We’re All In This Together

Reflection on John 14:23-29

The summer before my children were seniors, we took a three week and two days trip out west. We had two weeks planned completely. We spent one week in Zion and another week in LA with my sister, but the rest of the time was unplanned, sketched out-ish. We took their best friend Ethan along, and organized our time around three things — ice cream, hiking, and swimming in fresh water. We swam in Jacob’s well, an artesian spring just outside of Austin. They’ve never been able yet to hit the bottom of it. We swam at Blue Springs, a huge hole in the middle of the desert in New Mexico filled with cold blue water, 65 degrees. I jumped in and climbed out. The others were less affected by the cold water and less risk-adverse and spent hours jumping in from high vistas. It was a fantastic vacation. I still look back with wonder because of those weeks we spent together. We all loved it.  

We know that the pool by the Sheep Gate called Beth-Zatha wasn’t very big in size, not big enough to jump in. We know that Beth-Zatha was also used for ritual purification, a Mikveh. After a man fought in war, after he killed someone, after a woman had her period, after one converted to Judaism, before marriage, after childbirth, before a man circumcises his son, men and women, but especially women would need to wash into the waters of the mikveh. The waters had to be “living waters” — they had to flow naturally into the pool, either by rain or by a spring. A person couldn’t have filled the pool with carted water and the pool - that’s what mikveh means -  had to be big enough to cover an average-sized person. At the time of Jesus they had steps leading into the water but none of that was any help to the paralytic. 

Can you tell I went down a rabbit hole to distract me this week? There’s so much in my heart, so much in all of our hearts. But as usual, the things you want to forget are always right in front of your face. 

I find these stories of healing some of the hardest ones in the scripture, especially for our community right now. What happened to all of those in the five porticoes, those blind, lame, and paralyzed? Was it only this man, this lucky man who got to take up his mat and walk? Was it something he’d said, done, or thought? And for our context, and more importantly, why did God choose to heal this man and not Rachel or John? 

None of us know the answer and also not asking seems dishonest.

The truth is that in my experience, God’s healing happens in a very different way than in this story in John’s gospel. God’s action happens, God’s action is happening, yet it seem to be happening in a way that if you blink you miss it altogether, but if you happen to glance directly at it, it’s like the sunset or sunrise that moment everything is lit up and WOW. 

All of God’s action begins in compassion. Something funny starts moving when God encounters suffering.

There’s a midrash, one of those interpretations of our Jewish siblings, about what happens after God’s people cross the Red Sea. Four hundred years of slavery. Unmoving leaders who had no time or energy for the pain of the Israelites. The people cross the Red Sea, with the Egyptians in hot pursuit, they’re safe on the other side, and the winds change. The Egyptian army is caught in the water and they drown. On one side of the Sea, the Israelites are singing a hymn, celebrating their unlikely victory, and on the other side, death. The midrash tells us this: in heaven, God and the angels were in mourning, mourning because the whole of Egyptian army was lost. The death of any human, whether they be on God’s side or not, each death is a tragedy. 

Something seems to happen when God encounters human suffering. 

This vision from the Revelation of John describes a possibility of that time when God will be all in all, the holy city Jerusalem. Yet there’s something extraordinary happening here. It’s not only the ones who know themselves to be God’s people who are walking into the gate, it’s all of the nations of the world, all of the goodness in humans and I daresay the whole world (creatures, that tree that I saw light up this morning, Lake Michigan, all of the beauty everywhere), lights up the holy city Jerusalem. And just like those springs my kiddos and I swam in during that out west vacation, the water of life streams through the middle of the street, giving its water to the trees that are for the healing of the nations. 

Why is this healing so important? We know why with our very being, because we’re in the midst of it all right now, aren’t we? We’re seeing times that we Americans haven’t seen in a few generations, at least most of us. We’re seeing a kind of chaos that we haven’t known unless we’ve been really poor, people of color, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because in our times, it seems like Pax Americana is unraveling. Even as I say this with a calm spirit (right now), what seemed a reality even 10 years ago, is passing away. And in its place, is so very much suffering, so very much sorrow. I know I’m not alone when I say that my heart is full of compassion and I think I learned this compassion from God, seeing the way that God has shown and continues to show God’s healing grace, God’s love. I mean, there’s the main event, the Incarnation, Jesus, but it’s always happening. Do you see it? For me, I’m always hungry for healing, but right now, the healing of the nations seems especially important. The healing of Gaza. The healing of South Sudan. The healing of Ukraine. The healing of the nations. 

Because the way I see it, it isn’t enough for Jesus to heal one human, man or woman. It just isn’t enough. I want the healing of our world. 

Yet as so many things, so many parts of our lives, it’s our hands and feet that participate in this healing, it falls on our heads to do this work in the world today and as we’re doing it, it often doesn’t feel like much. A hospital visit. Listening really well to a neighbor. Bringing cookies or dinner. Cutting grass. A kind hello. Going to therapy. Enjoying someone for being themselves. Writing a protest letter. Attending a protest. Providing the whole church with duck eggs. Caring for your own part of our church building. Recycling. Having your own compost bin. Gently reminding a friend of a better way. Loving. Living in hope. 

Helen Havlik is one of the beloved retired pastors that sits in our pews; she goes to the 8:30 service. This week, she told the most extraordinary story of a woman, “Charlotte” from her first parish. Charlotte was grumpy. Charlotte was bitter. She’d been through a nasty divorce, living a life that was so different from the way she thought it was going to be. Charlotte was declining in years, and one day she got a diagnosis of a terrible and aggressive cancer. She needed treatment, and the treatment center was more than an hour away. One parishioner decided t get people mobilized. “We’ll be the ones to take you to get your treatments,” she said. In a moment of weakness, Charlotte agreed. It wasn’t a big congregation. It was a two point call, and yet almost everyone volunteered to drive Charlotte, more than 30 people. 

Charlotte was never the same. Her cancer killed her, yet Charlotte was healed. 

We all know these stories of healing, of healing from trauma, of healing from grief, from isolation, from the hard knocks, from hopelessness, depression, deep sorrow, from all of the things that life brings. Yes. Because we’re the hands and feet now of God. We’re the ones. It’s us. So whatever it is that brings you and the world healing — whether it be swimming in fresh water, enjoying nature, loving this long, slow spring, loving one another, enjoying your family, friends, and pets, serving one another, therapy, reading, weeding, wisdom, do it. We’re all in this together.