During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.
We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home." And she prevailed upon us. Acts 16: 9-15
After Jesus healed the son of the official in Capernaum, there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids-- blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When 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?" The 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." Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. John 5:1-9
It’s Memorial Day weekend and the summer exodus to the water has begun. Whether it’s a beach, river, lake, pool, or the hose in the backyard, summer means heat and the waters call out to us. Water is essential for life. At creation, when the earth was a formless void, a wind from God swept over the waters. Water was there before anything else. Part of what makes our summer worship in the Memorial Garden so meaningful is that we are out here enjoying God’s creation, and there is a fountain of water, a tangible reminder of our baptism, of our community of faith.
Lydia must have recognized the importance of water; that’s where she went to pray, and it’s where the community gathered under her leadership. What was Lydia praying about, I wonder, when Paul found her there? Could she have known the new course her life would take when she went down to the river to pray on that particular day? But the Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to the good news proclaimed by Paul. And then she and all her household went into the waters of baptism. From that day forward, Lydia shared her gifts to proclaim the gospel.
The readings today invite us to remember that God moves, intercedes, provides, and transforms. The Spirit sometimes troubles the waters to make a way for healing, creating places of prayer for people inside and outside of the gates, inside churches at baptismal fonts, and outside in memorial gardens with fountains. You never know when you will encounter the Spirit moving over the waters.
In John’s Gospel there was a man who had been ill for 38 years, unable to get off of his mat. How many times in 38 years do you imagine he tried to get into the pool? Surely, he never imagined that on that day he would stand again, see the future and walk right into it.
When Jesus encounters the man on his mat, he doesn’t dwell on the man’s past, he doesn’t say anything about what’s been done or left undone for 38 years. And notice that he doesn’t heal the man on the man’s terms – by helping him into the pool when the water is stirred up. This is what the man probable expects, to do things the way they have always been done. But Jesus simply tells him to get up and walk.
Jesus wants each of us to be made well, to walk again, to be delivered from the paralysis of our past, our baggage, our fear, our complacency. Through our baptism into the household of God we promise to seek healing in our own lives and to bring about healing for others. Sometimes it is the faith community that is in need of healing. Being made well can only happen when we want to do the work, and it can be slow work. Being made well takes time as trust is rebuilt, as conflict is faced and worked through, as confession and forgiveness are shared.
I can identify with the man lying by the pool at Beth-zatha. More than once in my life Jesus has asked me if I wanted to be made well, only I did not hear him, or maybe I wasn’t listening. I thought I was well, I believed I was doing exactly what God wanted me to do. Turns out I was mistaken. Maybe there have been times in your lives when you have been mistaken too. It’s not always easy for us to name those times, to admit them, to confess that we are in need of some healing.
Jesus asks us, “do we want to be made well?”
Jesus sees the man lying there and asks him, “Do you want to be made well?” The man doesn’t answer the question but instead recites a litany of all the reasons he cannot be healed.
I want to suggest that each of us might have a litany that we recite to Jesus. Thinking about the man in the Gospel who had many excuses, good excuses, for his inability to get up off his mat, we might find it useful in our own faith journey to consider what is keeping us on our own mats.
Life is hard, and this man really was suffering, reminding us that we should never forget how hard things are for some of us. As Christians we are called to compassion and action for those who are suffering.
Jesus is asking us, “Do you want to be made well?”
Take a moment to notice how you respond to that question right now? Do you want to be made well? Do you want to improve your diet? Explore your anger issues? Exercise more? Restore your marriage? Do you want to let go of past hurts and resentments? What is it in each of us that God wants to make well? Maybe we dismiss the question entirely. Maybe we say we are not sick and have no need of healing. We list our excuses. We point to others who are clearly in greater need of healing. Maybe we accuse them of not doing enough to heal themselves, when what they need is to know the healing love of Jesus.
Here at St. James’s we have been sitting by the pool of discernment and transition, waiting for the water to stir up a new rector for us! The changes and the unknowns of this interim time may have us feeling worried, fearful, critical, or paralyzed. Where have we experienced healing and what remains to be healed? How are we being called to move beyond Franklin Street to make others well?
Jesus is asking us, “Do you want to be made well?”
When we can recognize that we are, all of us, in need of healing, then the healing can begin. Most of the time healing is not easy or quick or pleasant. It requires, first of all, that we admit our need of healing, that we get up off of our mats of complacency or denial. It requires that we truly listen to God, pray with intention, and work the process toward healing.
When we open our lives to God’s presence we will be changed. When we live our lives in God’s presence, others will be changed. The healing is ongoing, it never ceases, and it’s never too late. The man on the mat was open to Jesus and listened to him and responded. That is when the healing began for him.
What usually makes us change, sometimes forces us to change, are the changes taking place around us, or within our lives. Rivers flow, pools of water are stirred up, and sometimes this looks overwhelming to us, all this change and loss, yet in every change, Christ is present to bring about healing in our lives.
The promise is that Jesus does not change. He is faithful and has come to bring healing into our lives. That is our Easter hope, that is our amazing, good news - that when we don’t think healing is possible, or don’t even know we are in need of healing, God is in the business of healing.
Jesus is asking, “Do you want to be made well?”
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