May 25 2025, Easter 6, Sometimes it doesn’t take a village

John Bellaimey

The Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 25, 2025

The Rev. John Bellaimey

 Sometimes it doesn’t take a village

 

Religion is so strange. It told the guy in today’s Gospel that he was unclean. Not literally unclean. He had sinned, and his punishment was his disability. He’d been coming to the pool for 38 years, apparently never bringing a friend or relative to help him with the steps.

 

 

So, along with other suffering people, he hung out at the pool of Bethsaida. It was a very slick, professional complex, fed by a couple of streams that came down from springs in the  hills, so it really was fresh water, not like what you’d find in a river or a lake. People said that the best time to go into the water was when new water was pouring in from the stream.

 

 Bethesda was an interfaith pool. The fancy porticoes were Greek style, and there were shrines all around to the Greek demigod Asclepius, a physician who was said to have raised several patients from the dead. Jews, Greeks, and Romans all came there to “take the waters.” Whoever your god was would “stir up the waters” and you should get in.

 

But nobody had ever helped him. The crowds were too big. They had their own problems. Jesus was curious:  how could someone keep coming for that long and not get any relief? Was he so burdened with guilt? Self-pity? Had his sin been so bad?  Had he given up hope but kept coming anyway? So he asked him, Do you want to become well?  / Yes, but nobody ever helped me with those steps.

 Jesus told the helpless fellow to stand up. Maybe it was

[exasperated parent] Oh, for heaven’s sake. Stand up, take your mat, and walk!

Or [magician] Stand up! Take your mat! Now, walk!

The author makes sure we know that it was a sabbath. Jesus was going to get in trouble again. Now our man is Jewish, and his religion required him to show himself to the priest.

OK, sir, congratulations, but you don’t need to register pagan healings with us.  Next!    /   What? not pagan?   Jewish rabbi?   /   I don’t think so. We don’t have healings on the sabbath.     / Huh.    You’re sure about that?   /  What was his name?   /  Well, go find out and then come tell us.  He has no business working today.

The man’s religion told him that he could now go into the Temple. Later on he met Jesus there, who told him, I see you’re walking now. Good. Now don’t sin any more. Something even worse could happen to you! It’s what he told all his patients; it was Jesus’ discharge plan. Our man agreed, and having promised the priest a name, he went and told them. They nodded and wrote it down. A rabbi with Galilee accent. Name of Jesus.

Religion is a human thing. The Temple was not God. Neither is this church. Nor the Bible,  nor the Qur’an, or a monastery full of monks in Nepal nor the amazing Hindu Temple in Maple Grove. Religion helps, but only God is God.

So how are we doing with that?  Where do we find faith? When do we find God? Have you found her yet? I have been lucky enough, a few times in my life, to find God in church, in quiet, in stirring, usually sad, music, and once in awhile, in a sermon. In the winsome loyalty of our dog. In the inspiring devotion of people who keep feeding the hungry or keep defending the rights of refugees. In the tenderness of a young father enduring a three year old’s tantrum at five pm. I personally see God every once in awhile in my group of retired guys who repair houses, and in the unselfish example of another young dad who was saved by a church-full of people just as lost as he had been and now, every day, he pays it forward; seeks to serve Christ in every person he meets.

And we don’t just find God alone, in solitude. Most of us need others to remind us. We know the right thing to do, but we’ve forgotten to do it. Or decided it was too hard. Or that it doesn’t matter. But we go to church and sing songs that will never come up on our Spotify, and we recite things that somebody wrote long ago and which we maybe disagree with.

And we wish each other peace, maybe hug, and we see kids running in, or we talk to an old person. Or we introduce ourselves to somebody we’d never run into at our job or on our street. We chat at coffee hour and sometimes it turns into a walk around the lake or a cup of coffee. Or maybe an invitation to come over for dinner. Okay, that is really rare, because Minnesota is so culturally Scandinavian, and Scandinavians are often too private to invite people over.

We aren’t anonymous strangers to each other. We’re trying to learn everyone’s names. The thing we all have in common in this gathering is an inner urging to find meaning and purpose in our lives. To be better people. To do something for the common good. To better internalize the compass that tells us which way is the Way of Love. To have a community, a second family, even.

The crowds jamming the porticoes at the Pool of Bethesda were not a second family. They were desperate individuals. Strangers to each other.They were Greeks and Arabs and Jews and Samaritans and…whatever. Mostly unclean and self-conscious about it. They were like shoppers when the Big Box store doors open at 5am on Black Friday. Focused on getting down those steps and wading in. Saying their sacred words. Not getting trampled.

We, on the other hand, will wait patiently in line for our sacred bread of life, our sacramental sip of health and salvation. And only some of us are deeply burdened, unlike the mob at the pool. One lesson I take from the Gospel is that if you keep waiting for other people to help you, you might wait a long time. Other people often don’t notice what we need. And sometimes we need to be reminded that we can do more than we are used to doing.

We’re the children of God. And we are trying to act like it. If we are doing our job as siblings, nobody here will feel alone and helpless like the fellow in the crowded portico, carrying those burdens alone. Which reminds me of a song. Mr. Music, are you ready?

Some time in our life

We all have pain

We all have sorrow

But if we are wise

We know that there’s

Always tomorrow.

 

Lean on me

When you’re not strong

And I’ll be your friend

I’ll help you carry on

 

For it won’t be long

‘Til I’m gonna need

Somebody to lean on

 

Please, swallow your pride

If I have things

You need to borrow

For no one can fill

Those of your needs

That you won’t let show

 

You just call on me, brother

When you need a hand

We all need somebody to lean on

I just might have a problem

That you’ll understand

We all need somebody to lean on

 

Lean on me

When you’re not strong

And I’ll be your friend

I’ll help you carry on

 

For it won’t be long

‘Til I’m gonna need

Somebody to lean on

 

You just call on me, brother

When you need a hand

We all need somebody to lean on

I just might have a problem

That you’ll understand

We all need somebody to lean on

 

If there is a load that you can’t carry

I’m right up the road

I’ll share your load

If you just call me

Call me

Call me

Call me

 

Now, of all the Gospel writers, John the Beloved Disciple, the one who leaned on his best friend Jesus at the Last Supper, John could have had the disabled guy lean on Jesus. Or have Jesus reach out to him and help him up. Put an arm around him on the way down to the pool. Give a speech to the crowd about doing this wondrous sign so they would finally believe in him. But that’s not how John remembered it. And it wasn’t what the man needed, either. Did he want to become well, honestly? The old joke asks how many psychotherapists it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is only one, but the light bulb has to want to change, and it takes a long time.

 Well, 38 years is a long time, and all it took was Jesus getting him to realize he was ready. That was Jesus’ insight. Maybe what looked like a command to do it himself was actually an encouragement: You can do this. It’s sad that nobody will help you. But you seem sincere. Don’t worry about your sin anymore. Yes, right now. Stand up! Go for it. That’s it, take it slow. Now take up your mat, and walk right down there into the pool. You okay? Great. See you later!

 

They say it takes a village. An anonymous crowd of strangers is not a village. But he only needed one. One other person. A fellow child of God noticed his suffering and reminded him of his best and bravest self. We can do that for one another, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10am Service