Lame Excuses

John 5:1-9

A colleague recently told me an unbelievable story. He said a visitor to worship recently called him a few days into the week to thank him . . . for healing her.

Yep, he told me, healing her.

She said it happened right in the middle of the benediction, when the pastor raised his arms and urged the people in his congregation to accept the responsibility of the Gospel and the freedom of grace . . . it was right then that it happened.

Baffled at the news, my colleague asked the visitor what she meant.

She explained that right when he’d begun pronouncing the benediction, a warm feeling came over her, starting right at her head and going all the way down to her toes.

And she felt healed. And, she claims, it was true. She was actually healed from whatever it was she was sick of.

Now, I can’t tell you the name of this colleague because a) I don’t believe he is capable of such a thing, at least on a reliably regular basis, and b) I don’t want you running off to worship someplace else just because you feel a cold coming on.

But I can tell you that I know this: people, everyday, run of the mill people, come to church to be healed, to have experiences of grace and to leave different. That’s nothing new! During the first half of the 20 th century in this country, in fact, the traveling revival was better than the circus. Folks flocked into tents because they’d heard the preacher could heal people. And they’d bring Grandma, who had been blind for 13 years . . . and Uncle Joe, who had a bad back . . . and Aunt Jessie who couldn’t seem to get the swelling in her feet to go down.

Various institutional expressions of the church have picked up on this human need for healing, as you know, and really made the most of it. Claims of miraculous healing can turn a statue of the Virgin Mary into the most popular tourist attraction on the planet. Aimee Semple McPherson, the wild and unpredictable California preacher of the early 1900s, built the Angelus Temple of the Four Square Gospel in Los Angeles . . . with the help of a whole group of people who believed she could somehow prevail upon God to heal them. And television preachers galore still capitalize on our desperate need to go somewhere . . . anywhere . . . to be healed.

On a certain level it’s true: we come to church for healing and many of us do find healing in these places of spiritual nurture and growth. But most often, I’m thinking, the healing doesn’t steal over you like warm honey during the benediction.

(If it does I would like to respectfully ask that that experience is reserved for the City Paper Church Reviewer, who secretly visits churches and rates them in the paper.)

No, usually the healing you and I experience in this place comes from somewhere else—not the benediction: the touch of a hand; the soaring notes of Messiah; the grasping, finally, of a profound truth; the passing of the peace; the communal expression of the Gospel; being in a place where people know your name; or singing your very favorite hymn at the top of your lungs with your eyes squeezed shut.

But, alas, neither kind of healing is reasonably predictable, at least not enough to market the service, pull in the masses and brand a product.

And here is the point at which we might find ourselves in a situation not unlike the character in John’s gospel this morning. Hurting, in search of healing, desperate for hope and faithfully coming, over and over, to a place that we believe might heal us . .. only to find ourselves, not miraculously healed during the benediction, but instead in and among a whole bunch of limping, sobbing, hurting people who have somehow forgotten what we were looking for when we first come.

Just like we can’t blame Uncle Joe for dragging his bad back down to the revival tent, we certainly can’t blame the sick man in John’s gospel for wanting so desperately to be healed . . . willing to do even the craziest thing, something like sitting on the edge of a pool for 38 . . . 38 years . . . just waiting for a miracle.

That’s what it had been . . . 38 years . . . when Jesus encountered this man at the Pool of Siloam, near the Shepherd’s Gate in Jerusalem. This is a real place; you can visit it today. If you did, you would see crumbling ruins of what once was, clearly, a formal structure. The pool is about fifty-three feet long and eighteen feet wide, with many steps leading down to its edge. The tradition was that every once in awhile the waters would start to become “stirred up”, kind of like turning on the Jacuzzi jets. Scholars assert the pool was connected to an underground spring and would occasionally gush spring-fed water into this pool. Folks believed that the first person to make it in the water when the pool was stirred up would be healed. It must have happened from time to time . . . sick individuals plunging into the churning waters and experiencing healing. It must have happened because the pool was surrounded with hurting, hurting people, people who had gone to great lengths to secure a place on the edge of the pool, a place to be healed.

I believe that you cannot possibly know what must have been like to vie for a seat like those people must have, unless you have lived through at least one Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

During Mardi Gras, for those of you who haven’t made it yet, local clubs or Krewes build gaudy floats, pay movie stars to come ride them down historic streets, and spend thousands of dollars on plastic junk to throw off the sides into the cheering crowds.

It sounds ridiculous even telling you about it but that’s why I say: you have to live through it to understand.

Intellectually speaking, of course, that there’s no point in securing a good spot to collect bags of brightly colored plastic beads that will sit in your attic for many, many years to come.

But I tell you: find yourself caught up in the roar of the crowd on a crisp February night on Saint Charles Avenue and all of the sudden you will go to some very extreme lengths just to get a shot at the “throws”.

For those who live Mardi Gras year in and year out, as we did when we lived there, you begin to develop traditions. Some families, for example, maintain the strangest contraptions: ladders with wooden baby seats screwed into their tops, training wheels screwed in for easy transport. Or grandma’s old couch that stays in the garage for the rest of the year only to be dragged out to the roadside two days before Endymion is scheduled to roll. Or huge, hand-painted signs reading, “Throw me something, Mister” with basketball hoops attached.

The key to a successful Mardi Gras, of course, is finding the right spot. Families have claimed certain spots for years and years, and very often it’s the new son-in-law who has to spend the night on grandma’s couch making sure nobody steals the spot for tomorrow’s parade.

And that’s the kind of competition, manipulation and frustration that Jesus encountered when he came to the Pool of Siloam that day. Its edges were jam-packed with people who had taken up permanent residence there, some even on grandma’s couch, each one hoping for years and years and years that somehow a miracle would happen and they would be healed.

But something happened to those people in the years and years of waiting. It seems that the constant jockeying for position, the tedious competition of the hurting, the interminable waiting for the next chance . . . well it got to be wearing. And, the funny thing was, people who gathered there in the holy city waiting for a miracle forgot why they’d come. They’d forgotten, and after 38 years it’s understandable, the fervor and devotion that brought them there seeking healing at any cost. They’d forgotten to look for the miraculous and to respond in faith . . . instead it seems they spent a lot of time dreaming up lame excuses for why their lives couldn’t possibly change.

This is very clear in the conversation Jesus had when he met the man who had claimed his spot on the edge of Siloam for almost 40 years. The man must’ve been pretty ensconced, because the text says that Jesus saw him lying there and could immediately tell “he had been there for some time”. We don’t know what malady afflicted the man by the pool but tradition says he was paralyzed, as you heard from the story he had trouble getting into the pool. In actuality, the text says he was ill—just generally ill. Whatever his trouble, he was handicapped severely in some way.

The text says that Jesus looked at him and asked him the most unexpected question he could imagine. Not: how are you feeling, how long have you been here or how did you get ill, but “ Do you want to be made well?”

I can imagine the man looking up at Jesus with the most incredulous expression. What do you mean, do I want to be made well? I’ve been sitting here by the pool for 38 years, haven’t I? I haven’t had a turn! And plus, I don’t have anyone to help me! It’s not fair and it isn’t my fault. I’ve been here waiting, but the miracle never works for me!”

But Jesus said what he meant: “Do you want to be made well?”, because his next words put the onus of healing not on some mystical, miraculous luck, but on the actions of the man himself. “Take up your mat and walk,” Jesus said. No more waiting for a miracle. No more dragging yourself to the shrine, sadly. No more hopeless expressions and foregone conclusions . . . and NO MORE lame excuses. No more.

Jesus came to the pool to wake that man up, to let him know that he was stuck, not so much by his illness, but even more profoundly by his wallowing in hopelessness and his cataloguing of lame, lame excuses. There was healing to be had, Jesus showed him, but it was going to take some cooperation on his part.

I’ve been reading the most wonderful book lately: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. In it, she tells the story of a poor Italian man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, “Dear saint—please, please, please . . . give me the grace to win the lottery.” This daily, desperate prayer goes on for years and years. Finally, the exasperated statue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, “My son—please, please, please . . . buy a ticket!”

After 38 years it could have been that grandma’s couch on the edge of the pool was more comfortable than reaching out and grabbing onto hope one more time. It could have been that dreaming up lame excuses for staying right there in the pain became more familiar than longing for freedom any more. It could have been that, after all that time, that man had forgotten what he so desperately wanted in the first place and preferred instead to sit around with a whole crowd of people who’d come to encounter a miracle, who hadn’t experienced what they’d imagined and who chose instead to live right on the edge of hope, their waiting flavored with anger and bitterness, and their stamina fueled by lame excuses.

I don’t fault those who want a miracle. There have been times in my life when I really could have used a miraculous release from the pain of human life, and if I’d known of a shrine with a statue of the Virgin Mary crying tears of blood I might have actually tried going there. But most days I long for the kind of miraculous healing contained in encountering God, and this is why I come to this place, invest in this community and wait expectantly for the healing to come.

I’ll bet on some level, some of that is why you come here, too.

We’re all grasping for a miracle of one sort of another: healing of our hearts; relief from the pain; mending of the world; calming of the chaos. And if these were to happen, as they sometimes do at church, well, wouldn’t that be like a miracle?

And so we keep showing up, hoping for the results we want. At some churches, in fact, there’s so much demand for the encounter that they sell tickets and have assigned parking places.

But in the process . . . all along the way . . . the reality of human life in community begins to tinge our initial hope. We become settled in a way that’s comfortable, a way we expect. We settle for less than the miraculous in our relationships with each other. We forget why we came in the first place.

But the problem is: God is not a drive through window at McDonald’s. We can’t drive ourselves in here every week, some of us for years and years and years, plaintively lamenting our pain and wallowing in the hurt that keeps us sitting on the edge.

If Jesus were to wander into this beautiful sanctuary this morning he might tap us on the shoulder and ask us a question: “Do you want to be made well?” or maybe, “Why are you here, really?”

And my guess is that Jesus would not put up with any lame excuses. No “I feel guilty”s or “out of obligation”s or “I’ve always done it that way”s are going to cut it.

You come here expecting a miracle. I come here hoping for an encounter with the God of the universe. We come to this place for healing . . . for hope. Jesus would ask us if we remember why we’re here . . . if we recall what drew us to look for God in the first place.

And when we get through all the lame excuses about why we can’t be healed and start to remember why we came, well then he could very well look over at you . . . at me and say, well come on, it’s time to get busy walking and talking and living the very message of hope.

The miracle, you see, is this: that you and I could come to a beautiful place like this and hope for an encounter with God.

That you and I could contribute to and participate in this strange experiment of building diverse and faithful Gospel community.

That we could walk out of here, clutching hands, relationships healed.

That our encounter with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this very place where we’ve come to be healed . . . could accompany us outside these walls, into this city and into the whole world . . . to bring healing and hope. A miracle.

Do you want to be made well?

I do. I do! This is why I came and perhaps why you came, whatever winding road led you to this place. We want to be made well; we want to find God.

It’s time to remember why we came . . . not to stake out our territory and spend year after year in misery . . . no! Remember? We came to lay down the pain of our lives and to accept Jesus’ offer of healing.

And, knowing this, I think Jesus (if he happened to be walking by) would probably say to you and me: People of God, please . . . no more lame excuses.

Amen.

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