5/22/22 “Why Is Saying “Yes” So Hard Sometimes?” by Nancy E. Petty
John 5:1-9
Do you want to be made well? That is the question Jesus asked the paralyzed man who, for thirty-eight years, had been lying by the pool at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. He had been waiting thirty-eight years for someone to help him into the water when the mysterious stirring of the waters occurred and healing was made possible. And just for emphasis, I’ll say it again: thirty-eight years! The question, Do you want to be made well? seems a bit insensitive to me, especially coming from the vicar who has been traveling around healing and preaching compassion. Truthfully, I was ready to write a sermon chastising Jesus for being so tactless when my colleague over there, The Right Rev. Chalice Overy, suggested that it was a good, even fair question. Do you want to be made well? This week, I have pondered what she heard in that question that I didn’t?
I’m going to get to that but first I want to spend just a little time with the story. It’s not hard to imagine the scene. A pool area with five porticoes. In these porticoes, lay many people who are blind, lame, and paralyzed. These five porticoes feed into another body of water. And at various, unspecified times, the water in this larger pool would begin to stir and bubble up. There are legends about what made the water stir. Most commonly told is that an angel would touch the waters making them stir with healing powers. My theory is much less heavenly. I imagine that the pool rested over some hot springs and the stirring naturally occurred when the heated water below the surface bubbled up through the cracks in the ground. Whether an angel or a naturally occurring environmental process, the first people in the pool when this happened were healed from their illness. But those, like the man Jesus spoke with, who had no one to help them in the pool when the waters were stirred were out of luck, forced to the back of the line again and again and again.
This part of the story requires an analysis and critique of social and economic systems meant to assist the most vulnerable in our communities but instead keep them stuck in systems that are at best dysfunctional, and at worst predatory. While we don’t have a pool with porticoes at the entrance of Dix or Pullen Parks with the blind, lame, and paralyzed lying around waiting for some water to be stirred so they can be healed, we have our own social systems that are just as dysfunctional and unjust. Consider the Payday Loan outfit down on S. Wilmington Street that offers loans at extremely high levels of interest to the most economically oppressed people in our community, never considering a borrower’s ability to repay. It is well documented, by groups like the NC Justice Center, that these predatory loans have hidden provisions that charge borrowers added fees that create a debt trap for consumers that is impossible to overcome. Ian McPherson, our Minister to the Community, can tell you how unjust these payday loan are as he recently helped a single mother who was trapped in one.
It seems to me that this pool in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate where the most vulnerable went to find help and healing needed some analysis and critique. Maybe that’s why the question, Do you want to be made well? didn’t sit well with me. Maybe the question needed to be asked of the system instead of the individual.
And yet, systems are made up of individuals. So, in fairness, maybe this question, Do you want to be made well? is a good question—for the man who had been downed by the system for thirty-eight years and for us. My instinct is to go easy on this man, after all there was a lot going against him. It does strike me, however, when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be made well he didn’t answer. Instead, he offered a series of reasons why he had not already been healed. “Sir” he said, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.” “Sir, while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Sir…sir…sir. Why did the man not just say “yes” when Jesus asked him the simple question, Do you want to be made well? Why not just say “yes.” Why is saying “yes” so hard sometimes? Especially when it comes to moving out of unhealthy ways of living and into healthy ways of living? I suppose there are reasons. Maybe others had asked him the same question but kept walking past him unwilling to offer any assistance. Maybe he had had his hopes dashed too many other times to fall for another question with no promise of help or change. And yet still, there is another truth. As individuals, we sometimes get stuck in these unhealthy, dysfunctional, unjust systems, lost in the long list of obstacles and limitations, stuck instead of working to change the system.
I want to be very clear and careful here. Too often we blame the victims of systemic oppression. You know how that narrative goes – he is poor because he doesn’t work enough; he was shot because he threatened the officer; she can’t get ahead because she had too many babies without a husband. Society is all too willing to blame those who are living under racial and economic unjust and oppressive systems, and this society in particular is on the prowl for reasons to blame the poor and the people of color in this country. Even those of us who want change often become overwhelmed and paralyzed by the status quo. And what we too easily forget is that we have the luxury of being overwhelmed and paralyzed, the luxury of not changing the system, because it our privilege that is protected by that system.
But there is another truth here that is delicate but important. When we find ourselves othered in this world – by physical difference, by mental illness, by race, by gender identity – the weight of everyday life can be crushing. When we hear no, and not you, and not now, and not here over and over again, it bends us, and sometimes it breaks us. But the most damaging thing it does is steal our hope, to the point that when we are offered something real, it is terrifying to say yes.
Do you want to be made well? What did Chalice hear in that question that I didn’t? I’ll take a shot at that in a minute. But first, let me answer what I heard and felt. Do you want to be made well? I heard my own fear. Being well might change some of my relationships. Being well might require me to change some habits and patterns. Being well might force me to face my own ambivalence - things are not that bad, I think. I heard and felt my own resistance - the known is better than the unknown. To be made well means I can’t rely on my well-formed and trusted view of the world. To be made well means things might change and I’m not sure I want things to change. It is hard to say “yes” sometimes to being made well.
I know that this story is dealing with physical wellness. To answer the question, Do you want to be made well? when we are sick in body is an easier question to answer. Unless you are me. And then, even when sick, I wait days to go to the doctor. But this isn’t about me. For most of us, this question comes at us more from a spiritual and emotional perspective. It comes to us in the context of our relationships, our work habits, our emotional wellness, and our spiritual soul. Do you want to be made well? Jesus asks us. Wherever your sickness lies, do you want to be made well?
Sometimes it is hard to just say “yes” to this question. We are not quite finished grieving. We are not ready to set that boundary that we know will change the relationship. We confuse co-dependency for love. And yet, as the American modernist poet Wallace Stevens wrote: “After the final no there comes a yes. And on that yes the future world depends.”
Even without an answer, Jesus says to the man, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” After all our excuses and no’s, Jesus stands before us inviting us to take up our mats and walk. No faith required. No need to believe a certain way or recite a meaningless creed or pray an official prayer. Simply respond to Jesus saying, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” On THAT yes, the future begins to unfold. I don’t imagine that man walking away with the balance, strength and confidence of an Olympic athlete. I imagine he staggered, stumbled, wobbled, and limped. Being made well doesn’t happen all at once. Just ask Toni, the trainer that Karla and I are working out with two days a week. But the journey toward wellness begins when we say “yes” to the invitation. And on that yes, wellness begins.
Do you want to be made well? What did Chalice hear that I didn’t? Ah, you’ll have to ask her. But I can tell you what I heard when she said, “I think it’s a good question.” I heard courage. I heard the courage to face a hard question that I was, and sometimes am, fearful of asking. I heard a willingness to change—to make a change for a more abundant life. I heard the voice of one who is willing to be the one to stir the waters so that healing might be possible. And I heard the voice of one who has experience holding onto hope in the face of systemic “no’s”.
Do you want to be made well? It is a good question.
