Stuck In The Middle With You

This sermon was preached on June 28, 2009, at the Presbyterian Church of Laurelhurst in Portland, Oregon. The text for the day was John 5: 1-9. For the children's message, we talked about the story from Winnie-the-Pooh in which Pooh gets stuck in the doorway to Rabbit's house (having eaten so much honey)--and I referred to it during the sermon--so a portion of that story is reproduced here.

"So (Pooh) started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws, and pushed with his back paws, and in a little while his nose was in the open again ... and then his ears ... and then his front paws ... and then his shoulders ... and then-'Oh, help!' said Pooh, 'I'd better go back,' 'Oh bother!' said Pooh, 'I shall have to go on.' 'I can't do either!' said Pooh, 'Oh help and bother!' ...

Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said: 'Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?' So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end... and in between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the end of the week Christopher Robin said, 'Now!'

So he took hold of Pooh's front paws and Rabbit took hold of Christopher Robin, and all Rabbit's friends and relations took hold of Rabbit, and they all pulled together ... And for a long time Pooh only said 'Ow!' ... And 'Oh!' ... And then, all of a sudden he said 'Pop!' just if a cork were coming out of a bottle. And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all relations went head-over-heels backwards ...and on top of them came Winnie-the-Pooh free! "

A. A. Milne

Well, here we are, beginning the fifth chapter of John, and already we are beginning to see the Gospel writer introducing a different mood into his narrative. The first four chapters have been rich with signs and scriptures, prophecies and callings, miracles and metaphors.

We’ve seen Jesus’ divinity announced by John the Baptist and we’ve heard Jesus call the first disciples. We’ve seen Jesus turn water into wine at Cana, drive the moneychangers out of the temple in Jerusalem, and heal the son of a royal official of Capernaum. We’ve seen Jesus reach out to Nicodemus the Pharisee and the Samaritan woman at the well, and we’ve heard Jesus teach about living water and being born of the Spirit. And with these signs, and miracles, and metaphors, Jesus has proclaimed his identity as the promised Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the World—and he has drawn many of the people around him to faith.

When we reach the fifth chapter of John, we begin to become aware that, as Jesus the Light of the World reveals himself more and more clearly, there are clouds looming on the horizon—clouds of opposition and persecution that begin here in chapter 5 and gather strength and force in chapters 6 and 7—so much so that, in chapter 7, the religious authorities have already reached the boiling point and sent temple police to arrest him.

Our reading for today from chapter 5, the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda, marks a turning point in John’s story, the moment when the Pharisees decide that Jesus must be stopped. From chapter 5 onward, the religious authorities begin to understand just who and what Jesus is claiming to be—and they are determined to do away with him. As time goes on, their opposition to him only intensifies.

But that’s not where we’re headed today. Today, we’re going to focus on the miracle.

In today’s reading we see Jesus, in Jerusalem for a festival, approach the pool of Bethesda. Jesus sees many people lying around this pool—the gospel tells us, “many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed’—all hoping to find a cure for their ailments in the healing waters. Jesus focuses all of his attention on one man—a man who, we are told, has been ill for thirty-eight years, and asks him what at first glance seems to be an obvious question: “Do you want to be made well?”

Instead of answering Jesus with a yes or a no, the man begins to make excuses: “Sir I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me”—and I know it doesn’t say this directly in the text, but it certainly implies it—that not only has the man been disabled for 38 years, but he’s been sitting beside the pool for 38 years--trying to get into the water for 38 years, and never making it to the front of the line—for 38 years. Over and over, again and again, for 38 years, this man has been doing the only thing he knows to do in pursuit of healing—and over and over again, for 38 years, the healing just hasn’t happened.

So I see this as a Dr. Phil moment. Imagine Dr. Phil, the afternoon TV psychologist, leaning out over the pool, fixing his eyes on this disabled man, and saying in that inimitable Texas drawl, “So son, how’s that workin’ for you?”

The disabled man may want to be healed. But what he’s doing about it just isn’t working. He’s doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result—insanity, right? He’s stuck—stuck in a system, stuck in a groove, stuck in old patterns, stuck in the past. Stuck, like Pooh in the rabbit hole, a "wedged bear in great tightness."

Maybe this man thinks he’s doing the only right thing in the only right way; but certainly, he can’t imagine or envision any other way a different way of thinking, or doing, or being—any other way out of his dilemma. His paralysis is not only physical—it’s mental, and emotional, and spiritual as well.

In fact, he seems to meet all the criteria for being “stuck” itemized by one personal trainer I read about—and the personal trainer was talking, of course, about being “stuck” in your process of diet and exercise, but it’s a pretty good description of our man by the pool nevertheless: “ Your energy drops dramatically; You suddenly become undecided, confused as to your next step; Now, playing the game becomes more important than achieving results.”

That certainly seems about right, doesn’t it? Especially that part about playing the game being more important than the results. The man by the pool seems much more committed to the process of getting to the water than he is to the result of being healed.

That place by the pool of Bethesda isn’t so different from the world we’re living in right now. And aren’t we all now, or haven’t we all been in the past, “stuck”—physically, emotionally, mentally—or spiritually?

I think it would be very hard right now not to feel stuck—and if you’re not, I congratulate you! I feel stuck every time I turn on the TV or open a newspaper. It is very hard to see the American automobile industry floundering. It is very hard to see newspapers going bankrupt and folding up. It is awful to see banks fail, and homes foreclosed, and jobs lost, and our wars go on and on. It is hurtful to see churches getting smaller. It is harrowing to be stuck in relationships that stagnate, or to watch someone you love sink into dementia, or to flounder in the grip of unremitting depression.

Or maybe, if we look deep within ourselves, our stuckness is really a stuckness in behaviors or ways of thinking that are easy, compelling, and destructive—or maybe, like Pooh with his little "honey problem," we’re stuck in the grip of sin, floundering around with something we know is wrong, we know needs to change, we know needs to be healed, and yet—we just can’t find a way to stop.

Whatever our issues may be at any moment of our lives, it is excruciating to feel the world changing shape around us, and to feel that the rules and relationships and institutions which have served us so well in the past might just be becoming irrelevant. We may want to heal ourselves, our culture, our economy—maybe find a new direction for our church—but we feel like we don’t have the tools—like the disabled man at Bethesda pool, and indeed all the people gathered by that pool to compete for healing--we’re so stuck in what is that we can’t imagine or envision what could be.

I recently read a wonderful article, an interview with a professor from Harvard Business School named Timothy Butler, called “Feeling Stuck? Getting Past Impasse.”

In the article, Professor Butler—who is also a psychologist, psychotherapist, and career development counselor-- talks about this experience we all face from time to time in our lives—this sensation of “feeling stuck”—as a time of crisis for us, and as a time of opportunity. In fact, he says, “Without it we cannot grow, change—and—eventually—live more fully in a larger world.”

Dr. Butler calls this time of “being stuck” a time of “impasse.” He says, “The meaning of an impasse is a request for us to change our way of thinking about ourselves and our place in the world. At impasse our model—our cognitive map of life and of the way we’re going to fit into it—is no longer working. Continuing with our usual approaches to problem-solving will not help us break through. Impasse means that we need to change our whole approach to the problem. We need to change our repertoire of ways in which we approach life’s challenges.”

In our gospel story, the disabled man at the pool is at an impasse. He is stuck; his map of life and the way he’s going to solve his problems is no longer working. He needs to change his whole approach to the problem.

And sure enough, someone—someone named Jesus --reaches out to the disabled man—across the void of impasse-- and gives him something new to try—a completely new approach—something undoubtedly out of his comfort zone. “Do you want to be made well?” he asks him. “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.”

Now, this is a man who can’t even get himself to the edge of the pool. Jesus tells him to do something unexpected, impossible, beyond his imagination, and ours—and he even does it on the Sabbath, a time when work of any kind—even a healing like this—would have been against the religious law.

And therein we have the miracle. Jesus tells the man to get up and walk—and at once the man is made well, and he takes up his mat, and he walks. Jesus’ miraculous and gracious intervention changes the man’s whole approach to his problem, sets him free to live more fully in a larger world, and transforms the time of impasse into a time of redemption and grace.

Jesus’ healing of the man by the Bethesda pool shows us that despite getting stuck in old patterns of being and doing; stuck physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually; that we need to face those times of impasse with new eyes and new ears, with a willingness to leave behind patterns and processes that just aren’t working any more, and with attention to new ways of interpreting and ordering our life experience.

Jesus’ healing of the man by the Bethesda pool shows us that it is Jesus’ presence, and power, that can make us whole: that can push, or pull us, out of the depths of sin, or hopelessness, or despair--and that we need to be alert, awake, and attentive to his presence and his voice as he calls out to us.

By bringing healing to the man by the Bethesda pool in an unconventional and unexpected way, Jesus challenges our conventional understandings of what the world is like, and how the world is ordered, what God is like, and how God chooses to be active in the world. Jesus shows us that new possibilities for understanding the world and our place in it exist, and that the way to these new possibilities is in him and through him.

Like the man by the Bethesda pool, sometimes when we’re stuck—whether we’re stuck in emotional distress, in physical need, in sin, or some combination of the above--, it isn’t tradition, or routine, or persistence that’s going to get us moving again. Sometimes, when we’re stuck, we have to give up our reliance on the past, and our investment in the safe and the familiar, and take a leap of faith.

Sometimes, when we’re stuck, what we really need to do is to take Jesus’ hand and trust in him. Or we need to see in the outstretched hands of our community--pushing us, pulling us, prodding us--the outstretched hand of God.

In his article, Dr. Butler talks about that time of being stuck, that time of impasse, as an opportunity to look at our situation with new eyes and ears; an opportunity to listen, to begin to go deeper into the self; and an opportunity to deepen our insight into the nature of who we are. “Each impasse we face,” he says, “is an opportunity to look a little deeper and understand better what works for us. The more we know ourselves, the less we are thrown by the next impasse.”

And I am pretty sure Dr. Butler wouldn’t mind if I added just one more thought here: that each impasse we face is also a spiritual opportunity--an opportunity for a deepening of our insight into the nature of God.

Pooh certainly takes the time for some spiritual reflection when he asks for "a sustaining book, such as would help and comfort a wedged bear in great tightness." And who helps Pooh to reflect, and grow--or in his case, shrink!--and then to be popped free of his great tightness? His companions and friends, of course--his fellowship. You could even say that Pooh turns his time of impasse into a time of redemption and grace.

The miracle at the Bethesda pool shows us in a powerful way that the God we worship--the Christ we know—reaches out to us when we’re stuck, calls us out of our sin, and pain and paralysis, and—if we choose to take his hand and believe in him--both sets us free to live more fully in a larger world, and transforms the time of impasse into a time of redemption and grace.

The miracle shows us that God is always calling us out of ourselves and into something new. It brings us confidence that, in partnership with God in Christ, we can discover new, unprecedented, creative ways of knowing and worshipping God-- organizing the life of faith and organizing our lives in faith—and bringing God’s kingdom to reality in our church and in our world.

And most of all, Jesus’ healing of the man by the Bethesda pool shows us that, ultimately, it is Jesus’ presence, and power, that makes us whole: that can push, or pull us, out of the depths of sin, or hopelessness, or despair—restore our relationships—and bring us the healing, the redemption, and the new life we seek.

As people of faith, let us know in our hearts the confidence promised by the gospel. Let us leave our stuckness, our sins and systems behind and get up, take up our mat, and walk. Let us take Christ’s hand, follow him out of the impasse of the past, and into the graceful future of life in him.

Amen.