The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany

Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 9, 2010

Gracious God, we thank you for the gift of your Spirit that continues to guide and nurture us. Help us to receive and respond to the promptings of Your Spirit so that we may grow in our awareness of You and the heart Your message of love, and then help us to carry that message to a waiting world. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Faith, hope and love are intricately bound together. When one is missing, the others are also missing or they are seriously deficient. These words, faith, hope and love described active states of our being. They involve our participation.

I am not saying that these states or ways of being are solely dependent upon us. It requires the grace of God in order for them to be active in our lives and an active relationship with God is vital.

God is indeed the prime mover or the great power that helps us sustains these states of being. But we have to begin to be open to the ways in which God is active in our lives; we have to begin to desire this powerful relationship with God.

And as in all relationships that we are engaged in, our participation is required. I've said many times how Scripture is all about God's deep desire for this intimate relationship with us.

God has been likened to a loving, forgiving and generous parent, and also, God has been likened to a devoted spouse. And like any loving parent or devoted spouse, God desires our healing. God desires above all our health and wellbeing. God's desire for us abundant life.

If we understand God rightly, and what God really desire for us, we can do nothing but marvel in that knowledge. And this truth and knowledge brings us great hope.

When we have this faith in God and have this hope in our hearts, then we are free to love ourselves and our fellow human beings. When we have this faith and hope in God we can absolutely trust our future.

Hope has to do with our future stories. When we don't trust in the mercy and love of God, we are in danger of developing very scary future stories, because we believe we are on our own and have only our own selves to rely on.

Scary or hopeless future stories motivate us to either grasp all we can for ourselves, or just give up and resign ourselves in despair to our hopeless situation. Faith in God and love of neighbor cannot be part of this equation.

Without faith in a Power greater than ourselves, without the belief that God is for us, helping us and guiding us to grow into ever new and expanded life - without that hope - we remain stuck in old and often crippling situations.

Without faith in God and hope for the future we stay stuck in old patterns, doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Remember what that is called? It's called insanity.

But I think that is rather harsh, because humans just tend to do that. We all probably have some situation in our lives that we continue to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

Rather than call it insanity, I prefer to think that we just haven't learned. We just haven't gained wisdom.

I always remember what my Pastoral Care Professor in seminary said often, "If it works, don't fix it. If it doesn't work do something different."

We need to pray for the wisdom of God, and that wisdom often comes in the form of others that God brings into our lives. And we also may lack the courage to break out of old patterns. So we need to pray for the courage that the Holy Spirit can and will give us.

The man in our Gospel story today had remained by the pool North of the Temple, the pool of Beth-zatha, for thirty-eight years. Every so often, the waters in the pool would bubble up; it was believed that when that happened, the first person to get in the pool would be healed.

What a thing to rely on. It is often far easier to rely on all sorts of things to give us the life that we want - even though over and over again they never do - rather than change and rely on what will give us new life.

The story tells us Jesus came by, and realizing the man had been there a long time, asked him, "Do you want to be made well?" In other words, "Do you really want to get better, or are you now quite happy to eke out your days lounging around here with the feeble excuse that someone else always gets in the pool first?"

Have you noticed in these stories how Jesus would ask a person needing his help, "what do you want me to do for you?" In other words, "Do you want to be made well?" The reason for this question is that healing and health demand our willingness to change and to be active participants in our new life of health.

With healing we don't get to be the same. Our lives and our very selves will be changed. And we don't get to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results. When Jesus told the man to stand up and take up his mat and walk, he had to make a decision; did he want to do that?

Because, what then? Well, he certainly had to begin to live a different kind of life than the one he had lived, just laying around by the pool.

What kind of life? This man would need to begin to envision a positive future, one which he would actively participate in, one in which he would be healthy and productive.

Some people find it hard to imagine such a future; they don't see how it could be possible; they are afraid to participate in and take up that kind of responsibility for their life.

When they think of the future it, looms too large and too overwhelming and too scary. So they remain in their unhealthy situations and conditions and limited life.

What gave this man by the pool of Beth-zatha the courage to take the chance - to stand up and take up his mat and walk into a new future? It was the presence and power of Jesus.

When this man took his first steps into his new life, he didn't have his whole new future worked out ahead of time. He probably didn't know exactly what to do next.

But the presence, power, and love of Jesus gave him hope that his first step in obedience to Jesus' command would bring new life. It gave him the courage to take up his mat and begin his walk into his new, yet unknown future.

Some may think,"oh, if I had that same presence and power available to me, then I could change what I needed to change."

But God's love, presence and power are available to us; that is what Jesus promised. Even though Jesus said He would not be with us in the same way he was with the crippled man, Jesus promised us the power, presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

But first, we have to begin to trust that promise enough to begin to seek it, be open to it, and start to see it working through those people and situations He provides for us.

And along with seeking the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit we have to want and seek new life. Often that is the hardest part of the whole process, because we know that it will be a life in which we will be required to participate in our own health.

Often, taking that first step toward God, and toward our own health and wellbeing, is the most difficult step of all. Going to church, going to AA, going to the doctor, going to a mental health professional, refusing to re-enact old patterns of responses and behavior that have not worked or have been destructive, takes courage and a modicum of hope.

Being willing to reach out and ask others for support and help, praying and being open to the variety of ways God brings other people and situations into our lives to answer our prayers and lead us to a new and better life requires the beginning of faith in a Power greater than ourselves.

"When Jesus said 'Get up' the word is one regularly used in the New Testament to describe the resurrection. Here is part of the inner secret of Jesus' work... . He is bringing a new life, a new creation. It bursts through into the present world, bringing healing and new possibilities."

Who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want this promised resurrected life? There is no one outside the possibility of this promised resurrected life. It is offered to everyone. I have seen it happen in the most seemingly lost people and lost situations.

But there is one constant; it takes courage and willingness to participate with God in the good life He so desires for us to have. We have to trust God's love for us, and then love ourselves enough to be willing to do that. Amen.