Do you want to be made well?

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 1^st 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 1^st 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 5^th 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.

In Remembrance of Me

I was preaching at our Church's monthly Communion service; our minister had asked me to share the service with her.

“If anyone loves me,” said Jesus, “he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”

You remember that this passage comes from John’s Gospel, at the Last Supper; it’s where Jesus is summing it all up for the disciples before the crucifixion. “In my Father’s house are many mansions” and so on. If you had the lectionary reading last week, as we did in Shropshire, it was the passage about the commandment to love one another, from the same section. This bit sort-of carries on from there. “If anyone loves me, they will obey my teaching.”

In our Gospel reading, Jesus makes it pretty clear that being a Christian isn’t just about believing, it’s also about obeying. We need to take Jesus’ teaching on board, and allow our faith to make a difference in our lives. It’s not just a mental assent to a set of propositions, it’s about a whole new way of living. We know that, of course, but half the time we forget it and, if you’re anything like me, when you remember, you instantly start thinking you must be a terrible Christian!

But look at it again, for a minute: “If anyone loves me, they will obey my teaching!” Not “They ought to”, or “They must”, but “They will!” It will happen more or less automatically as long as we love Jesus. It’s not about a legalistic list of dos and don’ts; it’s about a relationship with the living God. “They will obey my commands.” Not because we have to, not even because we love Jesus, but because it’s a cause and effect type of relationship. We don’t need to feel guilty, we just need to let go and let God. As Jesus goes on to say:

“My Father will love him – or her – and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

That’s a pretty extraordinary statement, when you come to think of it. To make their home with us? Really? Actually, it’s a bit terrifying – are we, am I, are you living as though this is true? Is it true for us? Yikes....

And then Jesus goes on to say not to worry if his disciples don’t remember all this, as when the Holy Spirit comes, He will teach it all to us, and remind us of all of Jesus’ teachings.

And then he concludes “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.”

I have been thinking about this passage in the context of Holy Communion, which we are celebrating today. In the other Gospels, Jesus takes the normal Jewish Friday-evening ritual of taking, blessing, breaking and sharing the bread and the wine, that every Jewish family did, and still does, on a Friday evening, and made it into something different, something special. The bread becomes, in some way, his body, the wine becomes his blood. And we are told to “Do this in remembrance of me”.

Now, as I’m sure you realise, there are as many different ways of looking at Holy Communion as there are Christians! What happens when we take, bless, break and share the bread and the wine, as we are about to do, is what they call a mystery. That’s a jargon-word of course, it doesn’t mean anything to do with Midsomer Murders or Lewis; what it means is that no matter how deeply you go into it, no matter how deeply you understand it, because it is of God, there will always, always be more that you don’t understand. And that’s as it should be! We won’t understand the things of God until we are in Heaven with God, and quite probably not even then.

I was taught, as a very small girl, that Holy Communion is a sacrament. And that a sacrament is “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”. In other words, we do something – in this case taking, blessing, breaking and sharing the bread and wine – and God does something, too.

For some people, it is a time quite simply of remembrance. We use the Lord’s Supper to remember what Jesus did for us on the Cross. For others, it’s the great Thanksgiving, the Eucharist, where we not only remember what Jesus did, but give thanks for it. Or again, it might be, quite simply, a time of special communion with Jesus – whether that is through the actual bread and wine in some way, or because the service is very focussed. And then there are people for whom it is a re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross – not repeating it, but re-enacting it.

And, of course, because it is a mystery, everybody is probably right, and nobody probably has the whole truth about it. And that’s okay. And our views will, quite probably, change as we continue on our Christian journey, with one aspect taking priority and then another, and that’s quite normal, too.

But whatever the Eucharist means to us, one very good reason to make our Communions is because Jesus said to: “Do this in remembrance of me.” Christians have differed widely about what Jesus actually meant when he said “This is my body, this is my blood”, but we are all united that he said to do it anyway!

“If anyone loves me, they will obey my teaching!”

And this is one of the ways in which we do obey Jesus’ teaching, by making our Communions. Whether we do this daily, weekly, monthly, or even less often, almost all Christians, except Quakers, make their Communions regularly. It is one of the great uniting things – Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians have very different views of the sacrament, but we all celebrate it regularly, one way or another.

And of course, in our Gospel reading, Jesus reminded us that “the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” And in the great prayer of Thanksgiving, the Eucharistic prayer, one of the things is praying for the Holy Spirit to come. “Pour out your Holy Spirit, that these gifts of bread and wine may be for us the body and blood of Christ,” or words to that effect. There’s a technical term for that part of the prayer, by the way; it’s called the epiclesis. Just fancy that!

But the point is, it echoes back. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, will teach us all things and remind us of everything that Jesus said; we pray, in our Communion prayer, for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

For me, right now, as you may have gathered, the service is all about a special moment of communion with Jesus. A time of forgiveness, a time of healing, a time of empowerment, of refilling with the Holy Spirit, of – well, of Jesus, if you like. But, of course, there are times when it feels as though one is just going through the motions. Perhaps you didn’t come to church in a great mood, or the service has been uninspiring, or you’re uncomfortable or in pain or something, or just one of those days when you simply can’t concentrate. We all have them. You know what it’s like as well as I do.

The thing is, I think this passage helps to show us that it doesn’t really matter. We come to Communion, if all else fails, because Jesus told us to do so. He never actually promised we’d get anything out of it, even though quite often we do. He just said, “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For his first followers, this was a normal and natural part of their Friday night rituals; whatever Jesus may or may not have meant by “This is my body, this is my blood,” passing the cup and the plate around was what they did.

For us, it is a Sunday morning ritual. But still, we do this in remembrance of him. We do it because he told us to.

Of course, there are plenty of other things that Jesus told us to do; in the context, he may well have been referring to the so-called “new commandment”, to love one another. And we know from elsewhere, from Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels, exactly what sort of people we are going to be, which can be summarised as people who treat other people with the greatest possible respect for who they are. No matter who they are. But nevertheless, by making our Communion we are doing as he commanded us.

But what does it do? Does it actually change anything? I said earlier that it was a Sacrament, and that implies that God does do something. Yes, we make our Communions frequently, although perhaps now that we’re wholly Methodist not quite as often as we’d like. And I don’t suppose, most of the time, that we feel any different.

I suspect, though, that we’d soon notice if we didn’t take Communion as regularly as possible. It is one of what Wesley calls the “Means of Grace”, which include prayer and reading the Scriptures and fellowship, as well as Communion. It is a place where we come into contact with God, and those places are vitally necessary to us. Without them, we are apart from Jesus, and you remember that he said “Without me, you can do nothing!”

And, as we come to make our Communion, let’s remember, too, the last thing Jesus said in this particular passage: “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.”

“Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Amen.