The Need to Be Carried

The Need to Be Carried

A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Randy K. Hammer – September 29, 2019

John 5:1-9 GNT

Text: “I don’t have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up.” John 5:7

How many of you have been to or heard of Red Boiling Springs in Macon County, Tennessee?  How many of you have been to Hot Springs, Arkansas?  How many of you have been to Saratoga Springs, New York?

The common denominator in all three of these sites is that all of them have springs that in days gone by were touted to have healing properties.  In the case of Red Boiling Springs, several mineral springs were advertised as having health benefits.  In some cases the water was ingested, and in other cases people bathed in the spring-fed pools.

People have been going to the soothing waters supplied by 47 thermal springs in Hot Springs, Arkansas, for centuries.  The first known peoples to claim the healing properties of the Hot Springs thermal pools were Native Americans.

In a similar way, the Mohawk and Iroquois Indian tribes drank from and bathed in the mineral springs of Saratoga, New York, and people have continued doing so ever since.

In all three of these locations, fancy hotels, restaurants, and other businesses sprang up around these bubbling springs that promised health and wholeness to people who hoped for a cure of whatever ailed them.

But such places all over America and the world at large have promised the same healing properties and benefits to those hoping for health and happiness.

Thus, the story we have read from the Gospel of John should not be so surprising, then.  It seems that located within the Temple complex of Jerusalem, there was a spring, or at least a pool fed by a spring, that periodically bubbled up.  Or as the biblical writer put it, when the water was “stirred up.”  With the primitive understanding of that day, some attributed the bubbling up of the water to an angel that would periodically come down and “stir up the water.”  Such was accompanied by the belief that the first one to make it into the water when the bubbling started might have the benefit of being healed of whatever ailed them.

Well, this story focuses on a man who had some type of paralysis or disability that prevented him from walking down into the pool.  Evidently he was either limited to crawling on his belly, or worse, he depended upon someone else to physically pick him up and carry him into the pool.  But before that could ever happen, someone else ran ahead of him, making it into the pool first.

So for 38 long years he had been lying by this pool day after day, hopeful that one day someone would take pity upon him, and carry him down at the stirring of the waters and he would be blessed with a miraculous healing from what ailed him.

Was there any sort of healing properties in the pool of Bethesda?  Is there any healing benefits to the mineral springs or thermal pools of Red Boiling Springs, Hot Springs, or Saratoga Springs?  I’ll let you be the judge of that.  Because that is not really the point of this sermon anyway.

The real point of this sermon has to do with the need of the invalid man to be carried; his dependence upon someone to carry him to the pool from his home each morning, and then carry him back home each evening.  The focus is on the need for someone to be there at the right moment to carry him down into the pool when the waters were stirred.

Yes, that is the point of the day: The human need to be carried when we are unable to carry ourselves.  Sooner or later we all will find ourselves in such a predicament – the point when we are paralyzed by life and have to give up our pride and sense of independence, as we depend upon someone else to carry us where we need to go.  Such can be true literally and physically, as well as figuratively.

Since coming to the United Church over 11 years ago, there have been times when our family has felt that you as individuals and collectively as a congregation have carried us, figuratively speaking.  The year 2010 was a very difficult year for us.  It actually began two days before Christmas 2009 when we learned that our granddaughter would be born as a special needs child.  When she arrived prematurely a few weeks later, she was in UT’s neonatal intensive care unit for 12 weeks.  That entire year would result in many trips to the ER for her, our daughter, grandson, and our son-in-law, even.  There was one week that year when we were in three different hospital emergency rooms for three different family members.  During that time, we were making three or four trips to Morristown every week, driving up after work, spending the night, then driving back to Oak Ridge early the next morning.  When I look back upon that year, I don’t know how we survived it.  Well, on second thought, I do know how we survived it – this congregation helped carry us, figuratively speaking.

Most recently our grandson has endured a serious medical emergency, spending about two weeks in Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital.  And concurrently, Mary Lou had major hip surgery and has to be assisted with literally everything she does for at least six to eight weeks.  But yet again, you have been there to carry us, both figuratively and in some cases almost literally.  So we can never thank the members of this congregation enough for all you have done for us and meant to us.

But in a wider world sense of the term, isn’t this what a church is to be about, and what we as individuals are to be about – helping carry those who cannot help or carry themselves?  There is so, so much human need in the world.  And there are so many different ways in which people need someone to carry them, and so many different ways we can help do the carrying. 

In the case of our family, you all have carried us through your constant prayers and positive thoughts, giving a few hours to sit with Mary Lou and help assist and “carry” her around the house, through the food your have prepared and provided, the cards you have written, and the gifts you have given, especially the wonderful, big gift you surprised us with last Sunday.

But any time we pray for those of the world in need, or give a financial gift to help meet their physical needs, or visit or sit with someone, or prepare food or donate food to our local food pantries, or do something else to help someone carry their burden, we are doing what we are meant to do.  As the Apostle Paul so eloquently put it in his letter to the Galatians, “Help carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will obey the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 GNT).

I love that responsive reading that we share periodically that reminds us how much we need one another.  Here are some of the words:

We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.

We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.

We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again.

We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.

All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.¹

Yes, times will come when all of us need help and need to be carried by others.  When such a time comes, we need to let them.  And then those of us who are strong are to be alert and responsive to the opportunities to help carry others, in whatever way that is needed and we can.

Ten-year-old Ryan Neighbors was born with spina bifida.  She has had dozens of surgeries over the years.  Paralyzed from the waist down, she lives in a wheelchair and has missed out on a lot of school activities.  When her class planned a trip to Ohio Falls, she wanted to go, but the terrain around the falls was too rough for her wheelchair.  Jim Freeman, another teacher in her school – not her teacher, but a teacher from another class – offered to carry Ryan on his back in a backpack-like harness.  For an hour in 90 degree heat, Freeman carried Ryan around the falls so she could enjoy them along with the rest of her class.

What if each of us found one other person that we help by helping to carry their burden, and thus, positively impact their life?

How sad for those like the man by the pool of Bethesda who have no one to carry them. 

But how blessed we are to be part of a loving community that knows the importance of carrying.  Amen.

¹George E. Odell, “We Need One Another,” Singing the Living Tradition.