Sermon: B/OLD Healing

This week I was at a conference called B/OLD: Aging in the City. At one of the workshops I was seated nexted to a woman named Lesley. Lesley is a white-haired older woman with funky glasses and a warm smile. The workshop we were at was interactive and so at one point Lesley and I paired up to do an activity together.

For the activity, Lesley was instructed to ask me one particular question over and over again. Then to simply listen to my answers, without responding or questioning further. Just the same question repeated. The question was, “How are you aging?”

“How are you aging?” She asked me.

“I am aging more quickly as they years go by,” I responded kind of sadly. “I need to sleep. I can’t fake being young anymore. And aging feels kind of out of my control.”

“How are you aging?” She asked again.

“I’m aging with fear for the future. Will I be strong enough and able enough to adapt to everything that is happening? The world moves so fast, it seems built for younger. Will there be place for me?”

“How are you aging?” she asked again gently.

“I’m noticing that I have wisdom now, and experience. I’m starting to understand what’s really important. I used to cling to my youth, but I have to admit that every decade is actually better and better!”

She laughed and nodded! But sticking to the rules, she continued asking me the same question until our time was up.

When we were done our exercise, we took a moment to reflect. And so I asked her why she laughed when I said that “every decade gets better and better”?

She replied, “Wait until you get to my age. I am 76 and I am discovering things about myself that I never knew. New passions and interests, I’m experimenting in new ways and I love it.”

“That’s amazing,” I said. “What kinds of things do you like now.”

She said, “Oh, I’ve taken up hiphop dancing!”

I have to admit, that caught me a bit by surprise! [laughing] Hip hop dancing?!

“And you know why I dance?”, she asked, “Because I stopped waiting to have fun and try new things. You have to stop waiting. You have to go for what you want now!”

My time with Lesley in the workshop really went deep and yet was so uplifting! It was so real and such an unexpected joy to talk about aging and vulnerability and power and wisdom and frailty—which normally might feel risky to talk about. But there was real sharing between Lesley and myself. I feel I made a friend that day.

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Stop waiting, Lesley said. A similar message is found in our gospel reading from John, in two different ways. Let’s talk about the man, who spent 38 of his years waiting in the alcove near a healing pool…

The healing pool has an interesting story. and I can understand why the man with the mat was waiting near it. Because he wanted to believe that the healing powers of the pool could be true… and help him to be well again. The water of the pool came from a natural stream. Every once in a while the flow of the stream would surge causing the water to bubble up and swirl the waters of the pool. That’s where the magic and the mystery was.

* * *

If you’ve ever been in a jacuzzi, you may know the soothing “ahh” feeling of sitting in the warm bubbling jets. It relaxes the muscles and tension… and honestly from times I’ve been in one it really does a body good! But I digress!

* * *

It was believed that the bubbles in the ancient pool in Jerusalem were spirit angels who would heal the first person to enter the pool of whatever ailed them. The ancient world was infused with spirits of all kinds like these. Tree spirits, house spirits, water spirits… the spirit world was part of everyday living for people living in biblical times, and, it seems for this ailing man and hundreds of others who were blind, crippled and paralyzed. All sitting, waiting and lying near the pool… hoping to be the one.

I try to look at this moment through Christ’s eyes: Jesus travelled from his home to Jerusalem for the Feast Day, thinking to visit the Temple in Jerusalem to worship God. He enters a portico to the temple and finds hundreds of people there, in a desperate waiting game, waiting on mats and floors, waiting and waiting for the pool to stir, waiting for the dive and splash of competition to get into the pool, waiting for healing from… well, bubbles.

* * *

Jesus recognizes these bubbles for what they are. Promises made out of thin air and passing fancy, that leave us ever-waiting. In today’s world we hear empty promises all the time, don’t we? I wonder what empty promises you’ve encountered in your life? “Promises that have little-to-know follow though and are essentially just meaningless words. We've all experienced them, either given them ourselves or received them, and hung on to the false hope of their fruition.”

“Let’s keep in touch!” or “We should have coffee sometime” are everyday promises that are pretty empty if they aren’t followed up by some kind of action… and serve the purpose of confirming that we care about the person… sort of. The bigger the empty promise, the more it hurts when it isn’t followed through on. Advertisers are famous for them too, as we all know, and as I fall for every time I pick up a new shade of lipstick. Why am I not a super-model yet?! I’m waaaaiting!

The term “living in a bubble” comes to mind. Living in a bubble means living sheltered from the riskiness and messiness of life. Bouncing through life in illusions. In a man-made world. Depending on our bubbles for our sense of safety. But just like bubbles, these illusions are flimsy and fragile. One poke, and they burst. And with them the hopes and illusions we have created disappear into thin air.

I wonder how this man became comfortable sitting on this mat for so long. Did he not see how his life had become confied to the small comfort the sat upon? Oh, these comforts are comfortable! But this small mat, his one life comfort, had become his prison. What would it take for him to reconsider, to risk rolling it up, and moving on to a more full life?

It takes an encounter with Jesus. One we may not be seeking, but that we recognize as the call to truth and freedom. I don’t think Christ asks us to wait or to risk anything. Except risking to get real and break free. That risk in Christ that asks us to shift our understanding of healing as one that leads to healthy community for all, not just for the lucky one who wins the competition and makes it into the pool first. In Christ we risk to live in the truth that there is enough healing to go around.

Yes, Christ asks us to risk to think outside of just us, to consider how we can be part of community that uplifts, supports and encourages everyone despite where they are at in their healing journeys. Christ’s love doesn’t leave us lying on our mats alone.

Christ asks us to risk to reflect inside of ourselves too. Asking, “What is it I really want? What is it that God wants for me and for my life? How can I become aware of God’s healing touch in my life today, already, without me even asking?”

I believe that God’s healing occurrs within us, not by someting exterior thing acting upon us. But our inner Spirit, the Holy Spirit, that moves and bubbles up in our lives to look beyond the hardships of physical, mental and emotional limitations… and empowers us to “Get up and move” up from our comfortable places, into God’s fullest living for us and our communities.

* * *

How can we recognize when we are sitting near the pool of empty promises instead of diving into true life in Christ? How can we wake up to how long we have soaked in the jacuzzi of life… never getting out, drying off and moving on?

Christ asks us to believe in a God that is true, and in God’s empowering life-force that is deep in our hearts. As Christians, we are not called us to believe in the smaller gods of short-sighted comforts that string us along in empty hope. Living in a bubble, that invisible force-field limits us from full living in truth!

What is real? Now is real. Don’t wait. Get up, and lived as if healed. And this isn’t about disability or medical illness. I’m talking about living your best life, your Christ life, in your fullest most alive Spirit, despite of your physical health, mental or emotional health or even because of your states of health.

As my new friend Lesley taught me, life doesn’t have to follow in a particular order. There are ways that society prescribes to us for good living: and it’s okay to follow in those ways. It’s also okay not to. Don’t wait! Living isn’t the property of the young and able-bodied. Bravery doesn’t belong to one segment of society. Getting up and getting on is a fruit that is ripe and ready and be plucked by anybody! No matter age, ability or income! Let’s roll up our mats and walk in life with Christ!

Amen.

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Scripture: Acts 16:9-15 and John 5:1-9