John 5:1-9

You may not know this. It is hard to believe after thirteen years of standing here and talking that you would not have heard all my stories. But I don’t think I have told you this one. In my previous life I worked as a lifeguard. I was the waterfront director at various camps and clubs for many of my summers when I was in school. When I was in seminary I worked at a place near Stillwater, Minnesota called Camp Wilder. Camp Wilder was kind of unique as far as camps went. It was about a thousand acres that provided for the service organizations from the nearby city of St. Paul. So we would get community groups and social service agencies and halfway houses that would run summer camps at Camp Wilder or come out for just the day. The clientele was diverse and it was challenging creating a space where such a wide range of people with such varying problems could feel comfortable.

I actually designed the waterfront there and in doing so I had to make it usable for energetic children and impaired adults and a whole bunch of kinds of people in between. It had to be user friendly in all kinds of ways and still be fun. I loved that place.

One thing I learned, as the person in charge of the waterfront and in charge of teaching swimming, was that no matter who I was working with fear was always the emotion that inhibited learning the most. That went for everyone. Without fear everyone could learn how to swim. And that fear would manifest itself in as many ways as there were kinds of people coming to Camp Wilder.

There was one group of people who came out regularly. They all shared some very debilitating psychological problem. I don’t remember what it was. But it was enough of a problem that they needed to be supervised and so they lived together in a group home even though they were fairly high functioning people. They loved coming out to the camp but they were quite apprehensive around water. One day I was doing my level best to teach them about water and swimming. I thought I was getting through to them until one very sweet woman who was trying to hear everything I said and being very serious about my little talk and demonstration raised her hand and asked, “How can I listen to you when that big lake is lurking over there?”

It was a good question because all at once I understood their fear and knew that it was not instruction they needed, it wasn’t know how that mattered, they needed to get acquainted with the water. We started in a little pool far from the lake. Eventually they did go in the lake. Amazingly that one woman reported that the lake had stopped lurking once she got in.

Fear is the problem in almost anything we try to do or try to learn. It is what prohibits us from doing that which we need to do. And we all know the feeling and we all know the consequences of being too afraid.

Fear is always the problem. Fear creates perceptions that make for behaviors that hardly ever help us. Abbie has a great one. Abbie is afraid of situations where there are a lot of people she does not know. She is shy. So because of this she always announces going into some like situation that she is not going to say hi to anyone. That is her way of dealing with her fear. I am sure it is just a phase.

But too many times in too many lives fear is not a phase it lasts a lifetime. And that leads to all kinds of trouble. On some level I think alcoholism is about fear. Most emotional afflictions have their genesis in fear. I think almost all drug addictions are about fear. I think most destructive behavior is about fear. I think violence is born in fear. Nothing hurts us more than fear. But the biggest tragedy is that none of it is necessary because there is an alternative. It is a simple and lifegiving alternative and yet it isn’t as popular as you might think.

Faith is an alternative to fear and once you get used to it it is easier to choose than fear.

In the Bible reading there is a man who needs faith more than anything else but he has chosen fear instead. I don’t blame him. One of the most troubling parts of any illness is what it does to people emotionally. Often people who are crippled physically become crippled emotionally because of what has happened to them. Things as benign as lakes can take on enormously fearsome characteristics and that can all but destroy a person.

One such person is told about in the reading for today. He has been afflicted for thirty-eight years. We don’t know what it was that he was suffering from but we know that it determined his existence because we find him by the healing pool. This pool was believed to have healing powers and when it bubbled up it meant that there was an angel stirring it and if a person could just get in at that moment they would be healed.

But if you couldn’t get in the pool in time evidently the pool lost the effect. So, perhaps, for thirty-eight years this man watched others be healed. But has never made it himself. That was his life. His illness determined his life and perhaps his fear did too.

Think about how long thirty-eight years is. It is a long, long time. Thirty-eight years ago Mickey Mantle was still playing baseball. And it is as if he does not know what he needs. He thinks he needs to get in that pool but he never gets there. And so when Jesus comes along he asks “Do you want to be healed?” Or does he want to go on creating his life around his fear and around his illness. It seems like a silly question but once a human being gets comfortable with one way of coping they will often stick with it no matter the cost. He seemed to want to stick with it so Jesus asks the question. Does he want something else? Does he want a life or is he perfectly fine with throwing away another thirty-eight years.

The man tries to tell Jesus that he was trying to be healed but Jesus hardly wants to enter into the conversation and then tells him the thing he needs to do. “Take up your pallet and walk” which is ancient Aramaic for get off your big you know what and take a hike.

I like to think that Jesus challenged this man. Challenged him in a loving way that perhaps no one else ever had. Perhaps the afflicted man was surrounded by the usual array of people trying to be helpful but only succeeding in enabling the sickness. I have seen it. But faith is not like that. Faith is very challenging. Faith demands the most that anyone can give. Faith is not satisfied with us just running out our lives. Faith wants the very best for us so demands the very best from us. And so Jesus tells him to do the thing that he has been afraid of all these years. Stand up he tells him. Stand up and walk.

He isn’t being cruel. He isn’t asking him to do something he can’t. God never asks that of us. He is asking him to believe that he can. And then gives him the means to stand up. That is what God does. God sets the goal, God challenges us a lot and then gives us the means to do so. There is nothing to be afraid of even when we are most severely challenged by God because that is our moment to stand, to rise, to take up our pallet and do the will of God.