.”
Now, when we have a Communion service,
and quite often in other services, too, we wish one another God’s
peace – that peace, that Jesus left with us. But peace, here,
doesn’t just mean no war, although that, too! It doesn’t just
mean feeling calm and happy, although that, too! It’s both of
those things and more, beside. It’s about wholeness, and justice
and living in unity – in short, it’s about the way things are
like in God’s country, and the way they ought to be here.
The
way things ought to be! When you wish people “Peace be with you”,
you’re wishing them wholeness and healing and unity as well as
peace!
I think, don’t you, that we need to stop and wish
one another God’s peace, and then we’re going to hear a song on
YouTube that you may well know – if you do, please join in!
This picture is not of the pool of Bethesda; it’s of the source of
the Danube in Donaueschingen, Germany! But when we went to see it,
all I could think of was the pool of Bethesda – it totally fits my
mental image of what the pool was like!
The original
pool was, of course, in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, which is
called the Lions Gate today. Apparently it may have been built in
the 1st century BC as a Greek shrine to Asclepius, their
god of healing. It was just outside the original city walls, so as
not to offend the Jews, who would not have cared for a pagan temple
in their midst. It was not until later in the 1st century
AD that the city walls were expanded and the pool or pools turned
into a full-on temple, built by Hadrian, and by the 5th
century AD there was already a church there.
Anyway,
whether it was an active shrine, with sacrifices being offered to
Asclepius or not, we are told that many people came there for
healing. A verse in the narrative which is now omitted from most
translations, as they are not sure whether it was in the original,
says that periodically an angel would come down and stir up the
water, and the first person to get into the pool while it was still
rippling would be healed.
And one of the people there
that day was paralysed, and had been for 38 years. We aren’t told
whether he had been coming to the pool every day for 38 years, or
whether he only started coming more recently, but he had fairly
obviously been there for some time. Jesus asks him if he wants to be
made well, and his response is that every time the water is stirred
up, someone else gets there first, as he has nobody to help him get
into the water. Jesus tells him to get up, pick up his mat, and
walk, and the man promptly does so.
That was as far as we
got in our reading, but the story goes on to tell us it was the
Sabbath day, and the authorities clocked the man carrying his mat,
which was not allowed, and tore him off a strip for it. He said that
he had been told to carry it by the person who had healed him, but
couldn’t say who it was, as by then Jesus had disappeared. Later,
Jesus meets the man again in the Temple, and tells him not to sin
again or worse things could happen. The man went and told the
authorities that it was Jesus who had healed him, and that was
basically when they started to persecute him, mostly because he had
been healing on the Sabbath. Healing, like carrying mats, was
considered work, and working on the Sabbath was completely forbidden.
It’s a very strange story, I think. The more I look
at it, the odder it becomes. We know that the man was Jewish, so why
was he at a pagan shrine? How did he get there? Was he there
twenty-four seven? Did someone bring him each morning and fetch him
at night? How did he manage for food and drink, or for warmth on a
cold day? How did he manage about going to the loo? He must have
had some kind of carer, even if they couldn’t be with him
full-time! As, I expect, did most of the people round the pool. And
why was he the only person healed, if there were crowds there? Was
he the only Jewish person? It seems improbable. Really, a very odd
story. I believe some authorities suggest it was included to remind
people that it is Jesus we need to turn to for healing, not some
pagan religion. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that it isn’t a
true story, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we have nothing to
learn from it!
Jesus asks him “Do you want to be made
well?” This seems like a silly question, really. Of course
he wants to be made well, why would he be at the pool every day,
else? But, think about it a
minute. Did he want to
be made well? Was he, despite what he claimed, really quite
comfortable with this life, where he could spend the day doing not
very much, chatting with his friends, dependent on other people to do
pretty much everything for him. And if he were healed, he’d lose
all that. He would have to start looking after himself. He might
have to start looking after his family, if he had one, instead of
depending on them to look after him. He might even have to get a
job!
Whatever happened, if he were to be made well, his
life was going to change radically. Because that’s what happens
when Jesus heals you. Life changes.
“Do you
want to be made well?”
Sometimes it is our behaviour which
changes – perhaps we used to get drunk, but now we find ourselves
switching to soft drinks after a couple of glasses. Perhaps we used
to gamble, but suddenly realise we haven't so much as bought a
Lottery ticket for weeks, never mind visiting a bookie! Perhaps we
used to be less than scrupulous about what belongs to us, and what
belongs to our employer, but now we find ourselves asking permission
to use an office envelope.
Very often these sorts of
changes happen without our even noticing them. Others take more
struggle – sometimes it is many years before we can finally let go
of an addiction, or a bad habit. But as I've said many times, the
more open we are to God, the more we can allow God to change us.
But the point is, when God touches our lives, things
change. Life changes. Life changed for the man who Jesus had just
healed. Life changes for us, when we allow God to heal us.
“Do
you want to be made well?” Sometimes, of course, we cling on to
the familiar bad habits, as we don't know how to replace them with
healthier ways of acting and thinking, and that's scary. Perhaps we
don’t really want to be made well. Perhaps we are quite
comfortable with our life as it is, even though it isn’t
ideal.
Perhaps we are used to our pain, even comfortable
with it. Maybe if we were to be healed, we would have to confront
the source of our pain, and it would get a lot worse before it got
better. A wise person once said to me that nobody does any work on
themselves until it becomes impossible not to, as the process is so
inherently painful. That’s more about mental and emotional
healing, but it can apply to physical healing, too – if I have this
operation, it will make things better, but it’s going to be so much
worse at first…
The man who Jesus healed didn’t answer
directly, you notice. He just whinged that he had nobody to help him
into the pool, so he could never get well. But when Jesus told him
to get up, pick up his mat, and walk, he doesn’t seem to have
argued or anything, just done as he was told. In spite of the fact
that he got into trouble for it later. That sort of touch from God
is irresistible, isn’t it? And frightening.
This
isn’t the only occasion in John’s gospel where the consequences
of being healed are spelled out. In another place, Jesus heals a
blind man, also on the Sabbath day, and the authorities get
themselves in a right muddle. Nobody born blind gets to see, it just
doesn't happen. And if it did, it couldn't happen on the Sabbath.
Not unless the person who did it was a sinner, because only a sinner
would do that on the Sabbath – it's work, isn't it? And if the
person who did it was a sinner, it can't have happened! And even the
blind man’s parents get caught up in the row, telling the
authorities that yes, it was their son, and yes, he has been blind
from birth, but yes, it does seem that he can see now, and no, they
haven’t the faintest idea why, or what happened!
“Do
you want to be made well?” Later in John 5, Jesus tells the man
he’s just healed not to sin again or something worse might happen.
It’s not the only time he equates paralysis with sin – there’s
that time when he’s teaching at home and a man comes with four
friends who have to let his stretcher down through the roof because
it’s simply too crowded else. And Jesus looks at the man on the
stretcher and says “Your sins are forgiven!”
People
do get stuck – sometimes physically, like these men, but more often
mentally and emotionally. I know several people who found it
extremely difficult to get back to normal life after the pandemic. I
personally found it nearly impossible to make plans, in case things
changed again and we went into another lockdown. That passed off
fairly rapidly, but for others, not so much. Perhaps they were
frightened that they might still catch Covid-19 – not an
unreasonable fear, of course; people do still get it today, although
far fewer and it seems far less fatal. Perhaps they had just got
used to being mostly at home and only going out briefly for exercise,
and changing that habit was difficult. But the thing is, they got
stuck, and sometimes needed help becoming unstuck.
“Do
you want to be made well?” It's easy to fall out of the habit of
allowing God to touch you and change you. I know I have, many times.
The joy of it is, though, that we can always come back. We aren't
left alone to fend for ourselves – we would always fail if we were.
We just need to acknowledge to ourselves – and to God, of course,
but God knew, anyway – that we've wandered away again.
That's
a bit simplistic, of course – there are times when we are quite
sure we haven't wandered away, and yet God seems far off. But I'm
not going into that one right now; nobody really knows why that
happens, except God! But for most of us, most of the time, if we
fall out of the habit of allowing God to touch us and heal us and
change us, we simply have to acknowledge that this is what has
happened, and we are back with him
again.
“Do
you want to be made well?” Sometimes dreadful things have happened
to some of Jesus' followers, to those who speak truth to power, to
those who refuse to conform to this world’s standards. But then,
we always seem to be given the strength and the ability to cope with
whatever comes. It’s not necessarily true that God never gives us
more than we can handle, but what is true is that we don't have to
cope alone. God is there, not only changing us,
but enabling us
to cope with that change.
It is not, of course, just about
healing us as individuals, but as communities – as families, as
churches, as societies, even as nations. Being open to God, being
open to God’s power to change and heal, can have consequences far
beyond ourselves. We may not see them ourselves, we may never know
that we were the catalyst, but it can happen, nevertheless.
Do
you want to be made well? Amen.