Persistent, Pestering Prayer

'The LORD said to Abraham, "How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know."

So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham came near and said, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" And the LORD said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake." Abraham answered, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?" And he said, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there." Again he spoke to him, "Suppose forty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of forty I will not do it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there." He answered, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there." He said, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there." He answered, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."'

--Genesis 18: 20-32

'Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins,

for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

And do not bring us to the time of trial."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"'

--Luke 11: 1-13

What is the first prayer that you ever learned? I remember mine, which hung on the wall of my bedroom from the time of my birth until I left for seminary. “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake; I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.” My mother and my dog prayed that little prayer with me every night, it seemed, for the first 10 years or so of my life. How sound the theology was never entered my mind, it just made me feel a closeness to God. It gave me words to say at a time when I scarcely had any of my own.

My first prayer.

As I got older my father introduced me to another form of prayer: Compline, which he had first learned in camp settings in the 1970s. He and I would pray that Office, which is on page 127 of our Prayer Book, during my tween and teenage years, until it got so deep in my bones that I had it memorized. In both of those cases, prayer was intentional, it was repetitive to the point of becoming firmly a part of my being, and, perhaps most importantly, it was modeled for me by the people who loved me. 

Humans are memetic, like all of God’s creatures, we learn by observing and mimicking others, particularly our elders. If we want to learn a principle for just about anything, it helps to look for someone who lives it. Why should prayer be any different? When one of the disciples asks Jesus to pray, it is most likely because that person has noticed Jesus spending time alone, praying.  While familiar with John the Baptist’s teaching about prayer – which, according to some scholars, Jesus knew well, because he may have been a disciple of John himself – this disciple of Jesus has not been able to make a beginning, to start praying on their own. They still stand in that dark and silent space of wanting to pray but being unable to do so, that wide gap between desiring and doing.

How relieved that disciple must have been – and perhaps how relieved we are – to hear Jesus say confidently, as though everyone within earshot will understand, “Here’s how you do it!” The outline he gives is simple: ask for God’s way of doing things to become our way; ask for everyone’s daily needs to be met; ask to be forgiven and to forgive others; and then ask for the strength to resist any of the temptations that tug us away from all of this. And to get us in a right mindset, Jesus has us not address God as some kind of “divine you up there,” far away and unknowable, but to address God as a child addresses a parent. Jesus used “Abba!” which means Father; you may have a different word. Whatever that may be, the rationale is pretty sound, that prayer begins with the hopeful, innocent, curious heart of a child reaching out to a loving parent. 

This so-called Lord’s Prayer, which appears here and in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount, gives us not just a handy dandy prayer to go to when all others escape us, but it also provides the model for every prayer that we make. It’s relational – addressing God in a direct and familial manner – it asks only for what is needed right now, nothing more, and it is rooted in God’s goodness and mercy. What it is not is a cosmic vending machine, whereby Jesus shows us the right combination of words to get the thing from God. Nor is it a magic potion – a dab of this and a pinch of that – which, when done in a precise manner, will accomplish exactly what we want or need. This prayer calls all who pray it away from individualistic notions of God’s provision and places us right in the midst of God’s self-giving love. This prayer, all prayer, Jesus shows us, is relationship. It’s also persistent. 

Look at Abraham, who has a very persistent relationship with God. Due to their egregious sins – those being the lack of hospitality and the neglect of the poor, the widows, and the resident aliens in their land – the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are being marked for destruction. Abraham, though, knowing that God would never smite an entire people if there were any righteous and good-hearted folks in their midst, pleads on their behalf, pestering God. “What if there are 50 good people? Will you spare everyone?” God says yes. What about 40? 30? 20? 10? Yes, yes, yes, and yes, God will spare them. Abraham is persistent in his prayer for God’s mercy. The negotiating ends there, but we can infer that it went all the way down to Abraham making his plea for God to spare both cities, even if there was but one single good person there. 

Abraham pleads for Sodom and Gomorrah

This gets paired with Jesus using two parables to illustrate the nature of prayer to his disciples: prayer is like a man who keeps knocking on the door of his friend’s house at midnight with a great need; he keeps knocking and knocking until finally the friend gets up to help. Furthermore, prayer for adults is no different than a child who asks for a fish or an egg from their parent. No one would willingly give their child a snake or a scorpion instead, so it is with God, who hears us and does not give us anything that is harmful. Prayer, as embodied by Abraham and illustrated by Jesus, is persistence, it’s pestering God at midnight; pestering God to forgive us, to provide for us, not necessarily what we want, but what we need. It makes me think of a scene from the movie the Apostle, in which Robert Duvall plays a disgraced preacher, who at one point in the middle of the night gets up and shouts so loud and persistently at God that it wakes the neighbors. We can, and even should, nag God to show up in our lives in ways that help us to show up too. We don’t have to stand at the brink of prayer and never make a beginning. We look to the source. To the very prayer Jesus taught us. What is the Lord’s Prayer if not a persistent plea that we make at every single liturgy? Maybe for some us, every single day?

I saw a church sign many years ago that said, “Prayer changes things.” I struggle with that concept because, surely, if prayer worked that way, Gaza would not be in rubble and children in Africa would not have had aid cut off from them by our government. Prayer alone, left there by itself, I’m not certain, changes things, but I do know that prayer changes people, and people – with God’s help – change things. That’s why I’m always quick to remind y’all to never underestimate how important prayer is, because it’s not just words we recite, it’s choices we make, grace we show, forgiveness we give, and bread we share. That’s how the kingdom comes!

It's those persistent prayers that we say again and again and again, which work their way through us like medicine that we didn’t even know we needed, getting into our bodies as well as our souls. Whether its’s Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, the Lord’s Prayer, the Jesus Prayer, the Magnificat, or the entire Office of Compline, those often repeated, persistent prayers change us. What, I wonder, are such prayers for you? Which ones are you modeling and passing on to others, especially our children? What ways are your prayers persistent? What do you learn about yourself, about God, and about that relationship when you pray? What are the needs for which you are willing to keep pestering God? After all, God is persistent and never stops pestering us.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds. 

The Work of an Evangelist

'The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, `Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, `Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.'

"Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."

The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."'

--Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20

There is a word which Episcopalians dare not utter. It lingers out there, tempting us, but we are terrified to say it. The “e-word” Evangelism. I got a shudder just from silently reading it! Why is it that so many of us are afraid of that word? Maybe because it’s been co-opted by fundamentalists and the so-called ‘religious right,’ and conjures up images of a certain kind of Christian imposing their views on others? There’s a reason the term ex-vangelical is a thing these days, with more and more folks leaving communities that describe themselves as evangelical. But I wonder if it’s high time we took that word back – much like our Lutheran friends did in 1988 – and reclaim what it means to be an evangelical people, patterning our lives on the very instructions that Jesus gives today, and in doing so, taking back the power from the folks who have distorted that word and weaponized it, often for political purposes.

The word ‘evangelical' comes from the Greek word evangelion, meaning ‘good news’ or ‘Gospel.’ This is why Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are often called the Four Evangelists, the four bringers of the good news. Our baptismal covenant even includes the promise that we will “proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ,” which sounds a lot like the work of an evangelist, doesn’t it? Contrary to what we have been shown or taught, being evangelical isn’t about guitars and screens in church, conversion experiences, or standing on a street corner with a sign that warns folks to repent. Being evangelical is being about the Gospel, about the good news, which Jesus summed up back in chapter 4 of Luke as the essential message for the poor, to “proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” So if we’ve been called to be evangelists, how do we do that?

After naming twelve individuals as apostles – as ones who are sent – Jesus appoints 70 others who are to go out ahead of him to places he himself will go. They will test the waters, see where the welcome waits and where it does not. Most importantly, they will leave their sense of security behind and go out, not alone, but in twos, in order to support one another as they meet God’s blessed and bewildered people. 

The 70.

To prepare for such a journey, Jesus tells them not to save up, but rather strip down. Take no money, food, or extra shoes. Ask for nothing special; after all, they’ll find what they need. Receive what is given, release whatever is withheld. Pass the peace, and whether welcomed or not, announce that God’s reign is near.

Do you want to know what I think this sounds like? It sounds a lot, to me, like the No Kings rallies held across the country a few weeks ago. My wife and I attended the one in Durham, and I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of evangelists, people who were there to proclaim the very good news that Jesus charged the 70 with proclaiming. Maybe they weren’t wearing crosses or collars – though I did get a thumbs up for wearing mine from a group of Chapel Hill Jews who very much knew about the Advocate, and someone else who promised to visit when she learned that, thankfully, that we were still in operation – and maybe a good many of them would not willingly say their actions were evangelical, but anything that is about good news to the poor, anything that is an action rooted in faith, in justice, in compassion, and in transformation, is itself evangelical. With the recent passage of an glutenous, cruel bill this past week, which will rob millions of poor folks of medical and food assistance, shutting down hospitals in rural areas and stuffing the pockets of billionaires, you can bet that the days are coming when more evangelical actions such as this will be needed, where folks will be stirred to leave their sense of security behind for the sake of the gospel, the good news, the evangelion that proclaims God’s kingdom has come – in our hearts and our minds – and soon and very soon, will come in its full glory. Until then, we’ll go where Jesus sends us, even if it means going like sheep into the midst of wolves, we’ll shake off the dust from our feet as a protest to those who do would deny good news to the poor, and we’ll do so knowing that Jesus has our back because, as with the 70, there is no place to which we go that Jesus won’t be coming in afterwards. 

With my wife Kristen and parishioner Emily at the No Kings Rally in Durham on June 21.

The work of the 70, the evangelism they are called to proclaim, is transformative, not just for those who received it, but for the 70 themselves. They return from their journey, practically giddy with excitement for what they have done and seen. I wonder if they had stories on the road of the ways they supported each other – God help the one that got paired with Judas, though. They are ready, willing, and more than able to get down to some holy business. Then Jesus tempers their excitement somewhat by telling them that he saw Satan fall from heaven like lighting. This isn’t a description of the past or a prediction of the future, mind you, it’s a present reality. Satan – the adversary, the forces of wickedness that rebel against God and corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, to borrow, again, from our baptismal covenant – is defeated because the Kingdom is at hand and it is proclaimed by the mouths, the hands, and the feet of the people of God, the people preaching with their very lives the good news to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. As John Wesley, a damn fine Anglican, once put it, “When the 70 went forth, the kingdom of Satan, which was highly exalted, was swiftly and suddenly cast down.”  

Wherever you go, and however you bring good news to the poor, Satan is once again cast down. At times, it can feel like we’re all just lambs in the midst of wolves, and the truth is that not everyone can do everything. That’s why he sent them in twos, so that when one stumbled, the other could be there to pick them up. So it was for the 70, so it is for us. Maybe yours is a more active role, or perhaps it is simply too great a risk to the health of you or your family. Fear not, because whether you are marching in the light of God or speaking truth to power through a phone call at home, yours is the work of an evangelist, which is anything but solitary. And never, ever underestimate the most important tool at an evangelist’s disposal: prayer. That is something that every single one of us can do, without ceasing, in word or action. Because prayer grounds us, it de-centers the pain and fear that can often take hold of us, and centers Jesus, who is the one who calls us, in love, like the 70. Not one of them was too small or insignificant to do their holy work. The same is true for us. We all have a role to play. 

All this has happened before, so says Battlestar Galactica, and all this will happen again. The 70 were sent into a broken system, to a people who were hurting. They were sent in pairs, to remember that one does not undertake such efforts alone. We have all, likewise, been called and are sent into a broken system, where people are hurting. Sent like lambs into the midst of wolves at times, but always sent together, because the work of bringing and being good news to the poor is never done alone. There is no pre-determined quotas to fill, no salvation tallies, or charts of blessings to calculate. No blame or shame to be hurled as insults. Just the work of an evangelist: be who God made you to be. Give what God has already given you. Receive from others, as though you are receiving the very Sacrament in your hand. Whether accepted or rejected, center Jesus and his good news, and know, to your very core, that wherever you are sent, God’s reign is near. 

Confronting Legion

'Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" -- for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.'

--Luke 8: 26-39

Years ago I was having lunch on a Sunday. I was in my collar, and after I placed my order, the young waiter said to me, “There’s something I always wanted to ask a priest!” Here it comes. “Do you, like, watch exorcism movies?” Oh yeah, all the time! No, actually, I said, I’ve only seen a few – I don’t do horror – but one that I had recently seen that I enjoyed was The Rite. I liked that one, I told him. One of the things I appreciate about that movie is that he makes a big deal of showing that the first action taken by the priest in an exorcism is to get the demon to say its name.

Why is this important? Because naming something gives one a sense of ownership or control over it. You can call it out. Think about when you get a dog and how important it is to name it, in order to get it to listen and obey. Getting the demon to say its name is really difficult, as any good exorcism movie will show you, but once that happens, then healing can begin.

The exorcism of the Gerasene "demoniac."

When Jesus confronts a Gerasene man who has been possessed by a demon, the first thing he does is ask for its name. “Legion,” it replies, “for we are many.” Once the name is spoken, then Jesus can do his work; he cures the man, sending the demons into a herd of pigs, and leaving the man “in his right mind”, as the text says.

But what exactly was this legion? Biblical scholars say the name is a reference to the Roman legions that tormented and tortured Jesus’ people, and all others whom they conquered.. More modern readers of this text have speculated that the Gerasene man may have been bipolar or suffering from what we might today call paranoid schizophrenia or dissociative personality disorder. Regrettably, the Church for centuries dealt with people suffering from and living with these and other such conditions as if they were, in fact, possessed by demons, curable only through exorcisms in the name of Jesus. And when the exorcisms didn’t fix the problem, society resorted to treatments like shock therapy to control the outbursts, and throwing folks into sanitariums that hid the mentally ill away from the world, the way the Gerasenes hid the so-called “demoniac” in the tombs and shackled him with chains.  The harm inflicted on the mentally ill is a sin from which the Church continues to repent.

Jesus neither condemns this man, nor does he try to control him. He meets him with compassion, not fear or judgment. This man, who has no name, mind you – he has no identity apart from his affliction – is not seen by Jesus as a drain on society or an inconvenience to be hidden away, but as someone who is fighting a great battle within himself. The text even tells us that he was dealing with the legion for a very long time. And after meeting the man where he is, Jesus gets him to name his demon  – in this case, Legion – but he doesn’t treat him harshly. Whereas those around the man had shunned and shamed him, Jesus offers healing and peace of mind, and in a twist, he actually grants the demons’ request by casting Legion into the pigs, rather than into the nothingness of the Abyss. It’s also a beautiful piece of irony that the demon named for the Romans – hated enemies of the Jews – would prefer to inhabit pigs – unclean and vile creatures to Jews – only to run off a cliff and die. Who says the Bible isn’t good literature?

Why show such mercy to this man, rather than condemn him – which is the social norm – or call the demon out violently – like in those exorcism movies? I wonder if, perhaps, Jesus treats him this way because he recognizes the strength within this man to fight and struggle for so long with something inside him that he cannot understand or control. Consider that the moment Jesus steps onto land, the man runs out to meet him, pleading for Jesus not to torment him. This is his cry for help, his rock-bottom, if you will, and like most of our own cries for help it’s not as simple as, “I’m having a problem, please help me,” but instead it’s an agonizing plea coming from a place of pain and fear, which no one but Jesus understands. In the example of this man, we are reminded that there is no weakness, no shame, in seeking someone out for help. And our prayer today is that we may meet a suffering brother or sister in the same manner as Jesus, without judgment or shame, and with compassion and mercy.

So many of us have had, or may still have, such struggles. We might even use the word “demons” to describe them: “I’m battling my demons,” we may say, of mental illness, addiction, PTSD, the list goes on, though it should be reiterated that such conditions are not, I repeat, not demonic. Still, the first step for any of us in facing our personal struggles and healing from them is to name them. I have had my own battles with PTSD, especially over the last four years or so, and my body very much has kept the score. It has taken me all that time to name that and get appropriate help from therapists, spiritual directors, and trusted colleagues. There is no shame in what has happened to me, or to any of you, and there is no shame in asking for help, though sometimes, like the Gerasene man, we may not know how.

After receiving his healing, the man sits at Jesus’ feet, clearly a new person, with a new outlook on life. He wants to go with Jesus, but he refuses, telling the man to stay where he is. Remember that the Gerasenes were not exactly pleased about this man’s healing. A whole herd of pigs was lost because of it – that’s an economic repercussion right there – and their response toward Jesus was to run him out of town, since the Gerasenes weren’t Jews and didn’t appreciate an outsider coming in and upsetting things. Sometimes our journey toward healing and wholeness takes us places that others don’t like very much. Loved ones may respond dejectedly when we come out of our healing process and emerge a new person – perhaps with a new name, an entirely new outlook on life. There is something holy and sacred in the call of this new person to remain with his people, to educate them, to love them, to help others heal the same way Jesus healed him.

In this particularly volatile and fearful time, there are voices trying to possess and discourage us so numerous that we might call them Legion. We may, at times, feel so stuck that we prefer the struggle to the gains, the demon we know to the freedom we do not. Whether true for individuals or systems – especially churches – we learn to cope with dysfunction, leading to a fear of change, of being exorcised of the kinds of forces that hold us back from being our truest selves. Yet against them all speaks the still, small, yet mighty voice of Jesus, who still reminds us of our belovedness, meets us where we are, and helps us stay rooted in the calling that is set before us.. It begins with naming our struggles and accepting Jesus’ invitation to a journey of transformation and healing, towards resurrection and newness of life. For all of us, whatever struggles we are facing, that is good news. 

To Know the Unknowable: On the Trinity, Punching Heretics, and Robot Lions

'Jesus said to the disciples, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, she will guide you into all the truth; for she will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever she hears, and she will declare to you the things that are to come. She will glorify me, because she will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that she will take what is mine and declare it to you."'

--John 16: 12-15

How do you explain the inexplicable, or comprehend the incomprehensible? Writer Karen Armstrong, in her seminal work A History of God, points out that we use allegory, metaphor, story, and anthropomorphism – that’s granting human qualities to that which is not human – in an attempt to do just that. This is what we have always done with the Divine, long before the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity became the centerpiece of Christian theology. Stories of ancient gods waring with each other, filled with jealousy, lust, and savagery were attempts to show that the divine beings were, in reality, not that dissimilar from their own creations. In the Hebrew Scriptures we have depictions of God walking in the garden in the evening breeze, coming down to smite the tower of Babel, and even speaking through a donkey. Using human language to describe the Divine is as old as humanity itself.

But the Trinity? That feels….different, somehow. The Trinity is to some the lynchpin of all Christian thought, yet to others it is the great, inexplicable thorn in the side of our theology. Maybe you fall into one of these categories; still, to all, it seems, the Trinity is, if nothing else, a mystery, and our modern, western way of thinking and being has simply forgotten how to dwell in the realm of mystery.  If something cannot be proven, then it cannot possibly be “real.” For some, this is enough to say the Trinity is downright gobbledygook.. But we mustn’t throw out the baby Jesus with the holy water. What if I told you that the Trinity actually does make sense? That it is the foundation of…everything?  

Some will be quick to point out that the word ‘Trinity’ is nowhere in the Bible. The only reference we even get to ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’  -  in that order - shows up at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew; you’d think our lectionary would use that Gospel every Trinity Sunday, but it only shows up in Year A when we read Matthew, so you’ll see it next year. 

Notice that I didn’t say that the Trinity isn’t in the Bible, because it is. God as Father – or Mother, or Creator – is all over the Bible. God creates the world ex nihilo, from nothing, and creates it out of love, a stark contrast to other creation stories of the ancient world that were rooted in violence. This is the God that Jesus of Nazareth calls Father, or Abba in Aramaic. Jesus is described as the Son of God, making him equal to God in stature, and in the prologue to the Gospel of John he is the Word, the logos in Greek, that existed from before time itself, in the beginning with God. This logos, this Word, this Jesus, is not just the carpenter turned rabbi from Nazareth but is also God made flesh, and in his last lesson to his followers, he promised to send them a Paraclete, an Advocate, also known as Holy Spirit, who, as we know from last week, was God’s creative force in the very beginning, spoke through the prophets, and lit the apostles hearts and heads on fire on the Day of Pentecost, giving birth to this movement that bears the name of Jesus. It’s not hard to find references to the Trinity in Scripture, to God’s threefold action in the world, but why is it so central to our faith?

“Who is Jesus?” That was the question on most people’s minds for the better part of four centuries. In the year 325, Emperor Constantine, who had declared Christianity a legally recognized religion in the Roman Empire 12 years earlier, called together bishops from the Latin west and Greek east to his palace at Nicea. That question – “Who is Jesus?” – was what they were there to answer. Constantine thought it would be quit and painless, he needed this thing shored up in order to prevent actual violence being done in the name of particular points of view. It wasn’t quick, the bishops refused to let the emperor push his own ideas through at his own pace. And it wasn’t painless, just ask Arius, who got punched in the face by St. Nicholas. Santa Claus had a mean right hook.

St. Nicholas attacks Arius at the Council of Nicea 

The consensus at Nicea was that Jesus was made of the same substance, the same ousia, as God. To understand this, one needs to understand how Aristotle thought of all created matter, that there are accidents, which are outward, physical traits that make a person who they are; and also substance, which is that unseeable thing that makes every person uniquely themselves – we might also call that a soul. Jesus and God shared the same substance. Like many legislative decisions, however, Nicea’s rulings didn’t exactly take everywhere, so another council was called in 381 at Constantinople – not Istanbul – for the whole thing to get sorted out. Nicea had only briefly mentioned Holy Spirit, so the work of unpacking that question – “Who is Holy Spirit’s relationship to God and Jesus?” – was taken up by three bishops collectively called the Cappadocian Fathers: Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus. It was the latter Gregory who said that the movement between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was perichoretic, a kind of free-flowing, mutual indwelling, in which each person is fully present as individuals while also being inseparable in their being. The Cappadocian Fathers were building off ideas that Athanasius had proposed back at Nicea, and later a Creed would be written with his name attached – which is in our Book of Common Prayer on page 864. Three hypostases – persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – in one ousia – the substance of the Godhead. This statement of faith, begun at Nicea and codified at Constantinople, became known as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed – or, simply, the Nicene Creed – which, of course, we affirm, in one way or another, every single week. 

But isn’t history simply written by the victors? The Trinitarian doctrine was one of many, many theories proposed at those two councils, after all. It only became the teaching of the Church because it was the most popular. Nowadays, that very word – doctrine – feels icky, too authoritative, too top-down. It doesn’t seem to leave room for other ideas. The reality, however, is that those other voices at Nicea and Constantinople, those that were deemed as heresies, beliefs and opinions contrary to doctrinal statements, were the ones that left little wiggle room. It was the heresies that tried to put God in a box, tried to come up with statements of faith that were clear, concise, and definitive. These statements made a lot more logical sense than what would become the catholic, or universal, faith, but mystery was not a part of them. Some examples of these included: Arianism said that Jesus and the Spirit weren’t divine, they were just creations of the Father: like the sun – you have the star, heat, and light, but the heat and light aren’t the star, just products of it. Modalism said that each Person of the Trinity had a specific job or mode, which didn’t intersect with each other: like water that exists as liquid, ice, and vapor, all separate modes. And then there’s Partialism, that stated the three Persons composed 1/3rd of God individually, which is, of course, like Voltron, the Defender of the Universe, who is composed of five robotic lions that merge into a giant robot samurai that fights evil alien monsters. Maybe you can guess which of those heresies is my favorite.

Voltron: Defender of the Universe and perfect example of Partialism.

These may have made – and still make – logical sense, but they don’t leave a lot of room for mystery, do they? That’s the irony of the Trinity. The doctrine itself is intentionally mysterious; even Gregory of Nazianzus, who described the Trinity as perichoretic, free-flowing, argued in the 4th century what Karen Armstrong would argue in the 21st century, that we were always going to fall short of fully capturing the essence of God because human language is limited, and human minds cannot fully grasp the magnitude and mystery of God, and that’s a good thing. It keeps us humble, helps us remember we aren’t in control and that we don’t have to have everything figured it. It helps us rest in mystery. 

But there is something about the Trinity that is knowable, and that is the fact that it is relational.  The Most Rev. Peter Carnley, who was Archbishop of Perth and my seminary ethics professor, once said that every single conversation about God begins with the Trinity because every conversation about God begins with relationship. God models relationship for us, whom God created to be in relationship with one another. The Trinity is not hierarchical. There is no power-over in it, simply co-existence. It is…the flow.  Anyone who has ever seen a preacher just let loose and be led by the Spirit, anyone who has ever done any kind of theatre improv, those who understand the music of jazz or hip hop, know what “the flow” is all about. Flow is creativity, play, and life. It involves both letting go and being fully present to the movement of what is happening. The flow state is a divine state. The flow is the Trinity. The Trinity is the flow. 

So, you see, the Trinity makes all the sense in the world. The perichoretic, free-flowing nature of the Persons within the Godhead is precisely the model for our own relationships. And the fact that the doctrine itself is confusing gives us permission to rest in the mystery of God because the quest to define God leads us to do everything from create God in our own image to claim the kind of control over our lives that belongs only to God. So let go, brothers and sisters. Let go of the need to understand, to control, and let the flow of the Trinity take you away. We bind unto ourselves this day, and every day, the strong Name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same, the Three-in One, and One-in-Three.

Wind and Flame

"Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth."

--Genesis 11: 1-9

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you."

"I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."

--John 14: 15-17, 25-27

'When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

`In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

in those days I will pour out my Spirit;

and they shall prophesy.

And I will show portents in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below,

blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

The sun shall be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood,

before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."'"

--Acts 2: 1-21

She’s here. At long last. The very Spirit of God that moved over the waters of creation, spoke through the prophets, and partnered with Mother Mary to conceive the Lord Jesus, has finally shown up. Not that she wasn’t in the world already, but now her presence cannot be denied. Landing as a tongue of fire above the heads of the apostles, much like how she landed as a dove above Jesus’ own head, Holy Spirit is here, y’all, and nothing will ever be the same again.

Yeah, that’s right, I said Holy Spirit, no ‘the.’ Because Holy Spirit, or Paraclete to use Jesus’ word from the Gospel of John, isn’t a what but a who. Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity, the giver of life, the very part of God that births…well…everything. And yes, I call Holy Spirit ‘she’ because in Hebrew – the language Jesus’ read – and Aramaic – the language that he spoke – the words for spirit – ruach and ruah, respectively – are feminine. The Eastern world has always understood the Spirit to be God’s lifegiving, and therefore feminine, quality. The sticky wicket comes when we consider the Greek word – pneuma – which has no gender, and the Latin word spiritus, which is masculine; and thus, any Bible translating off of Latin ends up using the masculine pronoun. Be that as it may, Jesus would’ve most likely used ‘she’ for Holy Spirit (if he used a pronoun at all!), and if it’s good enough for the Lord, it’s good enough for him! 

Holy Spirit makes her presence felt with the rush of a violent wind, just like in the story of Creation, and a stirring in the hearts, minds, and spirits of a small group of poor, wayfaring strangers, huddled together, perhaps in a fashion like we are today, in an apartment in Jerusalem, terrified to step outside their doors. The more things change, the more they stay the same, am I right? People are still terrified to go outside the doors in Jeruslam. The world out there wants to silence them at best, and kill them at worst. To most they are equivalent to the town drunks – the Otis Campbells of Galilee, for you Andy Griffith fans out there. The last 10 days have been hard, waiting for something, anything to happen. He did say something would happen, didn’t he? 

An image of Otis Campbell from The Andy Griffith Show for no reason whatsoever.

Something happens, alright. Maybe there wasn’t cake, but there sure was a party. Bursting out with a kind of courage that they had never felt before, they leave the safety of their apartment and go into the streets, meeting other strangers who were in town for the Festival of Weeks, the Jewish high holy day that takes place eight weeks after Passover. And the party that ensues is nothing less than a family reunion.

You see, the Book of Genesis, in an attempt to explain why different people spoke different languages, told the tale of a great city called Babel, which humanity had built with its ingenuity in the days of King Nimrod, roughly 2,200 years before the time of Jesus. In order to “make a name for ourselves” the people built this city – not on rock and roll – but on a tower formation, spiraling higher and higher, until it got to very doorstep of God, who wasn’t too pleased that humanity had forgotten their place and had got a little too big for their briches. So God destroyed the tower, confounded the people with different tongues that they couldn’t understand, and scattered the human family.

The Tower City of Babel

But things wouldn’t stay that way. Nope. Holy Spirit had other plans, so when those wayfaring strangers spoke to those pilgrims coming to town from all over for the Festival of Weeks, a miracle occurred. Every person heard the people speaking, not in foreign tongues, but in their own language. The confusion that Babel had caused ceased to be. The family reunion was on!

Y’all know how family reunions work, right? There’s usually one member, a dutiful aunt, who organizes the whole thing, advocates for folks to come together, and usually even prepares the meal. Holy Spirit is that dutiful aunt. That word Paraclete, which Jesus used to describe her, is translated often into Comforter, Helper, and, you guessed it, the Advocate, the same name as the parish where I currently serve. She is the one who makes us one through our confusion, our fears. She is the one that stirs in us to be brave, like that aunt who keeps encouraging us and tells us again and again that we are far more beloved than we could ever imagine. But also like that aunt, she can be pushy – every one of y’all have that family member, and you know who I’m talking about! She might wake you up in the middle of the night, or call you to do a task that you either don’t wanna do or don’t think you’re qualified for. She goes to bat for you, even when you can’t do it yourself. She advocates, she comforts, she helps, and she pushes; and through her, through this Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, all are one.

In our Tuesday Bible study last week someone mentioned how Holy Spirit can sometimes feel amorphous. It’s easier to think of God the Father or Jesus the Son, but Holy Spirit the Advocate is sometimes just tougher to imagine being out in the world. C.S. Lewis noted this and said he thought there was a reason for it. You are not usually looking at Holy Spirit, Lewis said, because she is acting through you. If you think of God the Father as something “out there” in front of you, and Jesus the Son as the person standing by your side, helping you and asking you to help him, then you have to think of Holy Spirit as the very spirit that is inside you. 

Perhaps that is the great miracle of Pentecost, what makes this family reunion possible; it’s that a small group of frightened, ordinary people, woke up to the Spirit that was inside them the entire time. It began with them, huddled together, praying and breaking bread, just as Jesus told them to do, and when they were ready, the Spirit of truth, of love, of hope, of mercy, of grace, of life itself, burst inside them like a fire erupting. And let me tell you something, brothers and sisters – and that is what you are! – when Holy Spirit ignites inside you, when you find her deep down in there, and you let her out, there is no limit to what is possible. And if everyone did that, well, I guess that would make us all Pentecostals, wouldn’t it? Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing; after all, as The Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, told a bunch of us preachers at the Festival of Homiletics back in 2019, we need another Pentecost. We need folks to be emboldened by Holy Spirit, to let her loose on the world. We need folks to be empowered to speak in tongues, the tongues of heaven, the tongues of justice, of mercy, of love. We need to be rattled by Holy Spirit and driven from the safeties of our upper rooms out into the streets, with the courage of Marsha P. Johnson and the saints of Stonewall! We need a new Pentecost to set this world ablaze with love of Jesus once more.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber (red stole and all).

The Greek scholar Preston Epps wrote that, “God and humanity extend to each other in the cooperative enterprise of humanity becoming as like as possible to the God portrayed in the Gospels.” Holy Spirit makes this enterprise possible. She is the agent who truly makes us one, not through sameness, but through the unstoppable, unshakable, and unending love of God.

So send her on down, Lord! Send Holy Spirit on down into our hearts today and everyday, that we may know her and make her known!  Let her wind be the momentum and her fire the inspiration that lead us into a new Pentecostal movement, a movement born of Spirit, empowered by Jesus, to repair the breaches, to reunite the human family, to seek justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. 

Till All Are One

'Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then he said. "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

"Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."'

--John 17: 20-26

For anyone who hasn’t spent at least three minutes having a conversation with me, I am a pretty big fan of the intellectual property known as the Transformers (as if this blog wasn't your first clue!). I have a little less than 500 of these toy robots in disguise, but my interest goes far beyond collecting the action figures, watching the tv shows, or reading the comic books. It’s the story itself that has fascinated me for so long, a story that is very human, only is told through the experience of giant robots that turn into everything from cars to dinosaurs. At its core, the story of the Transformers is a story about the capacity for change, the ability to adapt to one’s surroundings and circumstances; in fact, it’s biological, these bots must change and adapt or they will die. Most of the stories center on the never-ending conflict between the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons, creations of a god-like being whose dream is that one day these warring siblings will put cast off their arms and become one single, unified people, honoring the diversity within their race while being of the same heart and mind as their creator; this is reflected in a rallying cry that is often repeated throughout Transformers stories: till all are one. These are the last words spoken by the great Autobot leader Optimus Prime just before his death, words that echo the dream of Primus, their creator, words that seem like little more than a dream but are nevertheless the hope that our ability to change will one day unite every person. Until that day, till all are one!

Optimus Prime as he appeared in 1986's The Transformers: The Movie

This is not only the hope and dream of the Transformers but also the enduring foundation of the Christian church. In this last Sunday of Eastertide, during this in-between time in which Jesus has already ascended into heaven but the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, has not yet come to set the apostles’ hearts ablaze, the Church is invited to reflect on what is often called the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. The dinner is over, and Jesus goes to Gethsemane, as was his custom, to pray. The synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke make it seem like the prayer was relatively short, but not so in John. Here the prayer takes up the whole chapter, and at its core is this longing of Jesus for all to be one. Make no mistake, this unity is not one in which the self completely dissolves, but rather it involves a communion of God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit who is forthcoming, and believers in every generation. This prayer, that they may be completely one, is a reminder that the Church and its future are larger than any one generation can experience or perceive; a church that receives the glory that Jesus has given participates in his crucifixion – in loss and death – yes, but also in his resurrection – in renewed life and purpose. To be one with each other is to be one with the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

The oneness for which we pray lies in something beyond doctrinal agreement and institutional relatedness; ecumenical efforts among different denominations of Christianity very often break down, usually over one or two issues. I’m not sure Jesus could have foreseen exactly how hard it would be for his followers to maintain a sense of oneness after his departure.  Nevertheless, there is a radical nature to Jesus’ prayer, a prayer that he makes with the hope of total unity between earth and heaven, among all beings; not only for those who were alive at the time or those alive right now, but for all people, all creation, throughout all ages. Here Jesus summarizes his core mission, to call all creation back to our beginning unity in love, that we might know ourselves as the beloved of God, as Jesus himself is the beloved of God, that we might live in and from this profound and unifying love. It is the vision St. John had on the island of Patmos that led to his Revelation; a vision we see in that letter’s final moments in which all things have passed away and humanity returns to the place from which it began: union with all things in the Paradise of God.

Such a union is only possible through the power of love. That may sound trite, but it’s true. When I played baseball in high school, I had a coach who used to tell us that we didn’t have to like each other, but we had to love each other. We looked at him as if he had three heads, but what he meant was that we needed to be committed to one another, to respect one another’s dignity, bear one other’s loads, lay down a sacrifice for one another, and remember that we were in this thing together, that no matter what our differences may be, we could count on each other. Forget liking, he’d tell us, if you work toward loving each other, you’ll be unified, you’ll be one, and you’ll be unstoppable.

O how our world cries out for a felt awareness of this kind of unity, this kind of love! This week marks the start of Pride Month, a time when we remember that true unity comes when we honor the diverse expressions of God’s human family. It is a time when we recall the courage of the drag queens that began the Stonewall riot and the queer women who nursed dying men during the height of the AIDS crisis; moments throughout history when folks of all stripes have born the wounds of love for each other, and laid down their lives for the sake of communities and causes greater than themselves, just like Jesus. In the fullest expression of this month and all it stands for, we see that when we honor diversity, all truly are one. 

Do you know, beloved of God, that you were on Jesus’ heart when he made his prayer? Whatever fears and concerns you face now, you do not do it alone because Jesus was praying for you back then and promises to accompany you even now. In these moments before his own death, Jesus prayed for you, and Jesus continues to pray for you and walk with you because that’s what unity as the Body of Christ looks like. To be a follower of Jesus is to be part of this greater whole; there’s no such thing as a solitary Christian. We are one whether we agree with each other or not, whether we like each other or not. Becoming part of the Body of Christ is to become part of the community, a part of the one. I can tell you that math was never my strong suit, but the transitive formula can help with this: we see God through Jesus, we know Jesus through his followers, the Body of Christ, therefore, we know God through the Body of Christ, through one another, in all of our quirks, our brokenness, our diversity. This was Jesus’ unifying prayer, for all of us that night in the garden, and it is his prayer still, through his Body today. 

Some might wonder if it is too late for such unity. The Body feels more and more fractured by the day. But we can find hope in these words of Jesus to the one he called Abba: “I have made your name known to them, and I will make it known.” The journey is not finished. Jesus’ work, love’s redeeming work, our own work, is not finished. Until that day, till all are one.

"Do you want to be made well?"

"After Jesus healed the son of the official in Capernaum, there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids-- blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered him, "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." Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath."

--John 5: 1-9

“Do you want to be made well?” It reminds me of those sleazy salesmen peddling some sort of magic product that’s going to fix all your ills. Think of those infomercials on tv, the ones that start in black and white with an announcer asking something like “Are you tired of living with chronic back pain?” or “Don’t you wish there was an easier way to open a can?” My favorite example comes from one of my favorite musicals, Sweeney Todd, in which the sleazy con-artist Adolfo Pirelli peddles Pirelle’s Miracle Elixir, which, when rubbed all over a man’s head, will cure his baldness and thinning hair; only it turns out the Miracle Elixir is just a combination of ink and human urine. But oh what lengths to which folks will go to be made well!

This sounds legit.

Last spring Kristen and I traveled to Arkansas for a wedding, and we spent a few days near Hot Springs, which, as the name suggests, is filled with these warm water mineral pools that have, for over a century, been a place of pilgrimage for folks suffering from all kinds of ills. Babe Ruth and other famous baseball players went there in the offseason to recover from injuries; President Franklin Roosevelt traveled there after his polio diagnosis every summer, even while in office. The North American continent is littered with sites like these, where folks travel far and wide to be made well; perhaps a step up from miracle elixirs and late night infomercial purchases. 

Hot springs such as the ones in Arkansas were also common in the Mediterranean region around the time of Jesus. Excavations have uncovered such sites, and one found underneath the Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem even has five porticos, leading some to wonder if it was, at one time, this pool called Bethzatha, which means House of Olives. Like with the Arkansas hot springs, folks did come away from Bethzatha feeling better, thanks to the subterranean mineral stream beneath it. But what they didn’t understand was the why? Why did it help them feel better? Why did it bubble up? For reasons that I can’t explain, our New Revised Standard Version of this story from chapter 5 of John’s Gospel omits the fourth verse! So, after the text says that “there lay many invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed – other translations, such as the King James Version, add: “For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water; whoever then stepped into the pool first was healed of their disease.” Bubbly angel water. That’s the magic product that folks thought brought them healing. 

The modern site of what is believed to have been the pool of Bethzatha (aka Bethesda).

Among those sitting there, we are told, is a man who has been ill for 38 years. The text doesn’t describe the illness, but a better translation of the Greek astheneia is “debilitating disease.” When we learn his story there are so many questions that we can’t help but ask: “Has he been sitting on that mat, that pallet, for all those years? Why didn’t anyone ever help him in all that time? How did he not, over the course of 38 years, figure out a way to get himself into the pool? The man just wants to feel ok, and we certainly can’t blame him for that.

Anyone who has lived with a debilitating disease, whether in body, mind, or spirit, understands this man’s experience. When I tell the story of my journey with bile duct cancer and a liver transplant, I sometimes gloss over the hardest part, which wasn’t the adverse effects of my chemo or the physical pain after my several surgeries, it was what was happening in my spirit. I had been so healthy prior to 2020 that I didn’t have a primary care physician, but over the course of the next year, while the pandemic raged, new problems kept arising. I began to feel that my body was betraying me. Why bother trying if something bad was just going to happen anyway? Why put forth the effort at all? Later, when I was told how many pills I would be taking, how my eating and socialization habits would need to change, I wept. Life, as I knew it, felt over. I know from many of your own stories that you have had similar experiences, especially over the last five years. 

I don’t know about you, but I began to really understand the perspective of the man on the mat by Bethzatha. I kept wishing for some bubbly angel water, or some other magical formula that would heal me, that would fix my problems, both in my body and my spirit. Do you want to me made well? I heard the voice of Jesus say that to me, and as I’m sure was true for the man on the mat, I wanted to say, “Of course, Jesus! Why would you even ask me that?” 

But it matters that he asks. Because Scripture as a whole, and John’s Gospel in particular, always has more than one layer of meaning, I suspect Jesus’ words to the man on the mat are not exclusively about his physical ailments. The question goes beyond his ability to pick up his mat and walk. It’s about trauma and the path to healing from it. Consider the community out of which John’s Gospel develops. They feel lost, having been forsaken by families and kicked out of the only worship communities that they have known. There is real grief and pain with which they live each day, for which they long to be healed. They feel stuck in an endless cycle of trauma. Like the man on the mat, they’ve been there a long time, and hope desperately for someone to come along and help them. But the question Jesus poses to the man shifts the focus away from the need for a quick fix. Do you want to be made well? It’s a rhetorical question. It's an invitation to begin to imagine a new reality, one in which he has agency. If any of us are ever to be healed, in body, mind, or spirit, that’s the first step, to listen to this question from Jesus, and rather than scoff at it, or become defensive, allow for even the smallest hope that a new reality, one in which we are no longer trapped by our circumstances, is possible.

Healing is possible. Being made well is possible. It takes owning our story and knowing deep down that we are more than our pain. Twelve Step programs understand this, which is why the first step is the admission of the problem and a desire to be healed, to move beyond it. Brene Brown put it this way: owning our story can be hard, but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky, but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of the light.” 

What Jesus offers us is no mere quick fix. Even when we pray with laying on of hands and share in the Eucharist, which Ignatius of Antioch called "the medicine of immortality", we understand that these are not quick fixes like bubbly angel water, but rather physical encounters with the living Christ. The place where healing first starts in our minds, and in our hearts - in the place where we hear Jesus give us that same invitation, to imagine a new reality, claim our agency, and begin the process of true healing. Do you, do we, want to me made well?