Sixth Sunday Of Easter
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII, Cycle C
Object:
Theme For The Day
Sometimes we must overcome our own inner resistance, before we can claim the healing Christ offers.
First Lesson
Acts 16:9-15
Paul Goes To Macedonia
In a dream, Paul sees a man of Macedonia inviting him to come help the people there. The journey from Asia Minor to Macedonia is significant: having crossed the Bosporus, the continent of Europe now lies open to the faith. Not that it has not already penetrated there, of course: Paul discovers in Philippi a small, but thriving Christian community, with Lydia, a seller of purple cloth, as a principal leader. Because purple cloth was worn exclusively by the nobility, the church in Philippi has evidently attracted a wide range of people, the rich as well as the poor. This church meets not publicly in the synagogue (perhaps they were no longer welcome there), but in a "place of prayer" by a river. They are worshiping in the out-of-doors. Lydia invites Paul to stay in her home, and use it as his base of operations. This episode provides evidence of the high status of women, many of whom were leaders in the early church. Of Lydia, the text says "the Lord opened her heart" (v. 14). This is always the way: in any faithful evangelistic enterprise, the Holy Spirit has already prepared the way ahead of time.
New Testament Lesson
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
Wondrous City
John's vision of the New Jerusalem continues. In language of prophetic vision reminiscent of Old Testament prophets such as Elijah, John reports that he was taken away "in the spirit," to the top of a high mountain (v. 10). From there he is able to see the New Jerusalem. In an extensive, omitted section (vv. 11-21), John describes in excruciating detail the unbelievably vast dimensions of this city, which is shaped like a cube. It is ornamented with all manner of precious gems, including pearls (which is where the expression, "pearly gates," comes from). This city needs no temple, for God is there (some comfort, perhaps, to Jewish believers who had seen the temple razed in their lifetime; v. 22). Neither does the city need the illumination of sun or moon, because there is a steady source of radiance emanating from the glory of God (v. 23). In a phrase reminiscent of Isaiah's prophecies, "The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it" (Isaiah 60:3; v. 24). The fact that the city's gates will never be shut is an indicator of the perfect peace that will reign both inside and outside its walls (v. 25). "The river of the water of life" flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb in the center of the New Jerusalem; beside this river grows "the tree of life" (an allusion to the Garden of Eden; 22:1-2). There is no longer a proscription on eating this tree's fruit; it bears a different sort of fruit for each month of the year. The residents of the city will look directly upon God's face, and live -- which was all but impossible in former days (v. 4). "They will reign forever and ever" (v. 5).
The Gospel
John 14:23-29
The Advocate
In these words, a section lifted out of a much longer discourse, Jesus speaks with great affection for his little band of disciples. The issue looming over this whole conversation is the question of what will happen to them after Jesus leaves -- something that is evidently much on Jesus' mind, though not likely in the thoughts of the disciples. These are parting instructions. In verses 23-24, Jesus assures his followers that, if they but keep the faith, he will continue to be with them. In verses 25-29, he lays out for them how this is going to happen. He is going to send a representative, a proxy: "... the Advocate (parakletos), 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" (v. 26). Parakletos is a legal term, referring to an attorney or legal counselor. Literally it means "one who is called alongside," and has connotations that go far beyond the mere dispensing of advice. The verb parakaleo, from which it comes, can be translated "beseech," "encourage," "comfort." The word "comforter" suggests a soft image such as a mother tucking a child into bed at night, but think instead of a public defender sitting down with a frightened prisoner for the first time. "Don't worry," the attorney says. "We have a good case for acquittal. I will be with you, and will get you through it." "Peace I leave with you ..." (v. 27) is a much-loved blessing, the Savior's comforting words to the fearful flock he leaves behind. The final verse of this selection reveals much about the nature of John's Gospel. Much of what Jesus says in the Johannine discourses the disciples can only understand in a limited way. Jesus' words will make sense, he tells them, only later, in light of some unnamed event that is going to occur: "And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe" (v. 29). That event, of course, is the resurrection -- something John needs to have Jesus talk about here, but cannot have him address directly, because it is too early in the story to mention it openly. Earlier, in verse 19, Jesus has hinted at it: "In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live." These intricate speeches could not possibly be the literal words of Jesus. They are too long to have been remembered on first hearing, and who would have written down such baffling, half-understood sayings at the time? John has composed these discourses, years later, as a literary device: a compendium of Jesus' teachings. They function much like the dialogues of Plato, who used a similar conversational device to communicate the varied teachings of Socrates. Embedded within the discourses are many genuine sayings of Jesus, but they are connected together by a number of sentences such as verse 29, which provide the narrative framework that holds the structure together.
Alternate Gospel Lesson
John 5:1-9
A Healing By The Pool Of Bethesda
The location of this healing story is known to many as "the Pool of Bethesda," although the NRSV has corrected the name to the more accurate transliteration, "Beth-zatha." There is a legend that the waters of this pool have healing properties, but only in rare moments when an angel passes by and stirs up the waters. A disabled man has been lying near the pool for 38 years, waiting for the critical moment to immerse himself and be healed. In a heartbreaking lament, he explains that he has no one to pick him up and help him get through the crush of sick people, before the waters become calm once again. Jesus tells him to get up and walk, and he does. A sermon on this text could explore the psychology of healing and recovery. Thirty-eight years is a long time, and there is something in the lame man's complaint that sounds like an excuse -- one he has perhaps repeated many times before. The true source of healing is standing beside him, yet he doesn't know it.
Preaching Possibilities
We have all had the experience of waiting for what seems like an unreasonably long time in a doctor's waiting room. The absolute record, though, appears to belong to a certain man described in chapter 5 of John. For 38 years this man, an invalid, has spent his days lying on a stretcher beside the Pool of Beth-zatha (sometimes called Bethesda), in Jerusalem. Evidently, this pool contains what the geologists call an intermittent spring. From time to time, geological forces within the earth convulse, and force water to bubble up to the surface. Not knowing the natural origin of this phenomenon, the people of that time and place have come to see the disturbance in the surface of the pool as miraculous. They believe it to be the sign of a passing angel, winging invisibly over the water.
If a sick person can make it into the pool before the ripples disappear -- or so goes the folk-wisdom -- there's a very good chance that person may be brushed by angels' wings, and be healed. Every hopeless medical case in Jerusalem, it seems, has walked, limped, or been carried to the Pool of Beth-zatha. There, by the edge of the water, they wait ... and they wait. The slightest burp from that hidden spring is enough to trigger a stampede. Once in a great while, some lucky petitioner casts his crutch away and raises grateful hands to the heavens, shouting, "I've been healed!" More often than not, the whole company of the sick cease their frantic splashing, look around at each other, and slowly wade back out of the pool. Then they take their places once again, to wait for next time.
"The race is not to the swift," teaches the book of Ecclesiastes -- although it appears that nobody by the side of the pool has read Ecclesiastes. Every time the waters boil up, there's a veritable stampede -- and woe to any poor mendicant who moves too slowly and is trampled by the crowd!
It's some wild scene, and John plays it for maximum comic effect. Jesus happens to be there one day, and spies this one particular man lying on his stretcher. This patient's 38-year paralysis is so severe, he can't pull himself up on his own feet, let alone make it to the pool. And so he just lies there, hoping against hope that some kind soul will pick him up and carry him one day.
Or so he says. More likely, after 38 years, he's pretty much given up the contest. The place feels familiar. The company of fellow sufferers is congenial, after a fashion. And, from time to time some kind passer-by drops a coin into his cup. It may not be the most fulfilling of human lives, but it's his life. He's used to it.
One thing he's not used to is a stranger stopping to talk with him about his inner motivation. That stranger is Jesus. He stands at the foot of the man's cot, examining his circumstances. Then, he looks earnestly into his eyes, and asks, "Do you want to be made well?"
It's not a question this invalid's used to hearing -- for it's plain to everyone who sees him lying there on his stretcher why he spends his days by the Pool of Beth-zatha. It's clear to everyone, it seems, except Jesus: and, truly, even he knows why the man is there. He's just asking the question for rhetorical effect.
On another level, though, Jesus' question can be taken at face value. Sure, the man spends his days in the place of "wanting-to-get-well," but he's long since given up hope that his healing's going to happen. Little remains of his hope but an empty shell. He's just keeping up appearances.
"Do you want to be made well?" For once, the obvious question isn't so obvious. For once, this professional invalid turns his questing eye inward. He looks within himself -- and he doesn't like what he sees. The stern, commanding voice of the carpenter from Nazareth cuts through his reverie. "Stand up, take up your mat and walk." Imagine that, telling a paralyzed man to get up and walk! Yet the man is so shocked, he does exactly that and with his first step, he is healed.
John goes on, then, to gleefully describe the consternation that breaks out among the religious leaders, for this is no ordinary healing. It so happens that Jesus has healed the man on the Sabbath, and that, insist the priests and the scribes, is a violation of the Fourth Commandment.
It's a classic case of failing to see the forest for the trees. Standing right in front of the scribes is a man who was paralyzed for 38 years, but who now can walk -- and they can't even lift their eyes above the level of their law books to consider what a living, breathing wonder he is!
One possible direction for a sermon would be to explore these issues of legalism, but the avenue we will follow is to focus on the dynamics of the encounter between the sick man and Jesus. Most particularly, the things Jesus says to him. First, there's the question, "Do you want to be made well?"; and, second, there's the command, "Stand up, take your mat, and walk!"
"Do you want to be made well?" Far from being a "no-brainer" sort of remark, this question is positively profound. For the truth is, not everyone who's sick really wants to be healed.
Sometimes illness looks better to us than health. Every counselor can tell tales without end about people who come in to talk, to share problems and sorrows, to seek something better for themselves or their families. The two of them struggle together, counselor and counselee, to identify the problem, draw boundaries around it, describe what dread beast has arisen within this God-given life and is threatening to destroy it. Finally, in the midst of the counseling process, there comes a breakthrough. The problem is identified. The client "gets it." For the first time in many weeks, there seems to be real hope.
But then, in many cases, one of two things happens. The first is that the client misses the next appointment, and the next, then breaks off contact altogether. The second negative outcome occurs when the client returns for the next session, but seems hardly aware that the breakthrough conversation took place at all. Having discerned the truth so clearly on one occasion in the past, the person's eyes are again covered by scales. Where once there had been vital conversation about the great issues of the human psyche, there is now only "small talk." In subtle and often subconscious ways, his patient is trying to distract the counselor from coming close, again, to the painful truth.
Those who work in the field of addiction and recovery are familiar with this sort of subconscious resistance. Whatever it is that addicts are trying to give up -- alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling, overeating, sexual compulsion -- is easily named, but oh-so-hard to let go of. Along with the Apostle Paul, such struggling people could well affirm: "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15).
A wise person has said, "The other side of 'I can't' is 'God can.' " What we imagine, in our darkest fears, to be our moment of supreme weakness -- our hour of failure, abandonment, and despair -- actually proves to be the turning point. The moment we manage, at long last, to still the clamoring voices in our head and to hear only one voice -- the voice of our Savior, saying, "Stand up, take your mat and walk" -- is the moment when victory is assured.
Prayer For The Day
Lord Jesus,
there are times when,
like the teeming multitude by the Pool of Beth-zatha,
we too are waiting passively to be healed.
We have tried everything else.
We have turned to everyone else.
We have fantasized that, next time, things will be different.
Now, give us the courage to turn to you,
and heed your voice:
"Stand up, take your mat and walk."
Grant that we may do so from this moment onward. Amen.
To Illustrate
Hanging in a Cincinnati candle shop is a large sign which reads:
There is a very good reason for this sign being here and you standing in front of it reading it. It is here to keep you busy. We realize how annoying it can be just standing around doing nothing, trying to find someone to help you. So, we have this sign here for you to read, and hope that by the time you finish reading it one of our salespeople will have found you. If not, please read this sign again.
***
What if God said, "Take a number?" What if when you prayed, you had to wait for a free circuit?
Someone has already envisioned this possibility, in a little piece of writing that's been making the rounds on the internet. It's titled, "God's Voice Mail"....
Thank you for calling God's House. Please select one of the following options:
Press 1 for Requests
Press 2 for Thanksgiving
Press 3 for Complaints
Press 4 for All Other Inquiries
We're sorry, all of our angels are busy helping other sinners right now. However, your prayer is important to us and will be answered in the order received, so please stay on the line.
If you would like to speak to:
God, press 1
For Jesus, press 2
For the Holy Spirit, press 3
If you would like to hear King David sing a Psalm while you are holding, press 4.
To find out if a loved one has been assigned to Heaven, press 5, enter his or her Social Security number, then press the pound key.
For reservations at one of the many rooms in "My Father's House" please enter J-O-H-N followed by 3-1-6.
Our computers show that you have already prayed once today. Please hang up and try again tomorrow. Thank you for your patience, and have a pleasant eternity.
***
Scientists tell us that a dense fog covering seven city blocks to a depth of one hundred feet is composed of less than one glass of water. That amount of water is divided into about sixty billion tiny droplets. Yet when those minute particles settle over a city or the countryside, they have the power to blot out almost everything from human sight.
It's easy, even for people of faith, to live in a fog. How easy it is to permit a mere cupful of troubles to cloud our vision and dampen our spirit!
***
Tony Campolo tells the story of a young woman named Nancy who gratefully responded to God's movement of grace. Although Nancy has a handicapping condition and is confined to a wheelchair, she has an extraordinary ministry. Every week, in the personals section of her local newspaper, she runs an ad that reads, "If you are lonely or have a problem, call me. I am in a wheelchair and I seldom get out. We can share our problems with each other. I'd love to talk." She spends much of her day on the telephone talking with the more than thirty lonely and discouraged people who call each week. When Campolo asked how she came to be confined to a wheelchair, Nancy revealed that she had tried to commit suicide by jumping from the balcony of her apartment. Instead of dying, however, she ended up in a hospital room paralyzed from the waist down. One night in the hospital, she said, Jesus came to her and very clearly said, "You have had a healthy body and a crippled soul. From this day on you will have a crippled body, but you will have a healthy soul." She said, "I gave my life to Jesus that night in that hospital room, and I knew that if I kept a healthy soul, it would mean that I would have to help other people. And so I do."
***
To be healthy is literally to be whole ... Our sense of wholeness is not just the completeness in ourselves but also is the sense of belonging to others and to our place ... I believe that the community -- in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures -- is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms.
-- Wendell Berry, in an essay, "Health is Membership," delivered as a speech at a conference, "Spirituality and Healing" at Louisville, Kentucky, on October 17, 1994
Sometimes we must overcome our own inner resistance, before we can claim the healing Christ offers.
First Lesson
Acts 16:9-15
Paul Goes To Macedonia
In a dream, Paul sees a man of Macedonia inviting him to come help the people there. The journey from Asia Minor to Macedonia is significant: having crossed the Bosporus, the continent of Europe now lies open to the faith. Not that it has not already penetrated there, of course: Paul discovers in Philippi a small, but thriving Christian community, with Lydia, a seller of purple cloth, as a principal leader. Because purple cloth was worn exclusively by the nobility, the church in Philippi has evidently attracted a wide range of people, the rich as well as the poor. This church meets not publicly in the synagogue (perhaps they were no longer welcome there), but in a "place of prayer" by a river. They are worshiping in the out-of-doors. Lydia invites Paul to stay in her home, and use it as his base of operations. This episode provides evidence of the high status of women, many of whom were leaders in the early church. Of Lydia, the text says "the Lord opened her heart" (v. 14). This is always the way: in any faithful evangelistic enterprise, the Holy Spirit has already prepared the way ahead of time.
New Testament Lesson
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
Wondrous City
John's vision of the New Jerusalem continues. In language of prophetic vision reminiscent of Old Testament prophets such as Elijah, John reports that he was taken away "in the spirit," to the top of a high mountain (v. 10). From there he is able to see the New Jerusalem. In an extensive, omitted section (vv. 11-21), John describes in excruciating detail the unbelievably vast dimensions of this city, which is shaped like a cube. It is ornamented with all manner of precious gems, including pearls (which is where the expression, "pearly gates," comes from). This city needs no temple, for God is there (some comfort, perhaps, to Jewish believers who had seen the temple razed in their lifetime; v. 22). Neither does the city need the illumination of sun or moon, because there is a steady source of radiance emanating from the glory of God (v. 23). In a phrase reminiscent of Isaiah's prophecies, "The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it" (Isaiah 60:3; v. 24). The fact that the city's gates will never be shut is an indicator of the perfect peace that will reign both inside and outside its walls (v. 25). "The river of the water of life" flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb in the center of the New Jerusalem; beside this river grows "the tree of life" (an allusion to the Garden of Eden; 22:1-2). There is no longer a proscription on eating this tree's fruit; it bears a different sort of fruit for each month of the year. The residents of the city will look directly upon God's face, and live -- which was all but impossible in former days (v. 4). "They will reign forever and ever" (v. 5).
The Gospel
John 14:23-29
The Advocate
In these words, a section lifted out of a much longer discourse, Jesus speaks with great affection for his little band of disciples. The issue looming over this whole conversation is the question of what will happen to them after Jesus leaves -- something that is evidently much on Jesus' mind, though not likely in the thoughts of the disciples. These are parting instructions. In verses 23-24, Jesus assures his followers that, if they but keep the faith, he will continue to be with them. In verses 25-29, he lays out for them how this is going to happen. He is going to send a representative, a proxy: "... the Advocate (parakletos), 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" (v. 26). Parakletos is a legal term, referring to an attorney or legal counselor. Literally it means "one who is called alongside," and has connotations that go far beyond the mere dispensing of advice. The verb parakaleo, from which it comes, can be translated "beseech," "encourage," "comfort." The word "comforter" suggests a soft image such as a mother tucking a child into bed at night, but think instead of a public defender sitting down with a frightened prisoner for the first time. "Don't worry," the attorney says. "We have a good case for acquittal. I will be with you, and will get you through it." "Peace I leave with you ..." (v. 27) is a much-loved blessing, the Savior's comforting words to the fearful flock he leaves behind. The final verse of this selection reveals much about the nature of John's Gospel. Much of what Jesus says in the Johannine discourses the disciples can only understand in a limited way. Jesus' words will make sense, he tells them, only later, in light of some unnamed event that is going to occur: "And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe" (v. 29). That event, of course, is the resurrection -- something John needs to have Jesus talk about here, but cannot have him address directly, because it is too early in the story to mention it openly. Earlier, in verse 19, Jesus has hinted at it: "In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live." These intricate speeches could not possibly be the literal words of Jesus. They are too long to have been remembered on first hearing, and who would have written down such baffling, half-understood sayings at the time? John has composed these discourses, years later, as a literary device: a compendium of Jesus' teachings. They function much like the dialogues of Plato, who used a similar conversational device to communicate the varied teachings of Socrates. Embedded within the discourses are many genuine sayings of Jesus, but they are connected together by a number of sentences such as verse 29, which provide the narrative framework that holds the structure together.
Alternate Gospel Lesson
John 5:1-9
A Healing By The Pool Of Bethesda
The location of this healing story is known to many as "the Pool of Bethesda," although the NRSV has corrected the name to the more accurate transliteration, "Beth-zatha." There is a legend that the waters of this pool have healing properties, but only in rare moments when an angel passes by and stirs up the waters. A disabled man has been lying near the pool for 38 years, waiting for the critical moment to immerse himself and be healed. In a heartbreaking lament, he explains that he has no one to pick him up and help him get through the crush of sick people, before the waters become calm once again. Jesus tells him to get up and walk, and he does. A sermon on this text could explore the psychology of healing and recovery. Thirty-eight years is a long time, and there is something in the lame man's complaint that sounds like an excuse -- one he has perhaps repeated many times before. The true source of healing is standing beside him, yet he doesn't know it.
Preaching Possibilities
We have all had the experience of waiting for what seems like an unreasonably long time in a doctor's waiting room. The absolute record, though, appears to belong to a certain man described in chapter 5 of John. For 38 years this man, an invalid, has spent his days lying on a stretcher beside the Pool of Beth-zatha (sometimes called Bethesda), in Jerusalem. Evidently, this pool contains what the geologists call an intermittent spring. From time to time, geological forces within the earth convulse, and force water to bubble up to the surface. Not knowing the natural origin of this phenomenon, the people of that time and place have come to see the disturbance in the surface of the pool as miraculous. They believe it to be the sign of a passing angel, winging invisibly over the water.
If a sick person can make it into the pool before the ripples disappear -- or so goes the folk-wisdom -- there's a very good chance that person may be brushed by angels' wings, and be healed. Every hopeless medical case in Jerusalem, it seems, has walked, limped, or been carried to the Pool of Beth-zatha. There, by the edge of the water, they wait ... and they wait. The slightest burp from that hidden spring is enough to trigger a stampede. Once in a great while, some lucky petitioner casts his crutch away and raises grateful hands to the heavens, shouting, "I've been healed!" More often than not, the whole company of the sick cease their frantic splashing, look around at each other, and slowly wade back out of the pool. Then they take their places once again, to wait for next time.
"The race is not to the swift," teaches the book of Ecclesiastes -- although it appears that nobody by the side of the pool has read Ecclesiastes. Every time the waters boil up, there's a veritable stampede -- and woe to any poor mendicant who moves too slowly and is trampled by the crowd!
It's some wild scene, and John plays it for maximum comic effect. Jesus happens to be there one day, and spies this one particular man lying on his stretcher. This patient's 38-year paralysis is so severe, he can't pull himself up on his own feet, let alone make it to the pool. And so he just lies there, hoping against hope that some kind soul will pick him up and carry him one day.
Or so he says. More likely, after 38 years, he's pretty much given up the contest. The place feels familiar. The company of fellow sufferers is congenial, after a fashion. And, from time to time some kind passer-by drops a coin into his cup. It may not be the most fulfilling of human lives, but it's his life. He's used to it.
One thing he's not used to is a stranger stopping to talk with him about his inner motivation. That stranger is Jesus. He stands at the foot of the man's cot, examining his circumstances. Then, he looks earnestly into his eyes, and asks, "Do you want to be made well?"
It's not a question this invalid's used to hearing -- for it's plain to everyone who sees him lying there on his stretcher why he spends his days by the Pool of Beth-zatha. It's clear to everyone, it seems, except Jesus: and, truly, even he knows why the man is there. He's just asking the question for rhetorical effect.
On another level, though, Jesus' question can be taken at face value. Sure, the man spends his days in the place of "wanting-to-get-well," but he's long since given up hope that his healing's going to happen. Little remains of his hope but an empty shell. He's just keeping up appearances.
"Do you want to be made well?" For once, the obvious question isn't so obvious. For once, this professional invalid turns his questing eye inward. He looks within himself -- and he doesn't like what he sees. The stern, commanding voice of the carpenter from Nazareth cuts through his reverie. "Stand up, take up your mat and walk." Imagine that, telling a paralyzed man to get up and walk! Yet the man is so shocked, he does exactly that and with his first step, he is healed.
John goes on, then, to gleefully describe the consternation that breaks out among the religious leaders, for this is no ordinary healing. It so happens that Jesus has healed the man on the Sabbath, and that, insist the priests and the scribes, is a violation of the Fourth Commandment.
It's a classic case of failing to see the forest for the trees. Standing right in front of the scribes is a man who was paralyzed for 38 years, but who now can walk -- and they can't even lift their eyes above the level of their law books to consider what a living, breathing wonder he is!
One possible direction for a sermon would be to explore these issues of legalism, but the avenue we will follow is to focus on the dynamics of the encounter between the sick man and Jesus. Most particularly, the things Jesus says to him. First, there's the question, "Do you want to be made well?"; and, second, there's the command, "Stand up, take your mat, and walk!"
"Do you want to be made well?" Far from being a "no-brainer" sort of remark, this question is positively profound. For the truth is, not everyone who's sick really wants to be healed.
Sometimes illness looks better to us than health. Every counselor can tell tales without end about people who come in to talk, to share problems and sorrows, to seek something better for themselves or their families. The two of them struggle together, counselor and counselee, to identify the problem, draw boundaries around it, describe what dread beast has arisen within this God-given life and is threatening to destroy it. Finally, in the midst of the counseling process, there comes a breakthrough. The problem is identified. The client "gets it." For the first time in many weeks, there seems to be real hope.
But then, in many cases, one of two things happens. The first is that the client misses the next appointment, and the next, then breaks off contact altogether. The second negative outcome occurs when the client returns for the next session, but seems hardly aware that the breakthrough conversation took place at all. Having discerned the truth so clearly on one occasion in the past, the person's eyes are again covered by scales. Where once there had been vital conversation about the great issues of the human psyche, there is now only "small talk." In subtle and often subconscious ways, his patient is trying to distract the counselor from coming close, again, to the painful truth.
Those who work in the field of addiction and recovery are familiar with this sort of subconscious resistance. Whatever it is that addicts are trying to give up -- alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling, overeating, sexual compulsion -- is easily named, but oh-so-hard to let go of. Along with the Apostle Paul, such struggling people could well affirm: "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15).
A wise person has said, "The other side of 'I can't' is 'God can.' " What we imagine, in our darkest fears, to be our moment of supreme weakness -- our hour of failure, abandonment, and despair -- actually proves to be the turning point. The moment we manage, at long last, to still the clamoring voices in our head and to hear only one voice -- the voice of our Savior, saying, "Stand up, take your mat and walk" -- is the moment when victory is assured.
Prayer For The Day
Lord Jesus,
there are times when,
like the teeming multitude by the Pool of Beth-zatha,
we too are waiting passively to be healed.
We have tried everything else.
We have turned to everyone else.
We have fantasized that, next time, things will be different.
Now, give us the courage to turn to you,
and heed your voice:
"Stand up, take your mat and walk."
Grant that we may do so from this moment onward. Amen.
To Illustrate
Hanging in a Cincinnati candle shop is a large sign which reads:
There is a very good reason for this sign being here and you standing in front of it reading it. It is here to keep you busy. We realize how annoying it can be just standing around doing nothing, trying to find someone to help you. So, we have this sign here for you to read, and hope that by the time you finish reading it one of our salespeople will have found you. If not, please read this sign again.
***
What if God said, "Take a number?" What if when you prayed, you had to wait for a free circuit?
Someone has already envisioned this possibility, in a little piece of writing that's been making the rounds on the internet. It's titled, "God's Voice Mail"....
Thank you for calling God's House. Please select one of the following options:
Press 1 for Requests
Press 2 for Thanksgiving
Press 3 for Complaints
Press 4 for All Other Inquiries
We're sorry, all of our angels are busy helping other sinners right now. However, your prayer is important to us and will be answered in the order received, so please stay on the line.
If you would like to speak to:
God, press 1
For Jesus, press 2
For the Holy Spirit, press 3
If you would like to hear King David sing a Psalm while you are holding, press 4.
To find out if a loved one has been assigned to Heaven, press 5, enter his or her Social Security number, then press the pound key.
For reservations at one of the many rooms in "My Father's House" please enter J-O-H-N followed by 3-1-6.
Our computers show that you have already prayed once today. Please hang up and try again tomorrow. Thank you for your patience, and have a pleasant eternity.
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Scientists tell us that a dense fog covering seven city blocks to a depth of one hundred feet is composed of less than one glass of water. That amount of water is divided into about sixty billion tiny droplets. Yet when those minute particles settle over a city or the countryside, they have the power to blot out almost everything from human sight.
It's easy, even for people of faith, to live in a fog. How easy it is to permit a mere cupful of troubles to cloud our vision and dampen our spirit!
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Tony Campolo tells the story of a young woman named Nancy who gratefully responded to God's movement of grace. Although Nancy has a handicapping condition and is confined to a wheelchair, she has an extraordinary ministry. Every week, in the personals section of her local newspaper, she runs an ad that reads, "If you are lonely or have a problem, call me. I am in a wheelchair and I seldom get out. We can share our problems with each other. I'd love to talk." She spends much of her day on the telephone talking with the more than thirty lonely and discouraged people who call each week. When Campolo asked how she came to be confined to a wheelchair, Nancy revealed that she had tried to commit suicide by jumping from the balcony of her apartment. Instead of dying, however, she ended up in a hospital room paralyzed from the waist down. One night in the hospital, she said, Jesus came to her and very clearly said, "You have had a healthy body and a crippled soul. From this day on you will have a crippled body, but you will have a healthy soul." She said, "I gave my life to Jesus that night in that hospital room, and I knew that if I kept a healthy soul, it would mean that I would have to help other people. And so I do."
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To be healthy is literally to be whole ... Our sense of wholeness is not just the completeness in ourselves but also is the sense of belonging to others and to our place ... I believe that the community -- in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures -- is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms.
-- Wendell Berry, in an essay, "Health is Membership," delivered as a speech at a conference, "Spirituality and Healing" at Louisville, Kentucky, on October 17, 1994
