Where I grew up there was a neighborhood swimming pool, it was packed all summer. Sometimes at night we would get a large group of 20 to 30 kids together and play this game called Rock the Deep End.
The goal was to fill the deep end of the pool with giant waves that splashed over the side. It started with all of us jumping in at one time and then willy nilly we climbed out of the pool as fast as we could and then jumped in again and again, over and over.
It was pure chaos and great fun. Sometimes there were so many people jumping in that it was hard to get back to the surface of the water. Sometimes we were held under the water by the sheer mass of bodies jumping and kicking.
It could be scary and dangerous. There was always some little kid who would get choked up and would be pulled from the pool choking and crying. Eventually the life guards and the parents outlawed the crazy game.
We troubled the waters.
We hear from John’s Gospel today about the waters being stirred up.
Hundreds of people, crippled and chronically ill gathered around a pool of water, hoping for a last chance miracle to be made well, whole, healed.
The legend: when the water was stirred up by a breeze, stirred up by the Angel of the Lord, whoever jumped in first would be healed. Driven by desperate need, people gathered there waiting their chance, for days and days, months and months, years and years. Imagine: a gentle breeze stirring the still water, and then a stampede of the sick and crippled jumping into the pool all at once, rocking the deep end, trampling, and chocking and kicking.
“Who was in first? Who was it? Was any one healed this time?”, as they slowly pulled themselves out the water.
After awhile hoping for miracles becomes a way of life. A race. The daily grind of trying to get ahead of everyone else. Killing and wounding each other as they try to be cured, to make the pain stop.
Jesus speaks to one of the people waiting for their chance, a chronically ill man, for 38 years, since before Jesus was born. Jesus heals him, bidding him to, “stand up, take your mat and walk”. It is on the Sabbath day.
The story continues with the controversy of how to honor the Sabbath, whether healing should be done, whether a man can carry his sleeping mat. The waters are stirred up.
And then Jesus rocks the deep the end.
He says the Sabbath doesn’t apply to him, because when God rested on the Sabbath from the work of creating, God still did the work of sustaining creation. Jesus can then do the work of sustaining creation, of healing, because Jesus and the Father are one.
In John’s Gospel this is where Jesus begins to get in trouble, not so much for challenging the correct way to honor the Sabbath, but for claiming equality with God.
He didn’t just stir the waters, he troubled the waters. He rocked the deep end.
The political economy, the religious economy, the financial economy, the healthcare economy all depended on limited access for some. Stringing people out hoping for a miracle kept the economic and religious engine turning. It had to be controlled. Jesus could not be controlled, he healed whoever and whenever. So the plotting to defame and kill him began.
What about all the others in that pool who needed healing?
What about all those want to honor God’s Sabbath and being God’s people?
Our questions become only part of the scenery, the background, but what is upfront, stage center, is who Jesus is.
Jesus is one with the Father, who does the work of sustaining creation, who is above and beyond the Sabbath, and he is rejected by those who are threatened by him.
Everything else revolves around this: that Jesus is the fullness of God’s presence available to all and that he is violently rejected by those who wanted to control a limited access to God.
He upsets pretty much everyone, and then tells them to believe in him or to miss out on the healing waters, the life saving gift of God.
He leaves us with more questions than answers.
What does it mean to believe in Jesus? Is it saying certain things, or thinking certain things, or doing certain things? What is belief and how do I give my belief to Jesus?
How do we honor the God given and God commanded gift of Sabbath rest?
How do we honor the distinctiveness of being a people who belong to God?
And how do we do the on gong work of sustaining and healing a broken creation?
Our country, and especially this State and this city are submerged in this question of access to the miracle of healing. The way we have been doing things is drowning us, degrading our economy, and our politics and choking our humanity.
I don’t think scripture provides us with a political or economic solution to our problems other than to always question our motivations and our institutions when unnecessary or willful suffering is tolerated or justified.
Our problems and questions are part of the scenery to the Gospel lesson, the background.
A Gospel lesson with masses of people trying to get to the healing waters and Jesus appears, healing one, rocking the deep end of who has access and then says to believe in him.
Jesus.
He troubles our waters.
He rocks the deep end.
Then he tells us to believe, believe in such a way that brings healing, that sustains and restores creation. Believe like life and eternity depend on it.