Healing on the sabbath: do you want to be made well?

Today's reading is John 5:1-18

Yesterday afternoon I made several pastoral calls on elderly parishioners. Soon I'll be on vacation and I wanted to connect with these folk. I love all of them, and I will genuinely miss them, and I would by lying if I didn't also admit that doing so was part of my pre-vacation to do list. It was a fantastic day!

One woman, in her 90s lives in a retirement home. She gets to church regularly, thankfully because her spirit is as contagious and life-giving as any I've ever known. Her beam lights up a whole room. She loves sermons...has a whole collection of them from former rectors, from me, as well as from other churches. She just reads them, over and over. In her words she reads them "for some new way to hear or to see."

I told her about my posting to this blog. She seemed both perplexed (why would I do this?) and relieved for not having a computer so that she didn't feel obligated to read these posts, in addition to her sermon regimen. Still, I told her about the daily office readings, and how I try to link my writing here to the day's gospel lesson.

Without missing a beat she said, "what's the reading for tomorrow?" So I pulled out my iPhone, found the reading, and read it to her. When I looked up she was her beaming-self, but even brighter than usual, like a little kid at an amusement park. "What's so funny?" I asked. "Oh, it's not funny, it's the best coincidence ever is all. That question, 'do you want to be made well?' was the question my friend posed to me the day I got sober. The answer back then was 'yes' and I've had a whole new life every since."

When Jesus asked the man "do you want to be made well?" he was doing that on the sabbath, a Saturday. Today is Saturday, and I wonder how you might answer the same question: "do you want to be made well?"

Let us pray.

In your boundless compassion, O God, lead us to pools of healing water, and to paths where we will walk with integrity, and even into your constant embrace. By the might of your Spirit heal us and make us well, through Jesus Christ, our friend and Savior. Amen.