"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? 

On Loving One Another

'At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."'

--John 13: 31-35

There was an underappreciated film from the mid-1990s called Michael, in which John Travolta portrays an irreverent, slobbish angel who has come to earth for reasons.  In one of the movie’s best scenes, he is sitting in the backseat of a car while a bewildered Oliver Platt and Andie McDowell ride shotgun. Michael quips, “I remember what John and Paul said.” Oliver Platt pops up and asks, “The apostles?!” Michael retorts, “No!  The Beatles!  All you need is love.”

John Travolta and Sparky in Michael.

While my knowledge of Beatles songs, I’m sad to admit, is rather limited—I once tried to impress my Beatles-loving girlfriend, now wife, by telling her my favorite Beatles album is The White Album, even though I didn’t know a single song on it – I DO know that song!  "All you need is love." It is a song that is filled with hope that really, honestly, seriously, love is all we need.  If we had love, then so many of the problems that we know would cease.  If we had love, we would know a world of peace and harmony the likes of which are hitherto undreamt of!  It is such a nice dream.  

But so often that’s all it is, isn’t it? A dream. When refugees in seriously dangerous contexts that have waited years for asylum are rejected in place of disgruntled white folks mad that they’re not still in charge, love seems like a dream. (I add, parenthetically, bravo to our Episcopal Church leadership for refusing to comply with this practice!) When immigrants are being used as pawns to deny basic health care to low income and disabled folks, love seems like a dream. When the contributions of entire groups of people to the rich history of this country are being erased, love seems like a dream. 

Only dreamers talk of love because it’s just too simple; there has to be more to it than that. I can’t help but imagine the other 11 apostles sitting there at the table with Jesus that evening. Judas has gone, and they must feel that something big is about to happen. He’s going to unpack all of the mysteries of the universe right here and now.  Maybe he’ll tell us his plan for ushering in a new era of peace on this earth once Rome is gone.  OK, Jesus!  Lay it on us!  

“Love one another.”  That’s all he says.  “As I have loved you.”  That’s it? No, Jesus, I’m afraid you're mistaken; you don’t understand just how cruel the world is. Love is not all we need. It’s going to take a lot more than your silly dreams to overthrow an oppressive regime or save us from corrupt religious leaders that profit from it. 

What if it’s not Jesus who is mistaken but us? What if we’ve been mistaken about love this whole time, treating it as a nicety, as little more than sentiment and pleasant feelings? Consider the context for this statement. It’s Thursday, and Jesus has given this mandate, this maundy to love, and he illustrates this love by taking the form of a servant and washing their feet – yes, even Judas who leaves immediately afterwards to betray him, even Peter who will deny even knowing him. This is love as a verb, not a noun; an action, not a concept. This is the new commandment. 

What exactly is new about it? Saint Augustine said that it was new because it was a spiritual love that was distinct from, as he put it, “carnal affection,” which for Augustine and his, how shall we say, hobbies prior to his conversion to Christianity, that’s fine and made sense for him. Cyril of Alexandria said it was a different degree of love, for as Leviticus commands the people to love others as oneself, Jesus takes this to a whole new level, in that he loves others even more than himself; his kind of self-giving love that leads to the cross is far greater than love for oneself. 

But can this kind of love really save us? 

Yes, yes it can, when we consider again the context of Jesus’ command. It is not just to love one another as he loves but in the context in which he loves; that is, in the midst of the fear and awfulness that is to come. He knows it. They’re fixing to know it. All the while, Jesus doesn’t give into fear or self-preservation, and he models that, when the time comes, nor should they. Love one another, he’s telling them, even if it means giving up your own life and all to which you have clung so tightly in the hopes of warding off pain and suffering. Love, even in the face of that, and everyone will know that you are my disciples. 

This moment is not just the memory of some emotionally charged sharing as Jesus contemplates his own death. This statement is at the very heart of his life’s message, his central theme, all the way up to his final words on the cross, “Father, forgive them!” To accomplish what he came to do means that we must love in the same manner, not only for the sake of creating good will among ourselves, but for the sake of all who will see this love and thus see him. To love in such a way is our primary duty as disciples of Jesus, and to fail to do so is to keep him hidden from a world that needs him so desperately. In daily sacrificial acts, in which we give away a portion of ourselves, we resurrect Jesus for the sake of all who long for some measure of love, healing, and hope; we love in the face of tyranny, bitterness, and oppression for the sake of the other, for the sake of the Christ that lives in the other, for the sake of the love that he has for all humanity. The enemy can take many things away from us: jobs and livelihoods, health care and status. Their cruelty knows no bounds, and it can permeate every facet of our lives, but there is one thing they cannot take from us: our capacity to love. The love in our hearts, the love in our minds, the love in our souls, the love in our strength. They couldn’t take it from Jesus, they couldn’t take it from the apostles when they, one by one, met similar fates as he did. They cannot and will not take it from us, either. 

Kristen and I are currently making our way through the entire canon of Star Wars because of course we are. Every movie, every tv series, all in chronological order, and we just finished the first season of Andor. There is a moment in that show when Maarva, the sickly mother of the titular hero Cassian Andor, insists that, despite imperial occupation of her town and threats to her life, she will remain there instead of escaping with her son. “We’ll go some place they haven’t ruined yet,” Cassian tells her. “I’m already there,” Maarva says, “That place is in my mind. They can build as many barracks as they want, they’ll never find me.” After years of fear and despair, it’s Maarva’s love that inspires her to stay and face what is coming, but even still, she knows the enemy will not win so long as she stands up and loves in the face of such cruelty.

Maarva Andor.

Love is many things, but simple is not one of them. Real love places demands on us. Love is action. Love is revolutionary and radical. It is a form of resistance. To love in the face of fear, to offer oneself instead of preserving oneself, that is what it means to love as Jesus loves, what makes the new commandment so hard but so hopeful. It is truly the one thing that will save us. In the end, John and Paul were right – the apostles and the Beatles. All we need is that kind of love. 

Turn Your Believing Into Following

'Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." [The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." He answered, "Here I am, Lord." The Lord said to him, "Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight." But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name." But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.'

--Acts 9: 1-19

'Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

'When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

'When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."'

--John 21: 1-19

Jesus by the seashore fixing breakfast.

On a sleepless, restless night, several friends decide to go fishing. But they don’t catch anything. That’s ok, though. Fishing is more about the relaxation, the sharing of stories with each other. And oh the stories they share! The memories that flood in of other expeditions taken over the last three years or so. Remember that time when Simon leaped like a frog out of the boat and took off running toward the Teacher? Remember how he forgot for a second that he was on water and not on land? That was quit a….sinking sensation, eh, Peter?! 

Then, after telling some really bad jokes, they head back to shore, and someone calls out to them, asking if they’ve caught anything. “Try throwing your net on the right side of the boat,” the stranger tells them. Even though the word that he uses – dexia – is Greek for “directionally right” and not right, as in, correct, we can still imagine him chuckling a little at his own dry humor. He knows what he’s doing. Suddenly their nets are bursting with hundreds of fish of every kind.

The stranger already has a campfire going, with fish and bread on it, and he invites them to breakfast. They’re pretty sure it’s Jesus. They’re not so sure it’s Jesus. And isn’t that so often the way that it is? We know him and we don’t know him. In stories and memories and encounters, his presence, and absence alike lead us to love him and to fail him. “Do you love me?” Jesus asks Simon bar Jonah – the one he gave the nickname Kephas, or Peter, or Rock. “Then feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.” Don’t just say it. Be it. Don’t just intend it. Do it. Make your losses count for something, and let your believing become following. 

There were many losses, especially where Simon Peter had been concerned. Not long after giving him a new name, Jesus called him ‘Satan’ when Simon Peter tried to keep things the way they’d always been and attempted to prevent Jesus from going through with his mission. He even denied knowing Jesus when push came to shove. Simon Peter’s not exactly a paragon of virtue. Still, when face-to-face with the risen Jesus, his three denials turn into three proclamations of love. Jesus doesn’t bring up his past mistakes and missteps. He feeds Simon Peter and tells him to go and feed the ones who will need it most. Even Simon Peter is not beyond redemption. 

Nor was a Pharisee whose name at birth was Saul. He had persecuted the followers of the Way pretty harshly, even playing a part in the death of Stephen, the first deacon and martyr of this new faith. Like Simon, he gets a new name too after a conversion experience on the road to Damascus – that’s in Syria, not Southwest Virginia. Despite what he has done previously, the risen Jesus speaks to him and calls him, like Simon Peter, to tend and feed Jesus’ flock among the Gentiles. When he gets back to Jerusalem and suddenly says, “Hey everyone! I’m on your side now!” there’s gonna no doubt be those who’re skeptical, like Ananais; some who refuse to let him in on the meetings; or no doubt those who quit the group because they let him in. Still he is called. He makes his losses count for something. Even Saul the Pharisee is not beyond redemption.

You may be wondering why the text from John was so specific with the number of fish that Peter and the others caught: 153. Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible from Greek into Latin, claimed it was because there were 153 different kinds of fish in the sea, meaning that they caught one of every single kind. We know that number is more than a bit off, but the point remains the same. The net is big enough for everyone. You. Me. Even the ones that we may think are beyond redemption, yes, even them. Everybody. Several years ago, I was driving through rural South Carolina and saw a church sign that said “Dirty rotten sinners welcome!” It wasn’t an Episcopal church, but I think it hammers the point home much better and more directly than our generic “The Episcopal Church welcomes you” signs. Because the church is, as Saint Augustine once called it, “A hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” We’ve all lost. We’ve all sinned. And none is beyond redemption.

The mistakes Peter and Paul make are not that different from our own. They miss the mark by trying to hold too tightly to the past and maintain a sense of control, and in doing so they misunderstand and misrepresent the very reality in front of them. They deny people they care about and hurl insults at folks about whom they know next to nothing, except the religious or socio-political position they take. Who among us is not guilty of missing the mark in such ways? It’s not just the folks we tell ourselves are above and beyond the grace, love, and mercy of Jesus, it’s all of us; and blessedly, those gifts he offers are not dependent upon us. The only thing that is dependent upon us is what we, those who have been given the such gift of grace, do with it. 

Jesus shared bread and fish by the campfire with Simon Peter and the others. Annanias gave Paul something to eat before he left the house in which he was baptized. We share bread and wine at the Holy Table. In each case folks are given food for the journey, for the work that is to be done, like Peter and Paul and all the dirty rotten sinners before us. That work is nothing less than to restore all people to unity with God and each other through Jesus Christ. I didn’t make that up, it’s in our Catechism, on page 855 of our red Book of Common Prayer under the question “What is the mission of the Church?” Another way of putting it may be: to accept the gift of grace given to each of us and to be doctors and nurses to this world that is sick and suffering from sin. 

Most biblical scholars agree that the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John is an add-on, a sequel, to the original text. We heard the first ending last week with the words “These things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that through believing you may have life in his name."  Sounds like a pretty good ending.  But like Star Wars, Rocky, or the Godfather – all of which had sequels arguably better than the original – there was more story to tell, more lessons to be learned. Simon Peter needed his redemption moment and to know that love made him more than the worst thing he’d done. The people down through the years hearing this story have needed to know that the Jesus who ate by a campfire early in the morning still shows up, even when we’re not sure. And all of us, like Peter and Paul, need to be reminded of the grace that has been given to us – to everyone – and to remember our work, our call, to not just believe but to follow, and to make our losses count for something. To say, be, and do the Way of Jesus.