Jack McKinney
Pullen Memorial Baptist Church
October 21, 2007 – Children’s Sabbath
Text: John 5:1-9
Everyone Deserves a Dip in the Pool
Are any of you afraid of going to the doctor and getting a shot? I am. Even now as an adult I still flinch so much when nurses give me a shot that they usually laugh. Just a couple of weeks ago a nurse chuckled when she was about to insert the needle in my arm and said, “Now, how can a big man like you be afraid of this little needle.” To which I wanted to reply, “Because I’m smart enough to know this is going to hurt and I don’t like getting hurt.” But I decided to flinch in silence.
There are stories that still get told in my family about the lengths I would go to as a child to avoid getting a shot. When I was a small boy my grandfather had TB and a nurse came to our house one day to give the whole family vaccinations. I really didn’t know what this lady was doing in my house, but as soon as I saw her bring out the shots I ran out the back door, jumped over the fence, and escaped out into a pasture that was across the street from my house. After a little while the whole neighborhood was out watching the spectacle as my mother tried, unsuccessfully, to coax me out of the field. Of course I had to get the shot later, but I took some pride in avoiding the “horror” on that day.
When I was a little older I started having to take allergy shots every month. The shots would arrive in the mail in a package and then we would go up to the doctor’s office so the nurse could give me the shots. So, every day I would come home from school and rush to check the mail. If there were no shots I could relax and enjoy my afternoon, but if the package of shots was sitting there I would start to sweat. On one occasion the sight of the package sent me into such a panic that I ran outside, jumped on my bike, and started the slowest get away chase in history. It’s hard to outrun your mother’s station wagon when you are on a five-speed bicycle.
Having confessed to my anxiety about shots, I can tell you there was one situation in my childhood when I was very happy to get a shot. I suffered from childhood asthma which made it difficult for me to breathe. There were several occasions when I had an asthma attack that was so severe I feared I would not be able to get any air into my lungs. And, when I got that sick, I would be taken to the doctor or hospital and they would give me a big shot of adrenaline. But you know what? Even though the shot really hurt, I was always relieved to get it. Because within a few moments the tightness in my chest would relax and I could breathe again. In those desperate moments I was always happy there were doctors and nurses who had medicine that would help me, even if it had to hurt a little to get it.
In the story Libby has told us this morning from John 5 we find a man who was also desperate for help. We don’t know what was wrong with him, but we are told he had been sick for 38 years. That’s a very long time to be sick. His desperation is seen in that he, along with many other sick people, spent every day next to a pool that was said to have healing powers. The legend was that an angel would come and stir the waters of the pool and the first person who got into the water after the angel stirred it would be healed. When Jesus happens upon this man and asks him if he wants to be made well, the man explains that he does but when the water is stirred he doesn’t have anyone to help him get into water. So, someone always beat him into the pool and was healed before him.
You may be like me and not really know what to do with these kinds of stories in the Bible. It is easy to dismiss legends like this one as superstitious nonsense. We might even chuckle at the image of all these people racing each other to jump into the pool first so they would get the healing power the angel created. But even if we can’t make sense of this legend, there are a couple of things in this story I think we can relate to easily.
First, it isn’t hard to understand this man’s desperation in wanting to be made well. After 38 years of being sick I imagine he didn’t care what others thought of him for seeking healing through a means that seemed silly and superstitious to others. After all, wouldn’t you do the same if you or a loved one were in dire straits? Many of us know people who have left the country for treatment of an incurable disease, or turned to methods that western medicine would consider unscientific, out of a frantic desire to be made whole. I tell you, I have no judgment on that. Risking humiliation by jumping into some water is a small price to pay for your health.
The other part of this story that we should understand, even if it doesn’t hit us right away, is that this man was caught in a random lottery of healing. The legend said only the first person in the water after the angel was cured. So, if the legend is true, one person got what they needed while the rest did not. The randomness of this process probably feels unfair if we think about it, but it should also feel familiar. After all, the American health care system has just about as much randomness in it as the first-one-in-the-pool system.
Today we are recognizing Children’s Sabbath at Pullen. Each year Children’s Sabbath is an opportunity for faith communities to lift up the needs of children in our society. This year the focus is on the millions of children in this country who do not have health care coverage. To bring this theme closer to home we should note that North Carolina ranks 43rd in the nation in terms of the number of children who are insured. In other words, only 7 states are doing a worse job than we are at providing health care for kids. I’ve got to tell you, I’m sick and tired of our state ranking in the forties among the states on health issues. Last year North Carolina ranked dead last in terms of assistance for people to buy HIV/AIDS medication. After the General Assembly got a little embarrassed by that statistic they allocated more funds for the AIDS drug program, so at least we are not last in that category now. Even so, the consistency with which our state’s leaders have ignored the plight of uninsured children is staggering.
All of this was brought into the light over the last couple of weeks when the Congress voted to add 35 billion dollars to the federal program that provides health insurance for kids who do not qualify otherwise. The President vetoed the bill and the veto was sustained late this week. Now, I want to be gracious here and acknowledge that many of the issues we argue about in our country are morally complicated. Conservatives and liberals can both be self-righteous about their favorite issues that seem so cut and dried to them, when in reality many of those issues are deserving of much thought and conversation. But is health insurance for children really a morally complicated issue? Is it even a politically complicated issue? Is it not absurd that the war on terror runs on an unlimited bank account that now is into the hundreds of billions of dollars, but this President decides we cannot afford to insure kids in this country? Not all the kids mind you, just some of them. Is that really where we are in this country? There is no limit to how much we will spend on bombs, but we won’t give health insurance to kids who desperately need it? And before my Republican friends think I’m being partisan on this one, let me say that one of North Carolina’s favorite Democrats, Bobby Etheridge, initially voted against the bill because he didn’t want to upset the tobacco industry. What kind of Orwellian nightmare have we stepped into when we are more concerned about the tobacco industry than we are about health insurance for kids? This is not a Republican or Democratic issue, this is not a liberal or conservative issue, this is a simple, moral issue. There are kids in this country who can’t breathe because of asthma attacks and their families have to decide if they can afford to take them to the doctor for a shot that will bring their children relief. We can do better than that, my friends. We have to do better than that if we are going to be the nation we like to think we are. It’s time to come up with a better health care system than one that basically says first one in the pool gets the medicine.
The story about the man who had been sick for 38 years ends in a way that I like, even if I don’t understand it. Jesus tells the man to pick up his mat and walk, and in that instant the man is healed. Even though I have no frame of reference to put that kind of healing story, what I do understand is that Jesus was concerned for a sick man who was caught in a system that had prevented him from getting the help he needed. Jesus, in his own mysterious way, bypassed that flawed system and made the man whole. It’s time for the followers of Jesus in this country to rise up and say the system we have for giving health care to kids is terribly flawed and must be changed. It’s really that simple. Because even though going to the doctor isn’t always fun, and shots really do hurt, when you are sick nothing feels better than to know you have access to people and medicine that can make you better. After all, doesn’t everyone deserve a dip in the pool?