Nancy Ferree-Clark - "Do You Want to Be Healed?" (May 17, 1998)
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| - | Let us pray. | 0:04 |
| May the words of my mouth and the meditations | 0:08 | |
| of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, | 0:11 | |
| oh Lord, our strength and our Redeemer, amen. | 0:14 | |
| When it comes to dealing with change, | 0:22 | |
| most of us have some very mixed feelings. | 0:25 | |
| Just take a moment as you leave the chapel this morning | 0:29 | |
| and really look at all those students | 0:31 | |
| milling around on campus. | 0:33 | |
| You could bet your bottom dollar | 0:36 | |
| that quite a few of them, maybe even the majority, | 0:37 | |
| are more than ready to pack up their bags | 0:40 | |
| and head for the next destination. | 0:43 | |
| They're relieved to finish up all that work. | 0:46 | |
| They're looking forward to a change of scenery, | 0:49 | |
| but still can be a little nervous | 0:52 | |
| about leaving the old friends and familiar places behind. | 0:53 | |
| Maybe they're feeling a little unsettled | 0:58 | |
| about exactly what comes next. | 1:00 | |
| And what about all those parents? | 1:03 | |
| Why, they're pleased as punch to see their offspring | 1:05 | |
| all decked out in those mortarboards and gowns, | 1:08 | |
| proud to see them grow up for real this time, | 1:12 | |
| not to mention wrapping up those tuition payments. | 1:16 | |
| But still, they too can be nostalgic | 1:19 | |
| for the days when they could rock little Johnny | 1:21 | |
| or little Sally in their arms to sleep at night, | 1:24 | |
| keeping them safe from the world. | 1:27 | |
| As for the faculty and staff, | 1:29 | |
| well, they've gone through this before. | 1:31 | |
| They are often sad to see favorite students moving on | 1:34 | |
| or even sadder still to see a well-liked colleague | 1:38 | |
| retiring or relocating. | 1:42 | |
| But they also know that they have a new year | 1:45 | |
| to look forward to in the fall, new faces, | 1:48 | |
| new talents, new possibilities in the classroom. | 1:51 | |
| Change happens. | 1:55 | |
| It's everywhere and it's a mixed bag. | 1:58 | |
| Some people run with it for all they're worth, | 2:02 | |
| almost to the point that they can spend their lives | 2:04 | |
| chasing it. | 2:07 | |
| Others dig their heels in and do everything they can | 2:08 | |
| to try and stop it. | 2:12 | |
| It's a topic that's often on our minds | 2:14 | |
| because it's so inescapable. | 2:17 | |
| Some of you may remember a bestseller | 2:20 | |
| from a few years back written by Judith Viorst | 2:22 | |
| called "Necessary Losses." | 2:24 | |
| In that book, she talked about the inevitable changes | 2:28 | |
| in our lives and the growth that can come | 2:30 | |
| from those changes. | 2:34 | |
| It was a book that touched a deep chord within many people. | 2:36 | |
| Of course, a group of sophisticated worshipers | 2:41 | |
| like ourselves believe we know what change is about. | 2:44 | |
| We're ready for it and in many cases, | 2:48 | |
| we wrote the book about it. | 2:51 | |
| On the whole, we believe it can be a good thing, | 2:53 | |
| especially when we're the ones choosing | 2:55 | |
| the kind of change we want to make. | 2:58 | |
| As Deborah Smith Douglas has suggested, | 3:02 | |
| we live in the midst of a self-improvement industry | 3:05 | |
| which tells us that with enough time, money, and motivation, | 3:08 | |
| we can make lots of changes for the better. | 3:12 | |
| Why not be smarter, stronger, sexier, | 3:15 | |
| more popular, more successful, or more attractive | 3:19 | |
| with just a little effort? | 3:23 | |
| Indeed, there are opportunities galore | 3:26 | |
| luring us to make those kinds of personal changes, | 3:28 | |
| even if we don't stick with them for very long. | 3:32 | |
| But there's another kind of change | 3:36 | |
| which challenges us on a whole different level, | 3:38 | |
| the kind that we don't necessarily initiate ourselves, | 3:42 | |
| but rather comes in response to a call. | 3:46 | |
| It's the kind of change that produces long-lasting effects | 3:51 | |
| and causes us to reexamine some basic questions, | 3:53 | |
| like who am I, what the most important things in life | 3:57 | |
| and beyond life, what are the places | 4:02 | |
| where God is asking me to grow and change | 4:05 | |
| lest I wither and die? | 4:09 | |
| This is the kind of change we encounter in today's gospel. | 4:13 | |
| Here, in the Pool of Bethzatha, | 4:18 | |
| by the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, | 4:20 | |
| surrounded by five porticos, lay a multitude of invalids, | 4:22 | |
| blind, lame, paralyzed. | 4:28 | |
| They came to this particular pool | 4:32 | |
| because it was known to be a place of miraculous healings. | 4:34 | |
| You see, occasionally, the still surface of the pool | 4:38 | |
| was disturbed and whoever first stepped into the water | 4:40 | |
| after it had moved | 4:45 | |
| would be cured of whatever afflictions he or she had. | 4:47 | |
| One of those who came to the pool every day | 4:51 | |
| was a man who had been ill for 38 years. | 4:55 | |
| Jesus noticed him lying there | 5:00 | |
| and somehow knew he had been there for a long time. | 5:02 | |
| And so Jesus asked him a question. | 5:06 | |
| "Do you want to be healed?" | 5:09 | |
| The sick man answered, "Sir, I have no one | 5:13 | |
| "to put me into the pool when the water is troubled | 5:15 | |
| "and while I am going, another steps down before me." | 5:17 | |
| Just try and imagine this man's hopelessness. | 5:22 | |
| With no one to help him, he had no chance | 5:27 | |
| of getting to the healing water before someone | 5:30 | |
| lucky enough to be just a little more mobile than he | 5:32 | |
| got there first. | 5:36 | |
| For 38 years, a lifetime, and for a century Palestine, | 5:37 | |
| he had been lying by that pool, | 5:44 | |
| watching others step into those waters | 5:46 | |
| and emerging whole, while he remained immobilized | 5:49 | |
| and isolated year after year after year. | 5:53 | |
| What would it do to someone to be so close | 5:58 | |
| to those life-changing waters | 6:02 | |
| and still be unable to reach them in time? | 6:04 | |
| Jesus asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" | 6:09 | |
| But it was almost as if it didn't matter | 6:13 | |
| what Jesus had asked. | 6:15 | |
| Perhaps Jesus was the first person | 6:16 | |
| who had spoken to this man in years. | 6:18 | |
| Perhaps the poor man wasn't as interested | 6:22 | |
| in Jesus' question as the fact that Jesus spoke to him, | 6:24 | |
| the fact that this was someone who might | 6:30 | |
| carry him down to the water just like he had envisioned | 6:31 | |
| all those years someone might do for him. | 6:34 | |
| As Jesus speaks to this man, | 6:38 | |
| can't you imagine him estimating his chances | 6:39 | |
| of actually being first, cursing his predicament, | 6:42 | |
| glancing restlessly at the pool, | 6:46 | |
| looking for somebody, anybody, to help him? | 6:48 | |
| Jesus does not do what the man expects him to do. | 6:53 | |
| Bypassing altogether what custom and tradition dictated, | 6:57 | |
| he did not carry him down to the water. | 7:01 | |
| He simply says to the man, | 7:04 | |
| "Rise up, take your pallet, and walk." | 7:05 | |
| And the man does. | 7:09 | |
| What a teachable moment this could have been | 7:12 | |
| if Jesus had talked straight to the man, | 7:14 | |
| "Look at me, trust in me, forget about being first, | 7:16 | |
| "I can make you well." | 7:21 | |
| But Jesus doesn't do it that way. | 7:24 | |
| He is full of surprises. | 7:27 | |
| Instead, he heals an afflicted person, | 7:29 | |
| on the Sabbath, no less, so quietly and unobtrusively | 7:32 | |
| that if anyone watching had blinked, | 7:38 | |
| they would have missed it. | 7:40 | |
| This time, there was no laying on of hands, | 7:43 | |
| no prayers, no discourse on the importance of faith. | 7:45 | |
| In an act so compassionate and so full of grace | 7:50 | |
| that the poor man wouldn't have been able | 7:54 | |
| to imagine it if he had tried, | 7:56 | |
| Jesus had no need to instruct the man. | 7:58 | |
| He simply calls him to walk away from his old life, | 8:02 | |
| to leave behind the place that had disappointed him | 8:05 | |
| so many times and prolonged his suffering | 8:09 | |
| so many years and become a new man. | 8:11 | |
| "You are well, you are whole, you have received | 8:15 | |
| "your miracle from a source you never would have expected." | 8:19 | |
| The gospel does not indicate that the man | 8:24 | |
| ever paused to thank Jesus | 8:26 | |
| or to praise God in any way for his healing, | 8:28 | |
| nor that Jesus tried to explain anything that had happened. | 8:32 | |
| He simply slipped unnoticed into the crowd | 8:36 | |
| and only later sought him out, | 8:41 | |
| telling him, "See, you are well. | 8:43 | |
| "Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you." | 8:46 | |
| In other words, Jesus tried to say to the man, | 8:52 | |
| "There are worse things than illness. | 8:55 | |
| "Now do you want to be truly healed in body and in spirit? | 8:57 | |
| "Are you ready to enter into relationship with me | 9:02 | |
| "so that you may live eternally?" | 9:06 | |
| Simone Weil has written about the attachments | 9:11 | |
| that we sometimes form to our own troubles | 9:13 | |
| which can stand as serious obstacles | 9:15 | |
| in our effort to change. | 9:18 | |
| "Another effect of affliction," she writes, | 9:20 | |
| "is little by little to make the soul its accomplice | 9:24 | |
| "by injecting a poison of inertia into it, | 9:27 | |
| "and anyone who has suffered affliction | 9:31 | |
| "for a long enough time, there is a complicity | 9:33 | |
| "with regard to his own affliction. | 9:36 | |
| "This complicity impedes all the efforts | 9:39 | |
| "he might make to improve his lot. | 9:41 | |
| "It goes so far as to prevent him from seeking | 9:43 | |
| "a way of deliverance. | 9:46 | |
| "It may even induce him to shun the means of deliverance. | 9:47 | |
| "In such cases, it often veils itself with excuses | 9:51 | |
| "which are often ridiculous. | 9:54 | |
| "Even a person who has come through his affliction | 9:57 | |
| "will still have something left in him | 10:00 | |
| "which impels him to plunge into it again. | 10:02 | |
| "If the affliction has been ended as a result | 10:06 | |
| "of some kindness, it may even take the form | 10:09 | |
| "of hatred for the benefactor. | 10:11 | |
| "It is sometimes easy to deliver an unhappy man | 10:14 | |
| "from his present distress, but it is truly difficult | 10:16 | |
| "to set him free from his past affliction. | 10:20 | |
| "Only God can do it." | 10:23 | |
| In the case of this crippled man | 10:27 | |
| by the Pool at Bethzatha, | 10:29 | |
| perhaps this is exactly what happened. | 10:30 | |
| Were 38 years of suffering simply too much | 10:35 | |
| to leave behind on a moment's notice? | 10:37 | |
| Until he could accept the full import | 10:41 | |
| of the gifts Jesus came to bring, | 10:43 | |
| the new identity he had to give him, | 10:46 | |
| perhaps that was the case. | 10:49 | |
| His affliction was all he believed he had. | 10:51 | |
| Therapists see this kind of resistance | 10:55 | |
| again and again in their work with patients. | 10:57 | |
| Just when patients begin to zero in | 11:01 | |
| on the difficulties that they're seeking help for, | 11:03 | |
| they often begin to back away from it, | 11:06 | |
| maybe even to leave therapy altogether. | 11:08 | |
| Resistance is a sign | 11:12 | |
| that real growth may be just around the corner, | 11:13 | |
| if the patient can recognize it for what it is | 11:17 | |
| and move beyond it. | 11:19 | |
| Spiritual directors and pastors also sometimes | 11:21 | |
| confront this type of resistance in Christians | 11:25 | |
| who come forward asking for help | 11:28 | |
| in their relationships with God. | 11:30 | |
| In a study published about a series of relationships | 11:34 | |
| between seminarians and their spiritual director, | 11:37 | |
| it was determined that resistance was almost | 11:40 | |
| always a stage through which they had to pass. | 11:43 | |
| "I feel afraid to get intimate with God, | 11:47 | |
| "lest God put a demand on me to sacrifice too much, | 11:50 | |
| "even to become a martyr, and lose my personal identity," | 11:54 | |
| one student wrote. | 11:58 | |
| Or according to another, "I realize that I've been | 12:00 | |
| "intentionally choosing anxiety, death, | 12:04 | |
| "intellect, rather than trust, life, heart | 12:08 | |
| "in my relationship with God. | 12:13 | |
| "I see, too, what advantages there supposedly were | 12:16 | |
| "in holding onto my anxiety along with trying, | 12:19 | |
| "working, proving, controlling." | 12:23 | |
| Of course, resistance to God's call | 12:28 | |
| has been around since the beginning of time. | 12:31 | |
| Remember Adam's response when he heard God calling | 12:34 | |
| in the garden? | 12:37 | |
| "I heard the sound of you in the garden | 12:39 | |
| "and I was afraid, because I was naked. | 12:41 | |
| "I hid myself." | 12:43 | |
| The children of Israel stood trembling | 12:46 | |
| at the base of Mount Sinai and said to Moses, | 12:48 | |
| "You speak to us and we will hear, | 12:51 | |
| "but let not God speak to us, lest we die." | 12:54 | |
| Or to recall a famous example, | 12:58 | |
| when the Lord directed Jonah to undertake a mission | 13:00 | |
| to the people of Ninevah, | 13:03 | |
| Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish | 13:05 | |
| from the presence of the Lord. | 13:07 | |
| Even Simon Peter, when he saw the net-breaking | 13:10 | |
| catch of fish hauled in at Jesus' direction, | 13:13 | |
| he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, | 13:17 | |
| "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord." | 13:19 | |
| We all know that no relationship, | 13:24 | |
| even those which are most precious to us, | 13:27 | |
| ever develops without some difficulties. | 13:30 | |
| On the one hand, we want our spouses and our friends | 13:34 | |
| and our companions to be the same tomorrow | 13:36 | |
| as they are today. | 13:39 | |
| On the other hand, we get pretty bored with sameness | 13:41 | |
| and we like to discover new and interesting things | 13:45 | |
| about the other. | 13:48 | |
| These two desires can clash in us | 13:50 | |
| and produce conflict and resistance | 13:53 | |
| in all our interpersonal relationships | 13:55 | |
| and even our relationship with God. | 14:00 | |
| As Fraulein Josephine Von Beek as described it, | 14:04 | |
| rather than accepting the strangeness of the other, | 14:07 | |
| whether God, person, or thing, | 14:09 | |
| as a gracious invitation, | 14:11 | |
| we tend to be threatened by it, to keep it at arm's length, | 14:14 | |
| to protect ourself against it, | 14:19 | |
| to sit in judgment on it, | 14:21 | |
| to drag it before the tribunal of our ego, | 14:24 | |
| to measure it by the standard of our discernments, | 14:28 | |
| and to overpower it. | 14:30 | |
| In the light of this defensive attitude, | 14:33 | |
| the direct, active encounter starts to look like | 14:35 | |
| an undesirable thing to do. | 14:38 | |
| Yet we know that to maintain any relationship | 14:41 | |
| as a living, breathing entity, | 14:45 | |
| we can only resist change so long. | 14:47 | |
| Either we grow in our relationships, | 14:51 | |
| including our relationship with God, | 14:53 | |
| or we die. | 14:55 | |
| For whatever reasons, | 14:58 | |
| it seems the crippled man whom Jesus healed in this story | 14:59 | |
| never really did get it, | 15:03 | |
| at least in the part of the story | 15:06 | |
| that is recorded for us in Scripture. | 15:08 | |
| By the time Jesus had later identified himself to the man, | 15:11 | |
| the religious authorities had spotted the man walking around | 15:14 | |
| with his mat under his arm, | 15:17 | |
| which was considered to be an illegal act on the Sabbath. | 15:20 | |
| "Who is the man who said to you take up your mat and walk?" | 15:24 | |
| they demanded to know, | 15:27 | |
| and as soon as the man figured it out, he told them, | 15:30 | |
| "It was Jesus." | 15:32 | |
| That was all they needed to begin to persecute Jesus | 15:35 | |
| for doing such things on the Sabbath, | 15:38 | |
| and when he responded to them by saying, | 15:41 | |
| "My Father is still working, and I also am working," | 15:44 | |
| it only added fuel to the fire, | 15:47 | |
| because Jesus not only healed on the Sabbath, | 15:51 | |
| he considered himself equal to God. | 15:54 | |
| And so, they sought all the more to kill him for it. | 15:57 | |
| Indeed, there are as many ways | 16:02 | |
| to resist the changes God calls us to make | 16:03 | |
| as there are people on the face of the earth. | 16:06 | |
| The crippled man was too focused on his own affliction | 16:09 | |
| to fully acknowledge who Jesus was, | 16:13 | |
| and the Pharisees were too bound up by religious legalism | 16:16 | |
| and too full of their own righteousness. | 16:20 | |
| But thank goodness, | 16:23 | |
| attachments to our grievances and expectations alone | 16:24 | |
| don't have to destroy our relationship with God, | 16:28 | |
| even as the crippled man by the Pool at Bethzatha | 16:32 | |
| seemed more attached to his grievance | 16:36 | |
| than he was open to who Jesus was, | 16:38 | |
| Jesus nevertheless healed him, | 16:41 | |
| still leaving the door open for a deeper relationship | 16:43 | |
| to develop by reaching out to him | 16:46 | |
| with compassion and tenderness. | 16:49 | |
| It's just when we become so attached | 16:52 | |
| to our need to be right, | 16:54 | |
| indeed, when we become so confident | 16:56 | |
| that we are always right, like the Pharisees, | 16:58 | |
| that we distance ourselves further and further away | 17:03 | |
| from Jesus and place ourselves | 17:05 | |
| outside the longing for change | 17:08 | |
| that might open us to a real relationship with God. | 17:10 | |
| As Simone Weil once said, | 17:14 | |
| "Sometimes we are in danger of starving to death, | 17:16 | |
| "not because there is no bread, | 17:19 | |
| "but because we think we are not hungry." | 17:22 | |
| Is this a special risk for those of us | 17:27 | |
| who are so used to being in charge | 17:29 | |
| that we chose the kinds of changes we want to make | 17:31 | |
| rather than responding to those God calls us to make? | 17:35 | |
| Is this a particular vulnerability for those of us | 17:40 | |
| in an environment such as this | 17:43 | |
| where we seek everyday to master the truth | 17:46 | |
| without leaving much room for the truth to master us, | 17:49 | |
| where we pride ourselves on all that we have accomplished | 17:53 | |
| without always acknowledging | 17:57 | |
| what God has accomplished through us, | 17:58 | |
| where our lives are so full and our knowledge so vast | 18:02 | |
| that we don't even realize we are hungry? | 18:06 | |
| How open are we to the changes God would have us to make? | 18:10 | |
| The whole Church faces this issue | 18:15 | |
| in an especially challenging way at the present time | 18:17 | |
| as the culture around us changes at a mind-boggling rate? | 18:21 | |
| How prepared are we to keep up? | 18:26 | |
| How resourceful can we be | 18:28 | |
| in communicating the lasting values of the Gospel | 18:30 | |
| to a changing, hungry world? | 18:33 | |
| Even in the face of our many ways of resisting God, | 18:38 | |
| we can be reassured to know that by grace | 18:42 | |
| God's longing for our wholeness is more powerful | 18:46 | |
| than our own expectations or our needs for control. | 18:50 | |
| By grace, God does not wait | 18:54 | |
| until we know the depth of our need | 18:57 | |
| or awaken to the depth of our need to be right. | 18:58 | |
| By grace, God comes to us at the high tide of our grievances | 19:03 | |
| and in the full flowering of our dead wrong certainties, | 19:08 | |
| asking us with a voice full of compassion, | 19:13 | |
| "Do you want to be healed?" | 19:16 | |
| - | Brothers in other spaces on this campus, | 19:27 |
| who have been blessed by Your spirit to achieve great things | 19:31 | |
| during their sojourn here, | 19:34 | |
| we gather with you mindful of our sisters and brothers | 19:37 | |
| on this campus and beyond its bounds, | 19:41 | |
| whose day is marked by suffering, | 19:44 | |
| on behalf of ourselves and of all your children, | 19:48 | |
| we have come to sing Your praises, to hear Your word, | 19:51 | |
| and to lay before You our prayers for all of Your people. | 19:56 | |
| Lord, in Your mercy. | 20:01 | |
| - | Hear our prayer. | 20:04 |
| - | We pray for all who are beginning | 20:06 |
| a new phase of their lives this day, | 20:08 | |
| for those who have achieved great goals, | 20:11 | |
| for those being honored by family, and friends, | 20:15 | |
| and faculty at this university, | 20:18 | |
| we give You thanks for this institution and others like it, | 20:21 | |
| where learning is prized and truth esteemed. | 20:25 | |
| We confess that we have often settled | 20:31 | |
| for our own definitions of truth | 20:34 | |
| and for human ways to learn. | 20:38 | |
| Forgive us for putting ourselves at the center of knowledge, | 20:41 | |
| and for neglecting the truth that all things | 20:46 | |
| begin, and move, and end in You. | 20:48 | |
| Lord, in Your mercy. | 20:54 | |
| - | Hear our prayer. | 20:57 |
| - | We pray for Your people on this campus and elsewhere | 20:58 |
| for whom this is not a day of rejoicing, | 21:02 | |
| for those whose goals have not been achieved, | 21:06 | |
| for those whose dreams have become disappointments, | 21:10 | |
| and for those who live amid such suffering | 21:14 | |
| that they do not know the pleasures of peace. | 21:16 | |
| We pray for the nations struggling to find a way | 21:21 | |
| to security, | 21:24 | |
| grant that they will not take refuge in false hopes | 21:26 | |
| like weapons of destruction | 21:30 | |
| or oppression of their adversaries. | 21:33 | |
| We pray for the people of India and Pakistan | 21:36 | |
| that they will find honor among the nations of the earth | 21:40 | |
| for contributing to peace and not to fear. | 21:43 | |
| We pray for the people of Indonesia | 21:47 | |
| that they will find serenity among the nations of the earth | 21:50 | |
| for establishing justice and not repression. | 21:53 | |
| We pray for the people of Northern Ireland | 21:58 | |
| as they prepare to vote upon their future. | 22:00 | |
| Grant that they will cast their lot with the Prince of Peace | 22:03 | |
| in whose name they have separately endured so many troubles. | 22:08 | |
| Lord, in Your Mercy. | 22:14 | |
| - | Hear our prayer. | 22:16 |
| - | And care for all who are suffering this day, | 22:18 |
| for those who confront diseases | 22:22 | |
| that we can name and not cure, | 22:24 | |
| for those who are tormented by demons that we fear | 22:28 | |
| but do not understand, | 22:31 | |
| for those in the grip of poverty and hunger | 22:34 | |
| that we understand and can help, | 22:36 | |
| but have thus far chosen not to do so. | 22:39 | |
| Hear us as we name them now in the silence of our hearts. | 22:43 | |
| Lord, in Your mercy. | 22:54 | |
| - | Hear our prayer. | 22:56 |
| - | Forgive our indifference, | 22:58 |
| comfort the ailing, | 23:01 | |
| grant the light of the love to the dying, | 23:04 | |
| and draw us all together before your throne of grace. | 23:07 | |
| In the name of the Father, and of the Son, | 23:12 | |
| and of the Holy Spirit, amen. | 23:14 | |
| To God who created us and who saves us, | 23:23 | |
| we offer our praise in thanksgiving, | 23:26 | |
| and now offer a portion of the ways | 23:28 | |
| that we have been blessed as signs of our devotion. | 23:31 | |
| Let us offer our gifts to God's work through this church. | 23:36 | |
| (placid organ music) | 23:44 |