Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people—blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, "Do you want to get well?" The sick man said, "Sir, when the water is stirred, I don't have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in." Jesus said, "Get up, take your bedroll, start walking." The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off. That day happened to be the Sabbath. The Jews stopped the healed man and said, "It's the Sabbath. You can't carry your bedroll around. It's against the rules."

Today’s gospel reminds me of the opening sentence in a book titled, The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara. The book is about a healing community and a woman named Velma who has been sent to the legendary, fabled, healer of the district, Minnie Ransom. And Minnie, the healer, says:

"Are you sure, sweetie, that you want to be well? I like to caution folks, that's all. No sense in wasting each other's time. A lot of weight when you're well. Now, you just hold that thought. Just so's you're sure sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is not trifling matter. A lot of weight when you're well."

Wholeness is not a trifling matter, a lot of weight when you're well.

No indeed, to be well is a lot of weight because being well, being whole and healthy, in mind, body and soul, means being responsible, being accountable and in religious terms, it means being pro-active in bringing about and living in the Realm of God.

Jesus was such an understanding and compassionate person. He met this man by the sheepgate and knew that the man had been an invalid there for 38 years! The man gave what I perceive to be excuses for why he had not made it down to the pool to be healed.

Scott Peck, whose book The Road Less Travelled in 1978, was perhaps the first ‘self-help’ book to hit the market, wrote that “the primary reason people do not undergo psychotherapy is not that they lack the money but that they lack the courage. They are terrified of the work of change, and want to cling to the old and familiar, desiring comfort at any cost and absence of pain at any price, even if the penalty be ineffectiveness, stagnation or regression.” Making excuses as to why we can’t be healed is a way from entering into doing that hard, courageous work.

In his book, Peck gave an example of a young wife who lived on an army base in Okinawa. She had cut her wrist lightly with a razor blade and brought to the emergency room. He saw her and asked her why she had done this to herself. “To kill myself of course.” “Why do you want to kill yourself?” “Because I can’t stand it on this island. You have to send me back to the States.” “What is it about living on Okinawa that’s so painful for you?” he asked. “She began to cry in a whining sort of way. “I don’t have any friends here, and I’m alone all the time.” “How come you haven’t been able to make any friends?” “Because I have to live in a Okinawan housing area and none of my neighbors speak English.” “Why don’t you drive over to the American housing area or to the wives’ club during the day so you can make some friends?” “Because my husband has to drive the car to work.” “Can’t you drive him to work, since you’re alone and bored all day?” “No. It’s a stick-shift car, and I don’t know how to drive a stick-shift car.” “Why don’t you learn how to drive a stick-shift car?” She glared at him. “On these roads. You must be crazy.”

Many times we resist healing because it means change. We cling with loyalty to old things, a fear of the new, a fear to change, to look ahead. Velma, in The Salt Eaters, says "I try to live, so it doesn't change me too much." But this is exactly what God calls us to --- to change and to bring about change -- to share the responsibility -- to love, to understand, to transform -- ourselves and others so that everyone might be made whole.

To be whole and healthy requires the courage and stamina to work on being changed. Haven’t you ever found yourself making excuses as to why you have not done something that needs to be done to bring about a healthy change in your life? I signed up for a membership in a health club, so I could get some exercise two or three times a week…and I’ve only gone there five times in six months! But I’ve got some good excuses as to why I’ve not made it.

Here is a truth: When we are unhealthy, we sin. To sin means to shut out God. We put down, bruise, toss out, exclude, tear apart, or in some way try to destroy that which God calls "good." That includes what we do to others and what we do to ourselves. Or what we don't do to others and what we don't do to ourselves. Apathy, sloth and indifference can be the most debilitating of diseases.

Being well means changing the way we interact with each other. A woman once called who had only been married a year. The conversation was filled with "he did this, or he didn't do that.” We need to learn to communicate without blaming -- to talk about feelings rather than what the other person did or didn't do, because the only person’s behavior we can control is our own. It is hard learning to talk about issues without blaming or criticizing others. Jesus did not say to people, "I am sick and tired of your excuses," but rather, "Do you want to be well?"

Sometimes being well can mean letting go. Divorce, which is a death of sorts, brings about change, painful change, and yet, there is still new life that comes out of that death. It takes courage to look at a relationship and say, "This is not working." Some people feel there should be a ritual for the people being divorced -- a time when the people can acknowledge that they have tried their best, but cannot continue to live together; a time when they can both take responsibility and then enter into a new life; a time to formally "let go" of the old life in order to make way for the new.

As children grow, they change. This causes both joy and pain because each person travels their own journey and much as we parents might like our children to travel the path we dreamed of for them, they must walk their own way, and learn to be responsible for themselves. When those we love are truly ill, it takes an extreme amount of courage and stamina to live with that tension of yearning for them to be whole and healthy and the not knowing if and when it might happen.

John Philip Newell, the Celtic theologian whose prayers are featured on our weekly ENEWS, has a son who is a paranoid schizophrenic. His son has moments when the family can actually be together in joy and other times when he is a danger to himself and others. John Philip writes often of the importance of healing and harmony in his books. In Christ of the Celts he says, “Given what we now know about the oneness of the body of reality, what does it mean to seek healing and salvation? How can I claim to be whole as a father if my son is suffering? How can I claim to be whole as a father if my son is suffering?

Then he expands that concept of wholeness. How can we claim to be well as a people if other nations are in pain? How can we be healthy as a human race if the body of the earth is infected?”

Many of us come to church because we are looking for a way to be whole, to discover the purpose of our lives, to be ultimately well. Some of us need to be healed in the places where the world has tried to break us. There is a longing for something that is hard to define, hard to express and long to be touched deep down inside in that innermost part of us that needs healing. Even clergy share in that longing.

This past week around 100 clergy of the diocese gathered for a two-day conference. There were three speakers who would make presentations about the environment and our participation in bringing about the health of the world. The draw for my attendance I must admit was one of the speakers, Pete Seeger. The two others who spoke with passion about asking the right questions and who pointed out how we are connected to all of humanity through our actions and inactions were excellent and inspirational.

But later, when we gathered in the evening with Pete, who at age 91 was an example of living history in our presence, and sang, “Where have all the flowers gone?” I think we were all touched to the core of our inner beings because we knew that the truth of loss in that song written so many years ago was still the truth of loss for us today.

Where have all the flowers gone? Picked by young girls everyone. Where have all the young girls gone? Gone to young men everywhere. Where have all the young men gone? Gone to soldiers everywhere. Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards everyone. Where have all the graveyards gone? Gone to flowers everywhere.

Do we as a human race want to be healed? Do we have the courage and stamina to do the work? This past Wednesday evening those of us who shared Eucharist together talked about the hard work of making choices, on an individual and daily basis; choices that would not only help to make us healthier but benefit our families and our community as well.

In our care of each other, let us be intentional in that movement toward wholeness, to being well.

Our community gathers not just to remember, not to be just refreshed or renewed but to be together to move toward reconciliation – the making whole of our relationships to God, each other and creation. Jesus insisted that the excluded be included; that the unlovable and unloved be loved just as they were and for who they were, and in that loving and inclusion they would be changed, healed and made whole. They would be raised up. This is what God desires for all humankind. We are to be included, loved, transformed, and healed so that we might have life and live it abundantly.

Because being whole and healthy is not a trifling matter, the question remains for us “Do we want to be well?”