Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 25, 2025

Acts 16:9-15+Psalm 67+Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5+John 5:1-9

Anyone who has ever taken a stroll through Central Park in New York City cannot have missed the great Bethesda Fountain right in the middle of the park, topped by the giant neoclassical sculpture, Angel of the Waters. This was the only sculpture commissioned in the original plan for Central Park, and the artist, Emma Stebbins, was the first woman to receive a commission for a major artwork in New York back in 1873. All of this is an obvious reference to the story we heard from John about the sick man lying on his mat at the pool sometimes called Bethzatha, or House of Olives, and sometimes called Bethsaida, or House of the Fisherman, and other times called Bethesda, which means House of Mercy. We're going to stick with this one, because that is the name of our fountain.

The angel atop the Bethesda Fountain is holding a lily in one hand while the other is stretched out in blessing over the water. This was to commemorate the 1842 opening of the Croton Aqueduct which brought fresh water from the Croton River in Westchester down to reservoirs in the city. The water sources in Manhattan were so polluted that they were making people sick, so this fresh water supply offered healing and good health to the people of the city.[1] Whenever I visit this fountain, I am reminded of the paralytic who has been lying beside the pool, waiting for someone to help him into the water.

Some ancient sources include an explanatory note about the stirring of the water, "for an angel of the Lord went down from time to time into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had."[2] Our narrative focuses on a person who never managed to get there first.

Years ago, as I was discerning a call to ordination, one of my clergy mentors talked to me about what it is like to be a priest. Sometimes we imagine that we're going to preach meaningful sermons and be sensitive pastoral caregivers, serve as trusted advisors and spiritual leaders, beloved by the community. And that is all certainly part of it, but this advisor of mine wanted to make sure that I was not expecting some kind of utopia where everyone was moving in the same direction and on the same page all the time. No, the church has the same characteristics as any other body of people, because it is made up of, well, people, with all the faults and flaws one can imagine. You've got the helpers and the perpetually cheery, you have the silent ones who sit in the back and slip out quickly, you have the know-it-alls and the infrequent flyers, and you will always, always have complainers, the ones who simply cannot be pleased. The music is too loud, the sermon is too long, the church is too hot or too cold, nobody checked in when I was sick even though I didn't tell anyone I was sick, I didn’t know this event was happening even though it had been announced in church and published in the newsletter repeatedly. We all know people like this. Maybe sometimes we are people like this. They are what my mentor referred to as EGRs, Extra Grace Required. And it is this kind of person that I imagine Jesus encountering in this scene.

Come on, dude, you've been sitting here for thirty-eight years? Seriously? Don't you want to be made well?

(whining) But everyone gets there before me; there's no one to help me.

And there is part of me, I confess, that would have no patience with this. It's hard to tell what Jesus' tone of voice might have been, but sometimes, I'd really like for it to be something like, "Oh, for pete's sake, just get up."

It may not be one of my better traits, but you can confirm this with Tim who, when he was recovering from brain surgery had been told to gradually increase the distance he could walk to regain his strength, so on his second day home from the hospital, I helped him walk, slowly, from our driveway to our neighbor's driveway and back again. The next day, we went two driveways. The third day, we went three driveways. And by the fourth day, patient nursemaid that I am, I made him walk all the way around the block which just happened to be uphill. And if you ask him about this, he will complain and call me Nurse Ratched, but look at him. It didn't kill him. He's the picture of health.

But I digress.

Let's just say that I am grateful that Jesus is not like me.

In one the occasional quirks we find in our scheduled lectionary readings, there were actually two options for the gospel this morning. The other is from John 14, a continuation of the story we read last week where Judas is going out to betray Jesus, and Jesus is sharing his final words with the disciples at their last supper together, telling them to love one another as he has loved them (John 13:34). As we make our way through the Easter season, we can see how our gospel writers were trying to make sense of all that had happened with the crucifixion and resurrection and post-resurrection appearances by referring back to things the disciples had seen and heard when Jesus was still physically with them. They anticipate Jesus's ascension into heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This morning's alternate reading has Jesus saying these words:

I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, 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. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (John 14:25-27).

Jesus gathered a group of people around him far greater in number than just The Twelve and created a community. The promise of the Spirit is that they will be bound in a community of faith no matter where they might find themselves down the road. They are drawn together in the Spirit's tether, as the beloved anthem says. Jesus is saying that they will all have each other because they will always have him.

Which brings me back to the paralytic about whom I have been so harsh and judgmental. When Jesus asks him if he wants to be well, he doesn't answer him directly. The first words out of his mouth are, "I have no one" (John 5:7). Anyone who has dealt with chronic illness knows how isolating that can be. Navigating the health care system and the treatments and the sense of helplessness that comes along with it is hard enough even with family and friends around. Imagine what it's like for those who have no one.

And even though this story from John is a teaching about healing on the sabbath and the religious leaders attacking Jesus because of it, here in the Great Fifty Days of Easter, it's also about being a community of people who help each other into the water. Jesus will soon ascend to the right hand of God, but through the power of the Spirit, they will still have each other to love and care and heal and pray for and with, not just among themselves but for those they encounter along the way.

At the end of Tony Kushner's play Angels in America, the final scene takes place at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. The play explores the AIDS epidemic in the 80s and the people experiencing it and affected by it, and for Kushner to end with the Angel of the Waters as a backdrop lends a note of hope and optimism to an otherwise sobering tale of death and loss. While the biblical fountain is said to have stopped running when Rome sacked Jerusalem, the characters here imagine the day when the waters of the fountain will flow again, and that hand of angelic blessing will once again stir the waters, offering healing to the suffering. What strikes me about this scene is that Kushner's characters are not trying to get to the water by themselves, not having to figure out a way because they have no one. They are there in the company of friends.

At the end of the prayer Jesus prays over his followers at the end of the Last Supper, he says, "I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one" (John 17:20-21).

Friends, the only way we will be made well is if we do it together, leaning on one another, sometimes putting up with each other's annoying little quirks, bound up in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing more antithetical to Christan community than for someone to say, "I have no one." We come here each week to be reminded that we are not alone. If you have need of anything, ask. That's what we are here for, to help each other into the healing waters.

[1] https://www.centralpark.com/things-to-do/attractions/bethesda-fountain/

[2] See Note C, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%205%3A1-9&version=NRSVUE