First Presbyterian Church
Heavenly Hope
Sermon for May 13, 2007
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Our gospel lesson is found on page 96 of our pew Bibles, in John 5. The fourth gospel is the last gospel to be written down, probably in the second century. At that time, in some places, some Jews, like Paul, had been persecuting Christians for awhile. In other places, Christians and Jews were rivals for Roman tolerance. So the author of the fourth gospel wasn't interested in being gentle on the Jews, even though Jesus was a Jew.

Most of the people in the gospels are Jewish, not Christian. Yet the author often speaks of “the Jews” when he means the Jewish leaders. These Jewish authorities disagreed among themselves on how to interpret the law: the priests, Sadducees, Pharisees and scribes all had their own territory to protect and their own theology to promote. Like many people in power, each group wanted to tell people what to do. They each had their interpretation of the law and how to enforce it. Traditionally, this theological dialogue was a stimulating and thoughtful process. But in Jesus' day, the Roman occupation had forced religious leaders to collaborate with the foreign government. The temple was not just a center of worship, but a place of Roman control.

So in comes Jesus, in the traditions of the Hebrew prophets. So far in John's gospel, Jesus has changed clean temple water into wine, driven the money changers from the temple, taught the leader Nicodemus about being born from above, baptized people in Judea, spoken of the living water to the Samaritan woman, and healed the royal official's son. Listen for the word of God as it is found in John 5:1-10.

1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem . 2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many invalids-- blind, lame, and paralyzed. 4 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made well?"

7 The sick man answered him, "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."

8 Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk."

9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath.

10 So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, "It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat."

This ends our reading from John.

Which law was it? In the Mishnah, there's a law that forbids doing work, and the thirty-ninth class of work is “taking out aught [anything] from one domain into another.”

Technically, the man who was healed remained in the public domain. He was in the temple by the pool, and took up his mat while he was still in the temple. 1

But I'm not a first century Jewish rabbi, and so maybe it actually was not lawful for him to do such things. But to say it wasn't lawful just meant that he would have to make a special offering in the temple to get forgiveness for breaking the law. Still, you'd think they would care more that he was healed. Surely the authorities would be familiar with the men and women who stayed by the pool hoping to get healed, day after day.

But sometimes people with power forget what they are supposed to be doing.

A pastor tells this story:

“A former student of mine tells about an acquaintance who worked in a factory near Des Moines. He had moved outside the city limits because he was sick and tired of people always telling him what to do. One year the county decided to run a water line through his yard, for which they had eminent domain. While the man thought his area needed a new water main, and would gladly have given permission, no one bothered to ask him before they began digging across his backyard. When he came home to find the ditch had been started, and the heavy-duty equipment was sitting idly in his backyard he got a shotgun and shot out every window in the machine…” 2.

If you have had some government authority-- city, county, state, or federal-- tell you you couldn't do something with your land that you wanted to, or that they were going to do something you didn't want them to, you probably have a lot of sympathy for the man with the shotgun. But if you work for a government authority, you probably thought, “those dumb county people. They should have talked to him before they started moving in equipment. When you throw your weight around it makes people mad and costs more money. I hope the county learned their lesson.” Criticizing authorities is an American tradition. It is also a Hebrew tradition. We want our rulers to be better.

I think that's what's going on here with Jesus and the Jewish authorities. They should have paid attention to what's important: the person. This man was healed after 38 years. Somehow, they could have recognized and even celebrated that. But they didn't. They cared about the Sabbath law.

Living holy lives was important; it demonstrated respect and worship of God. But sometimes healing is more important than demonstrating respect.

Here's an interesting Sabbath law: “If his teeth pain him he may not suck vinegar through them but he may take vinegar after his usual fashion (like at a meal) and if he is healed, he is healed. If his loins pain him he may not rub thereon wine or vinegar, yet he may anoint them with oil but not with rose-oil. King's children may anoint their wounds with rose-oil since it is their custom so to do on ordinary days. Rabbi Simeon says: all Israelites are the king's children.” 3

Folk remedies in those days were also included in the law; folk medicine claimed that a locust's egg cures ear-ache, and a jackal's tooth cures sleeplessness if the jackal was alive and sleepiness if the jackal was dead. So here's the appropriate law: “Men may go out with a locust's egg or a jackals' tooth or with a nail of the gallows of one that was crucified, as a means of healing”. This is according to Rabbi Meir. But the sages say that even on ordinary days it is forbidden. 4

You can see that even in the law, the differing opinions of the sages and rabbis are recorded. Healing was permitted on the sabbath; but the healing couldn't involve anything that looked like work.

When the temple was destroyed, in 70 CE , local synagogues became the holy places. Without the temple, the Sadducees and priests were gone. The Pharisees still had a purpose. And so the rabbis became the Jewish leaders. Worship became decentralized. Obedience to the law was still possible.

But the longing for the temple was and is still there in Judaism. We see this in our reading from Revelation, found on page 259. The book of Revelation is full of warnings against those who betray their community and their God. I found that once I slogged through the first twenty chapters full of plagues and prophecy and warning and wars, I could really appreciate chapter 21.

Listen for the word of God as it is found in Revelation 21: 10 and 21:22 through 22:5.

10 And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

22 I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 25 Its gates will never be shut by day-- and there will be no night there.

26 People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 27 But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

3 Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; 4 they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

5 And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

This ends our reading from God's word. Let's listen to the choir interpret it.

This vision we have in Revelation includes a river running through the city. The water is as bright as crystal. We can understand that. In this heavenly city, the water will be clean. This line reminds us of the vision in Ezekiel 47. The waters of that river are so clean that they purify what they touch, and plenty of fish live in the water.

Pure water is still a pipedream for much of the world. 4,500 children die each day from dirty water or lack of water. The average woman in Africa walks six kilometers each day, mostly to collect water. One billion people of the world's six billion in developing countries lack readily available safe drinking water. Global warming will make the situation worse. Religious groups, including Church World Service, are focusing on improving the situation. One problem is that people like us don't understand that clean water isn't as close as the kitchen faucet for too many people in the world. A water specialist at Catholic Relief Services said that we Americans don't understand that water is limited. He said, “We tend to view water as almost an inexhaustible resource, but it's not.” Here in Baker County, most of us understand that water is limited. The words drought, reservoir, and watershed are not abstract concepts to us.

Church World Service emphasize incorporating the community in planning and implementing the water projects. That way, the help will last long after aid workers leave the area. 5

The next line of 22:2 is harder to visualize. How can one tree be on either side of the river? It says “ On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”

Is it one tree producing one kind of fruit each month, or twelve trees that produce fruit every month in turn? Is it one tree with a huge split trunk so that the river runs through it or is it twelve trees, six on either side of the river?

I tried to figure it out because I was trying to make a quilt from this scripture. I ended up making just one tree. What really matters about this passage is that everyone will have enough to eat in every month. There will be harvesting year round. The gates will always be open, and every nation will be welcomed.

When we hold that vision in front of us, when we know what the world is supposed to be like, when we know what is really important, it helps us focus on what is life giving and hopeful and good, rather than what is trivial and annoying and useless. I hope our graduates today will know what is important and what is not. Sometimes life is confusing, and we aren't sure what to do. That's when we depend on people to teach us. Chaplain Al Miles wrote about how his mother taught him about dignity in the early1960's, when he was about 10.

“ [This] illustrates [her] maverick spirit and her commitment to human rights at a time when it would have been far safer for her to keep her mouth shut. As was the custom in that day, most of the fresh fruits and vegetables my family and I received at our home in Indiana were brought north by truck drivers working on farms in the Deep South. One day, while playing alone in the front yard, on of these trucks with a Mississippi license plate pulled up.

‘Morning, boy,' shouted the white man moments after he steeped out of the cab. ‘your mama at home?' Even though I was still a boy, I didn't at all like this man's intonation. His slow southern drawl caused me to get the distinct impression that ‘boy' was a not-so-subtle substitute…

Mama came out of the house moments later, ordering the fruits and vegetables she desired from the bushel baskets located in the back of the man's truck. ‘Boy, help me carry these here fruits and vegetables into your mama's house,' he ordered. When we arrived in the kitchen, he continued…. ‘that's a good boy,' he stated each time I put down another basked. ‘Bet your mama's real proud of you, boy.'

His tone and word choices had not gone unnoticed by my mother. ‘Tell him your name, son,' she instructed gently, a forced smile on her face. Her pitch became firmer after she settled the bill when, while walking out the door, the white mans said, ‘Thank you ma'am for your business. And thank you, boy for your help. You're a good boy.'

‘Aldean,' my mother shouted, no longer attempting to hide her disdain for the man's bigoted word choice. ‘Tell the man your name, now!'

By this time the truck driver had made his way to the front gate, some 30 feet from our house. Still, [her] concern for my dignity and respect would not let her drop the matter. ‘Sir,' she yelled from the porch. ‘Wait a minute. My son has something he needs to say to you.' Pushing me gently in front of her, my mother again instructed me to tell the man my name, demanding also that I add the phrase I wasn't a boy, but instead a young man.

‘My name is Aldean,' I timidly began as the white man turned slowly to look my way. Feeling [my mother]'s hands firmly placed on my shoulders, I gained confidence and strength as I continued. ‘And I'm not a boy, I'm a young man.' Stunned, the white man mumbled the words, ‘Well, whatever. Good-bye man.' He then got in his truck and drove away.

Immediately I realized that my mother's lesson had been offered for my learning – for the esteem, pride, and respect I'd need to succeed as a black person in a bigoted world—and not for some racist white truck driver. It is one of the greatest lessons I was ever taught. Thirteen years after her death…. I still feel her firm and loving hands on my now 48-year-old shoulders giving me confidence, strength and wise counsel in both personal and professional endeavors.” 6

I hope all of you have felt someone's hand like that on your shoulder at a time when you were being disrespected. Jesus demonstrated that healing is God's work – the Sabbath is God's day, so healing and helping is appropriate on the Sabbath.

We stand on the shoulders of many people – mothers, teachers, coaches, friends—who have helped us. We have people in our lives who act like Jesus to us – who heal and encourage. Thank God for the people who care enough to do that. It builds up God's children, and God's kingdom, and gives us a taste of that heavenly city.

1 A confusing law about whether or not to carry a man in a bed is in Shabbath 10:5.

2 Sample, Tex, “The Practices of Every day Resistance, The Other Side, July-August 2002, quoted in “On Our Minds,” Logos Productions Jan. 03, vol. 8 number 5, p. 2.

3 Shabbath 14.4, The Mishnah, Danby, 1933 , p. 113.

4 Shabbath 6.10, The Mishnah, Danby, 1933 , p. 106

5 “Relief groups push water projects,” Chrisiain Century, May 7, 2007, p. 14.

6 Miles, Rev. Al, “A Tribute to My Ma Dear,” Clergy Journal, May/June 1999, p. 16.