Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: John 5:1-9
July 14, 2002
If you were to force me into making a list of my all-time favorite Bible stories, this one would surely be on it. That’s because I’ve been to the pool with the five porticos. I’m talking about the “real thing.” You don’t get many opportunities like that in Jerusalem. Eighteen feet of rubble has covered most of the original biblical sites in the city. Moreover, the first century Romans didn’t run around sticking historical markers in the ground (“Lame Man Cured Here”….“Dead Girl Raised On Your Left”). Almost every historical event in Jerusalem has to be approximated. Guides tell you: “We’re in the right area,” or “There’s some argument as to whether it took place here or over there.” But when it comes to the Pool of Bethzatha, archeologists have excavated down to the original.
The story is simple enough. A man lays by the pool. He has been there a long time. In fact, he has been there 38 years. Which is one way of saying that this man has made a career out of being sick. Two more years and he’ll have 40. I suspect that the pool attendant will approach him, surrounded by towel boys, and they will give him a gold watch. Then he can retire.
He is not alone at the pool. There are a lot of sick people there. We are told that some of them are blind, some of them are lame, and some of them suffer from paralysis. We do not know what ails this man. The Bible simply says he is sick. You could argue that he suffers from a crippling of the limbs. But a careful reading of the text does not fully support that.
He is in special surroundings. This is a legendary place of healing. For this is a pool with a legend. The legend suggests that each time the angel of the Lord enters the pool, stirring the waters, the first person who makes it into the pool will be made well. But I prefer to leave the legend alone. It serves those who like that sort of thing. But the legend is not essential to the story. If you read this slice of John’s gospel and conclude that the “pool of troubled waters” exists and that it is your job to go find it, you have missed the point.
Like a lot of Bible stories, this one includes a surprise. What’s the surprise? Well, to you and me (and most of the crowd around the Sheep Gate Pool), the surprise is that the sick man gets well in a hurry. But to Jesus….and probably only to Jesus….the surprise is that an otherwise healthy man has acted sick for so long. For when Jesus asks the question: “Do you want to be well?”, we are left to assume the cure is directly related to the answer. Strangely enough, the man deflects the question rather than answer it. “Sir,” says the man, “I have no one to put me in the pool when the waters are stirred up, and while I am trying to get there, somebody always beats me to the waters.” Which is a lot like life, I suppose. Other people beat us to the prize. But, then again, maybe they have help.
The pool is such a rich symbol. It can mean so many things. I suppose the pool can mean “hope,” in the sense that one can take confidence in the fact that the pool is always there. But the pool can also mean “despair,” since it always seems to be just out of reach….over there, while I am over here. The pool may mean “healing,” but it also may mean “victory,” given that if I get there first, I win. But I have long preached that what the pool really refers to is that place where significant life is lived….that job where real work is done….that church where dynamic ministry is carried out….that neighborhood where beautiful people live….that club where the real clout rests….or that place where I can be in the swim, in the know, in the money, and in the mainstream. But, as is so often the case in life, I can’t seem to get there from here. Why, for example, doesn’t the Bishop realize that if I were only appointed to “that church over there,” everybody would finally recognize the many talents I possess and the wonderful ministry I could carry out?
But Jesus totally ignores the pool and its legendary powers. He does not carry the man to its waters. Neither does he instruct anyone else to carry the man to its waters. In fact, Jesus does not address the man’s physical condition at all. Instead, he addresses the man’s perception. “Do you want to be well?” Jesus asks. Apparently, it has not occurred to the man that he has any say in the matter. For 38 years, this man has denied the possibility of any intimate connection with his problem. Some “thing” out there made him sick. Some “one” out there will have to make him well.
Bruce Larson was one of the first to point this out to me. Some of you know that Bruce was in line to succeed Robert Schuller at the Crystal Cathedral, save for the fact that Bruce (the replacer) got old and retired, while Robert (the replacee) got old and didn’t. All that aside, Bruce writes:
I recently saw my doctor for a general check-up. After several tests conducted by his underlings, I was granted an audience with the great one himself. He checked me a little further, made a few comments about my cholesterol, and finally pronounced me to be a fairly healthy specimen. All throughout the interview, I found myself bracing for the moment when he would tell me I was overweight. I was already making up excuses, since I am one of those people who hates being told what to do.
Well, my doctor was prepared for me. When he had finished probing, poking, charting and recording, he took off his glasses and looked at me across the desk. “Tell me, Mr. Larson, how do you feel about your weight?” How did I feel about my weight? What kind of ridiculous question was that? I was prepared to have him tell me how he felt about my weight. That would make my weight his problem. In response to which I could employ all the means of resistance I had mastered across the years. But now he wanted to know what I felt. When he noticed my baffled look, he continued: “Why don’t you tell me what you would like to weigh.” Now he had me. I thought for a moment and finally mumbled a figure several numbers to the south of my present weight. “Excellent,” he said. “I think I can help you with your problem.”
The moral of Bruce’s story is that it takes a measure of health to own your own problem. But I might as well give you the moral of Bruce’s follow-up story while I have it handy. It reads: “Owning your own problem implies fighting the temptation to make excuses for the problem.” As for the story, Larson writes:
I once hosted a conference in which William Glasser was the principle speaker. Glasser is a highly respected psychiatrist who is also the author of a somewhat controversial book entitled Reality Therapy. At one point in his speech, Glasser said that there is never a good excuse for being late. Let’s say you missed an appointment for what you considered to be good reasons. Perhaps the traffic was heavy or the subway broke down. Perhaps the elevator stalled or someone called you on your cell phone.
According to Glasser, you should have taken such possibilities into account and allowed sufficient time. Following which he said: “The only relevant excuse for being late is to say ‘I am sorry, I guess I am incompetent to run my life.’” He challenged us to say that the next time we were late. I accepted the challenge and it took exactly one late appointment to clear me of a life-long habit.
The bottom line reads like this. How much of our life do we want to be responsible for, and how much of our life do we want to lay off on others? But, to the degree that we lay our problems off on others, we begin to think like victims.
The victim role comes naturally, fits easily, and is learned early. It begins when we doubt our sense of self-worth. It continues when we distrust our slice of experience as being valid and authentic. And it concludes by surrendering to others the control of our basic feelings, especially the feelings as to whether we are happy.
Picture, if you will, a four-year-old girl who has just been given the gift of a five dollar bill by her grandmother. On the way home, she asks her father if she might spend it on something just for herself (like her grandmother said she should). Reluctantly, her father agrees. They stop in front of a neighborhood toy store. She asks if she might make the purchase all by herself. Reluctantly, her father agrees again. When next we see the little girl, she is emerging from the toy store proudly displaying her choice. In her hand is a miniature red and yellow oil tank car from a train set. She has picked it for a number of reasons. Because she likes the colors red and yellow. Because she likes its smooth, round shape. Because she likes the way it feels in her hand. Because she likes the funny little sound the wheels make when they turn. And because it reminds her of something very special she recently shared with her father. It occurred when she and her father were riding in the car and were forced to stop for ten minutes at a train crossing. They waited while 110 cars went by, which she remembered only because her daddy suggested they count them out loud. Moreover, he told her what some of the cars were named, only she couldn’t recall any of the names except for the oil tanker.
The little girl may not remember any of that now. And she may not connect the day by the train crossing with her desire to purchase a red and yellow oil tanker. She probably cannot explain why she bought it. But she is happy she did. And she is happy to show it to her daddy. Except that he thinks it is stupid. He begins to question her.
· What are you going to do with that?
· Where will you find a track for it to run on?
· Don’t you know you need other pieces of the train set, including an engine to pull it?
· Do you expect your mother and me to buy you the rest of the pieces?
· Couldn’t you find the shelf where they keep the doll stuff?
There are so many questions that she gets confused in trying to deal with them, all the while trying to hang onto her delight. It’s like a giant tug of war, with her daddy’s questions pulling in one direction and her delight in the other. Obviously, daddy’s questions win. Her delight loses. Sadly, she lets it go.
Where once she said, “But I like it,” she ends up saying: “I guess I never thought of those things.” She feels foolish. No one will ever see the oil tanker again. She will think twice before doing anything quite so impulsive next time. And she will pay more attention to what daddy likes and the signals daddy sends about the things that ought to make her happy. She will work very hard to get her life “on track.”
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all that simple. One experience doesn’t do it. It takes time to beat the initiative out of people. It takes time to get people to distrust their own little slice of the world. And it takes time to get people to surrender control over their feelings to others. Bruce Larson tells of his mother, recently deceased:
She was a great lady. She loved the Lord and she loved her neighbors. When she was 85 years old, she was a volunteer in Cook County Hospital. She emptied bedpans, trimmed fingernails, wrote letters for the handicapped and performed other menial chores. In programs sponsored by her church, she tutored ghetto children and sold used clothing in an inner-city thrift shop.
But having said all of that, I must also say that my mother never made me feel okay about myself. Which explains why I spent a lifetime carrying home my trophies, large and small, without getting the desired response. Even in her eighties, when we were neighbors geographically and had dinner together a couple times a week, I was still bringing home my goodies. I would show her a new book I wrote or an article about me in some newspaper. Invariably, she would examine my prize blandly, often putting it down without comment. Anger and frustration would well up in me and I would have to withdraw, go home, and find ways to express my hostility.
My children, who at that time were mostly grown, tried to help me. “Dad,” they said, “get off Grandma’s back. To the rest of the world, she’s a great lady. But we all know she doesn’t like herself very much (which is what drives her to do all of the stuff she does). And since she doesn’t like herself….and since you’re a part of her….it only follows that she doesn’t think you’re so neat, either. Quit playing your life to her. It’s a no-win deal.” Which was when I realized that my problem was not my mother. My problem was myself. She had absolutely no power to make me angry and unhappy….unless I allowed it.
Carl Rogers, one of the most innovative therapists in the past century, once said that he considered only one kind of counselee relatively hopeless: namely that person who blames other people for his or her problems. Writes Rogers: “If you take ownership of the mess you are in, help is available for you. But to the degree you continue to blame others, you will be a victim for the rest of your life.”
Jesus meets the sick man by the pool and asks him if he wants to be well. The man ducks the question. He lays it off on others. “Nobody gets me to the waters quick enough,” he says. Which translated, means: “Somebody’s not doing their job.”
Two churches ago, I found myself involved with a chronic alcoholic. The man was brilliant. He had everything going for him. But his life was falling apart, a few pieces at a time. Fortunately for him, the last thing to go was his job. He worked for one of the auto companies. And since he did valuable work, they covered for him for years. But he blew every chance. I saw him arrested. I saw him in a detox center. I saw him in a sanitarium. I even saw him swatting imaginary spiders, sweating out the D.T.’s. Over the years, I tried connecting him with people who might help him….representatives of AA….a good psychotherapist….a specialist in alcohol rehab programs. One day his wife called me and said: “Dick really wants to get well this time. But he says that you haven’t been able to find him a counselor he can relate to.” In other words, I had failed to get him in the pool. In one bold stroke, he had sucked both his wife and me into his disease.
Jesus doesn’t buy the man’s excuse. Neither does Jesus carry the man to the water. He neither takes over the man’s problem nor creates a new dependency. Instead, Jesus says: “Get up.” Roughly translated, I think it means: “Some pools are in your head.” Or maybe it means: “Healing begins at home.” Take your pick.
