Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

John 5: 1-9

We’ve been on a roll around here, big Sunday thing after big Sunday. Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Easter. Typically the Sunday after Easter is an exhale. We hear about the disciple, Thomas, who had some doubts and we relax in the wonder of resurrection. It even has an informal title: Low Sunday. Because there is only one direction to go after the high of Easter. But also, because it’s usually low attendance. But not this year. We followed Easter with confirmation Sunday which packs the house and subverts low anything. And then we did it again the next week with a couple more kids being confirmed and threw in a baptism for good measure. And then there was a ministry fair and coffee party and annual meeting and Mother’s Day with all theP children singing their sweet songs. And then of course, last Sunday was a sendoff for Pastor Lois, riding off into the retirement sunset on a cloud of joy, gratitude and love.

What a glorious Easter season. Friends, I am declaring that today is a long overdue an exhale. A day to soak up some of the life giving moments we have been enveloped in.

I’m a sucker for a good healing story. We have a brief story from the Gospel of John where Jesus heals a man. In the city of Jerusalem, there was a place where people who had an ailment they wanted cured gathered together. It was a pool, with porticos around it. The pool was called Bethzatha in Hebrew, which in Aramaic means House of Mercy.

And people would bring their mats and lie on them around the pool and wait. They were all waiting to be healed. Waiting to die. Waiting for lunch. Waiting for help. Waiting for someone to come along. Waiting for an angel to come along and stir up the waters and then the waiting turned to rushing. Because the story went that the first person into the water after an angel had stirred it up would be healed. And the gentleman featured in today’s story had been lying there, by that water under one of those porticos, on a mat for 38 years.

Can you imagine lying and waiting for an angel to stir those waters for almost four decades? And then competing with all the other folks to get into the water first? This feels like a set up for disappointment. It also has the energy of the flight I was on yesterday. I flew from Seattle to Minneapolis. I was near the back of the plane and the worst part of every flight is waiting patiently to stand up and take your turn down the aisle. It seems like it takes forever but also, we all know the drill and rules: we go row by row. I was on the aisle and I waited for the three people across from me to stand and clear out and then just before I could move to the middle, the guy behind me begins to move forward. Oh, absolutely not. There is only so much chaos in the world that I can handle and this is one thing too far. So, I stuck my leg out in the aisle and then by body followed, preventing him from jumping the line.

So, all these folks in the story are lying on mats, waiting to be first in the water and the odds of being first in line feel so far off. But also, who among us wouldn’t roll the dice at the possibility? This sounds like a competitive sport for healing, one with bad odds. Even still, I know myself. I would try.

Jesus comes along and asks this man if he wants to be healed. The man doesn’t say no, but he doesn’t exactly say yes, either. Some read this as the man being resistant because he doesn’t jump at the opportunity and then because he doesn’t seem grateful after he is healed, that’s he’s indifferent.

I wonder if there is another angle. When Jesus asks him if he wants to be healed, he simply describes his reality, which is a place of lack. He says, “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.” I mean, he know his lot. He’s been lying out here, next to the House of Mercy day after day—he is mercy adjacent. And he doesn’t have a support team who can organize a meat raffle at the local bar for him or Go Fund Me much less accompany him every day to the pool and wait around for an angel to show up and then quickly get him into the water before everyone else.

This man doesn’t know Jesus from Adam. He isn’t particularly curious about him before or after the healing, which I actually find delightful. This stranger is healed, his life changed from the moment he encounters Jesus, and he doesn’t even think to ask Jesus his name. Or what he deal is. Or maybe would he like to have a follow up coffee the next day to do a little processing. Nope. He’s healed and on his way. It is slightly problematic that Jesus breaks the rules and heals on the sabbath day. So this newly healed man is scolded by religious authorities as soon as he leaves the pool.

We are all laying on mats next to the House of Mercy.

This story shows us that Jesus is available, both in the designated holy spaces and out near the public pool. This story tells us that whether we were born onto the lap of Jesus and have nurtured faith our whole lives or have walked in cold today and Jesus is a stranger whom we can’t even identify, there is healing available.

Also, if you lay next to the pool long enough, eventually you are going to wet.

We gifted Pastor Lois with a gorgeous bowl made by the artist who made the baptismal bowl/font. If you were in the room when she opened it up, you know she wasted no time. She immediately dumped water into it and began flinging it around, reminding everyone around her that the waters of baptism are continually being stirred up with mercy. It isn’t magic. It is God in Christ Jesus continually arriving in our lives, offering what we need.

Of course, there were dozens of other people lying on mats around that pool. So why this guy? Why this one out of all the other people who needed and wanted something from Jesus? That isn’t answered in this story. But one thing this story does for us and all the generations before us who have gathered around it is it serves as a reminder that God’s grace is not reserved for the “deserving.” It’s not reserved for those who are immediately grateful, who remember their manners, who know the name of Jesus.

This story from John’s Gospel is a corrective to any thinking that God’s ability or willingness to heal us depends or is equal to our measure of faith. Let go of the idea that you need a certain level of faith to be healed. Or you not being made well is a direct result of your lackluster prayer life. Illness or ailments are not punishments from God or from lack of faith.

Sometimes Jesus heals using mud and spit, sometimes he lays his hands on people, sometimes it’s by extension as we reach out and just desperately grab the fringe of his garment. And sometimes, Jesus heals with a word. Today he says, “Do you want to be made well?”

I suspect you have been healed by words of blessing prayed over you or by someone speaking Gospel freedom to you. Or by someone in your life looking you in the eyes and saying, “I forgive you.” Or maybe you are drowning in the early months of parenthood and a friend says, “You are doing a good job.”

I’ve been thinking about this Gospel in relationship to our commitment to anti racism here at Gloria Dei. It’s the five year anniversary of parts of this city and then parts of this world exploded in rage and grief and fire over the killing of George Floyd—and all subtle, overt and systemic layers racism that led up to that moment.  We started talking about it in our worship planning meeting on Tuesday and we all had things to say, visceral memories of the killing and of the Uprising that followed. The protests, helicopters, military presence, plywood—all during a time when we weren’t yet gathering people in groups because it was still early Covid. I’m guessing you have your own stories living with you as we remember together. Care to you. Maybe share those with one another over coffee or lunch today.

Years back, when I started doing intentional anti racism work, the truth is I spent a lot of time laid out on my mat, next to mercy. Immobilized by the enormity of the layers, history and of what I didn’t know. Then the shame of having to learn something that feels so obvious after learning it. I felt beat up. And hear me when I say it was me doing the flogging. And then I’d get up from the mat and keep walking and learning and growing.

Over the last few months, we have been working with Pastor Osheta Moore and if you have been heard her preach or talk or lead. Or if you have listened to or read parts of her book, Dear White Peacemakers, you already know that there is healing available. I am slowly making my way through this book and there are some Gospel things Osheta says that I am hearing for the first time.

Pick up her book and join us for the book club in June. We are practicing becoming beloved community together. Which means you are allowed to make mistakes, to not know everything, to say things awkwardly. We are learning together.

The good news is that Jesus is persistent in bringing about life regardless of the circumstances, which is a good word to bring into your week. As you wake up tomorrow morning, remember, even here, healing. As you hear or read the news, remember even here, mercy. When you find yourself laid out on a mat, immobilized, remember even here, abundance. Getting up from our mats isn’t a one and done. Like dying and rising in the waters of baptism, it is daily. The invitation to get up and walk and keep living is ongoing and unlimited. Amen.