Opening Prayer: Dear God, We have come to hear the word you have for us. We confess that sometimes we are so busy, and life is so noisy, and we are so distracted, that we long for this silence, these moments sitting here together on Sunday morning. So, come into this silence. Make it your own. Speak to us in it. And give us the capacity, the faith, to hear what you are saying to us-about who you are and who we are and who you want us to be. Amen. "If I Only Had..." Fred Kane Hillsboro United Methodist Church May 16, 2004 Text: John 5:1-9 He laid there by that pool for 38 years. Not once in over 13,000 days did he ever roll off the deck and into the water. The story of the pool at Bethesda is that when the artesian spring bubbled up periodically that those bubbling waters could heal you. So if you wanted a healing you went to the pool and waited for the artesian spring to bubble up and then you got into the water and you might be healed. For over 13,000 days and nights the man laid there by the pool because, "If I only had someone to help me into the pool." You can approach this story from many different angles. It can become an indictment of any society where there is no one to help a man into a pool that could restore his health. "I have no one to help me into the pool." You can hear loneliness in that claim if you listen for it, "I have no one." You know what it means when you "have no one." You know what it means to be lonely and to feel that there is no one to lean on. But, that's not what I hear in the story today. What I hear is the story of someone who expects someone else to take care of him and solve his problem and if that someone isn't there then it's just not his fault. He's a victim. He's a victim of a society where people like him aren't taken care of. He's a victim of a society where there is no one to roll the helpless and hopeless into the healing waters. He's a victim of a society where there is no guaranteed health care. He thinks that something has to change in order to solve his problem and bring him wholeness and happiness. His story is found all over this country. But, as soon as we locate the cause of our unhappiness and incompleteness in others then we limit the joy and power of the life we are leading right now. In believing that something or someone has to change in order for me to be happy, in order for me to know inner peace, in order for me to live a whole and more complete life - then I limit the joy and power of the life I am living right now. Often we either live in the past investing all of our energy into explaining why we are the way we are saying, "If I only had someone to roll me into the pool!" We look back and blame something or someone for causing us to be where we are today. Or we invest our energy in the future, "If I only had someone to roll me into the pool!" We put it another way, "If I only had more money. If I only had an education. a different partner. a better relationship. better health." We expect that what we want will simply happen to us one day, by some sort of wizardry. We all tend to say something like this: "I am not now the person that I wish that I was. You remember the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Lion in the movie The Wizard of Oz, I am sure. You may say that my brain is a thing stuffed full of the straw of other people's ideas. My heart is less than a person's heart should be, all shut off and hardened like tin. When it comes to courage, why there are times when I don't even have the courage to face myself. I am not the person I would like to be, but someday I will become that person; when things straighten out, when all the pressures on me let up a little, when I grow up, when I graduate, when I get a better job. But the hard truth is that this day will never come. It never will come. Some things may straighten out, but they will be replaced by other perhaps even more crooked things. Some pressures will let up a little, but others will build up. A brain, a real brain, belongs to us when we know that we are as much a fool as a Scarecrow yet we manage somehow to do all that a Scarecrow can do. A heart belongs to the one who is willing to let it be broken because when we keep it all shut up and safe then it withers and loses its strength and we die a spiritual death. That day will never come because we do not understand that courage belongs to the one who while cold with fear, still acts courageously. Courage doesn't require the absence of fear, but living with fear means not allowing it to dominate our lives. I want to share three clues for breaking free from the "If I Only Had" way of life. First, "If I only had a brain." At times we say we don't know what to do. We simply have no idea of what to do. We face some situation and there is no clarity. It all seems murky to us. So we refrain from making any decision. We lack the information that we believe we need to make a wise decision. We say, "I need data." I want to suggest that you practice asking yourself, "If I did know, what would I do?" If I did know more than I know right now, what seems to me now to be the best choice? Because I believe that often we do know enough. We do know what we need to know. But, we want to be sure before we act. We want a guarantee and we think that knowing more will provide that guarantee. But, we will never know enough to really know the outcome. So, I want you to practice asking yourself, "If I did know, what would I do?" When you do that, you become more open to God's wisdom. God's wisdom is already teaching you, already leading you, and already guiding you. Trust that you do know enough already to make your decision. Philosopher of science Michael Polanyi once wrote that, "We know more than we can say." I am convinced that we all know more than we realize and certainly more than we can verbalize. Second, If I only had a heart. There are times when we are frozen in judgment or in pain and we lose our ability to give and receive love. Our heart becomes cold and hardened and it loses the ability to freely give and receive the very nourishment that feeds our soul. Receiving or giving love taxes our hardened heart until we have a spiritual heart attack. What hardens our arteries and causes this kind of heart dis-ease is resentment. Resentment accumulates in us like the plaque that clogs our arteries and leads to a by-pass or a stent or something else to unclog them. When our heart is hardened the energy with which we live our lives becomes negative energy. It doesn't carry the life-giving love that helps us to thrive. We see everything or everyone around us through a negative lens. Soon we become bitter, angry, and hostile. Others see that in us and choose to avoid us or they don't listen to us or take us seriously any longer and that adds to our resentment. Unable to give love, we become unable to receive love. So, see the good in others and praise them and self-love follows. I want you to identify one resentment in your life this week and pray about it and ask God to help you move through it and offer forgiveness to whoever you hold that resentment for. Third, If I only had courage. Courage happens not when we are unafraid but when we are afraid and act for good anyway. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you," said Jesus. "I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid." Do not let your hearts be afraid, says Jesus. The first letter of John says, "Perfect love casts out fear." That is my theological motto. Inner peace comes when we no longer live in fear. I've told you before about the man who wanted to be the best father ever. He was loving and available, caring and courageous. His older children idolized him, but his four-year-old daughter was one of those inquisitive children whose outrageous questions recognized no taboo and thereby punctured preconceptions and any pretension. One day she asked her father, "Daddy, are you afraid of wild animals?" "No," said her father with macho confidence. "Well are you afraid of wooly worms or any creepy, crawly thing?" "No, of course not," her father replied with a self-assured smile. The girl persisted, questioning him about thunder, the dark, ghosts, monsters, robbers, all of which he answered with a categorical "No!" She finally paused and thoughtfully added: "Gee, Daddy, you aren't afraid of anything but Mama, are you?" We are all afraid of something. Maybe you cross bridges before you get to them, you borrow imagined problems and expect the worst to happen. To be alive is to be afraid, because to be alive is to be in danger. Life is full of hazards. Life is full of risks. To be alive is to be vulnerable to life's contingencies. Just when we think we're safest, they happen. Some fears are necessary and productive. In Moby Dick, Starbuck the first mate, says, "I will have no man on my boat who is not afraid of a whale." To be brave is to be scared. I hope that when we drive cars we have a certain fear. I hope that we are terrified by the horrible abuses of Iraqi prisoners in American military prisons because they remind us that we are all capable of the most hateful and evil acts. I hope that teachers and parents, counselors and pastors and anyone who works with people, tremble with the responsibility of the care of human lives. Some things in life should scare us because certain fears and worries serve useful purposes. The bravest person sitting here this morning in these pews also needs to wear a seatbelt. But some people become so desperately afraid and worried that life turns into a nightmare. Fear and anxiety can become dangerous. Robert Frost knew that and observed that, "The people I am most scared of are people who are scared." That is because fear and worry can render us irrational, can lead to erratic thinking, distort reality, can inhibit and frustrate us and leave us deficient and totally paralyzed. Charles Spurgeon once said, "Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow - only today of its strength." Jesus wants to teach us, "Do not be anxious about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself." Jesus teaches us, "Do not be afraid," which in the Greek of the Gospels translates as, "do not be ruled or tyrannized or immobilized by fear." Inner peace comes when we are not afraid of life because we come to know that there is nothing in life that can destroy who we are as sons and daughters of God who are loved with a perfect love that never ends. All of our fears pale in comparison to the love with which God loves us and the love we may have with which we love one another. Nothing compares. Nothing can overcome that love. Not even death. So this week I want you to not only consider a resentment in your life and offer forgiveness where it is needed for your own sake, but I want for you to identify something that you fear that is holding you back, keeping you from being the person you want to become. Identify that fear. Just identify it. Give it a name. And share that fear with one other person. That's all. I'm not asking you do to anything more with it other than simply identifying it and sharing it with another person. You know, throughout the Gospels Jesus teaches us to, "Be the worth that you are!" Believe the best about yourself and behold the miracle of it coming true. Rejoice at your God-given place in the sun. No one is excluded - not one. You are not excluded from that! Within you there is divine possibility, no matter how you disbelieve it, despair of it or distort it. While you may make mistakes, you are not a mistake; while you may fail, you are not a failure; while you may lose, you are not a loser; while you create our own problems and get tangled up in the contradictions of life, you are never a problem; while you may have weaknesses and be different from most others, you are not weak and defective; while you may have a handicapping condition, you are never a handicap; while you may choose wrongly and turn from your best and even from God, a sinner is never all you are. You are always much, much more because you are a child of God. The angels sang the day you were born because you too, are a child of God. There is a marvelous song called "I Hope You Dance" that Jeremy and Lerie are going to sing for us in a moment. The lyrics are printed in the bulletin. When they do, I want you to listen and hear: I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance, Never settle for the path of least resistance Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin', Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin', Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter, When you come close to sellin' out reconsider, Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance, And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. I hope you dance....I hope you dance. I hope you dance....I hope you dance. That is my prayer for you: when you get the choice in your life to sit it out or to dance, I hope you dance. Let us pray: O Divine Presence, I do not enter into the deeper realm all by myself. Always you are there with me as a Guide to protect and direct me. As a Loving Companion to embrace and support me, as a Wise One to provide both challenge and solace. O Divine Presence, as I go deeper to discover my roots, wrap me in your love. Strengthen me as I face fear and insecurity. Surprise me with hidden treasures waiting within me. O Divine Presence, when I feel shaky and uncertain from seeking and searching, assure me often that I am always rooted in your love. Remind me often that your love never leaves me, even when I lose the road to my inner home. O Divine Presence, You desire my wholeness. You would never lead me anywhere that would destroy me. Here is my life. I place it in your care as I commit myself to going deeper. Deep is where it is dark where there is mystery, where the way is not known, where it is easy to become fearful and even turn back. But deep within your heart God, is where I want to be. In You there is always strength to go on. In You truth always becomes known. In You your love holds me close and I need not be afraid. In You my hidden self, deep down in the womb of Yourself: is safe, nourished, guarded, and enlivened. Take me there, God to meet you and to know you. That is where I want to go today, in this moment so that as I am presented with the chance, I will not sit out, but I will dance.