Minister: Marv Vose

John 5: 1-15

I need to do a little bible study today, so I'll read the 15 verses and thenwe'll go back and work verse by verse so you understand what's happeninghere.  Now let's go through it again.  "Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalemfor a feast of the Jews."  The Jews had three major feasts-Pentecost,Passover and Tabernacles.  As you read scripture, you see that Jesus was inregular attendance at these festivals.  "Now there is in Jerusalem near theSheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which issurrounded by five covered colonnades."  You can go to Jerusalem today andthe wall still surrounds the old city.  There are a number of entrances.And you can still go to this pool.  It doesn't look very pretty, but it isstill there.  Over the centuries the ground has built up around it to quitea height, but it is still there.  If you would like to go, I'm taking agroup to Israel this November and this is one of the sites we will see.  Socome along!  "Here a great number of disabled people used to lie-the blind,the lame, the paralyzed."  Now you can imagine the state of medical sciencein those days.  There was very little.  So there were lots of thingsconsidered incurable then that are relatively minor today.  Disabilitieswere far more common.  "One who was there had been an invalid forthirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he hadbeen in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to getwell?"  This is a kind of funny question, isn't it?  He has been disabledfor 38 years.  He is at a pool where lots of other disabled people aretrying to get better.  So you expect the answer to be something like, "Well,of course I want to get better.  Why else would I be here!"  But that's notthe response.  It is this.  "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one tohelp me into the pool when the water is stirred.  While I am trying to getin, someone else goes down ahead of me."  Here's what they believed.  Theybelieved that every once in a while an angel would come by and stir thewater and when the water stirred it would cure the first person to get intothe water.  Can't you imagine the mad scramble to get into the water?  Butthis man was so disabled he couldn't move fast and no one would help me.So you see what happens?  Jesus asks, "Do you want to get well?" and thecripple says, "No, I'd rather complain."  That's Marv's translation.  That'sreally what he is doing.  He's saying, "Hey, it's not my fault.  I'm acripple.  No one will help me so someone always gets there first!"    We do love to complain, don't we?  I'm not really sure why, but wedo love to complain.  When I'm honest with myself, I know I complain.  And Iwould guess that you do it on occasion too.  The truth of the matter is that most folks really like to complain a lot.  Idon't know who does crazy research like this, but research indicates thatthe typical person complains 15-30 times a day!  That's a lot, isn't it?  Ifyou multiply that out over a years time, that's almost 11000 times a year.Pretty significant, isn't it?  I know this will come as a surprise to many of you, but there are actuallysome people in churches who complain.  Yes, that's right!  I knew it wouldbe a surprise.  In fact, in some churches complaining is actually considereda major volunteer ministry.  Now that doesn't happen here at Sunrise, ofcourse, but some places that's true.  There is this whole cadre of peoplewho sit on the sideline and tell the pastor and others what they are doingwrong!  A major volunteer ministry.  We do love to complain.  In fact, I'll bet all of you have been exposed tosome people who complain.  Haven't you?  Maybe at work.  Maybe in yourfamily.  Isn't that right?  We do love to complain.      Now I need to be specific about what I mean by a complaint.  Acomplaint is where we relieve ourselves of responsibility and therefore wedo nothing.  We take no action.    In the scripture, the invalid was essentially saying, it's not myfault!  I don't have a single friend in this world who will put me in thewater and so I am still crippled!  Can anyone guess why he doesn't have afriend?  Maybe it is because nothing is his fault!      Let me try something a little closer to home.  Let's say you go outto a restaurant for a nice dinner and the food arrives, but it is cold.  Ifyou call the waiter over and ask for hot food, I don't consider thatcomplaining.  You are simply asking for what is expected!  But if you wereto eat the food and talk negatively about the restaurant for the rest of theevening, that is complaining.  You have a chance to take action and setthings right, but you choose not to.  Do you see the difference?        But what about those situations where you really can't do anything?That's a good question.  Let's say you are in a combat situation and youonly have MRE's to eat.  Do you all know what MRE's are?  They are "MealsReady to Eat."  They are pre-cooked, pre-packed foods and people love tocomplain about them!  Now you could go to the Gunny sergeant and say,"Gunny, I don't like these MRE's.  They really aren't up to my culinarystandards."  You could do that.  But my guess is that the Gunny is going touse some colorful language and tell you what to do with your request.  Sowhat do you do?  You change your attitude!  That's what you do.  You givethanks for nutrition in a very difficult situation.  You give thanks to Godthat you don't have to eat the old-fashioned combat rations, because thosethings really did need some work!     That's what May Angelou suggests.  She says, "If you don't likesomething change it.  If you can't change it change your attitude.  Don'tcomplain."  Sounds like pretty good advice, doesn't it?      I know talking about complaining seems like a kind of petty topic,doesn't it?  It hardly seems worthy of the season of Lent.  But let mesuggest that complaining is far more significant that we might think atfirst.  In fact, complaining is really huge!  Here's why.  When we complain,we turn ourselves into victims.  We are no longer responsible.  It issomeone else's responsibility.  And we are the victim.  It gets in the wayof our taking control of our lives and working to change them for thebetter.  It's not our fault!  It's someone else's.  We end up blaming otherpeople, so it starts to get in the way of our relationships with them.  Butmost importantly, we end up saying that God is powerless to change thesituation.  When we complain, we make a statement about our faith.  Or maybeI should say that we make a statement about our lack of faith.  When wecomplain we are saying that we don't believe God can do anything about thesituation and if that's the case, then our God is way too small!  You seehow big a deal it is?When you are a victim, you have no control of your life and God doesn't haveany control either.  The man at the pool had been an invalid for 38 years.We don't' know how long he had been coming to the pool, but my guess is thathe was a regular.  And my guess is that he had been a regular for a longtime.  A year?  Maybe 10 Years?  Maybe 38 years?  But he realized there wasno hope of getting into the pool first.  When do you suppose he firstrealize that?  After he had been there for a year?  Two years?  Ten years?How long had he been coming to the pool knowing that there was no hope ofgetting well?  And then you've got to wonder why he kept coming to the pool?Why bother?  Do you see the stupidity of his behavior?  It's because he is avictim!    You and I were never called to be victims.  We are called to bevictors!  Jesus said it very clearly in John 16: 33.  Jesus is speaking andhe says, "In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I haveovercome the world!"      But how do we do that?  How do we become victors instead of victims?How can we change something that has become a kind of habit?  How do wechange something that we don't even notice?  How can we change somethingthat has become so much a part of us?    The answer of course is that we have to develop a new habit.There's a church in Kansas City, Missouri that takes this seriously.  Theirgoal is to make a complaint free world!  And they are doing it by helpingfolks change their habits.  They are doing it with little purple braceletsthat say "A Complaint Free World."  The idea is that you are to put thepurple bracelet on your wrist and when you catch yourself complaining,gossiping or criticizing, you move the bracelet to the other wrist.  Soundssimple doesn't it?  Now if you catch someone else complaining, gossiping orcriticizing and they are wearing a purple bracelet, you can mention it tothem.  But if you do, you must first move your bracelet to the other arm.    Scientists suggest that it takes 21 days to form a new habit, sofolks try to be complaint free for 21 days!  That's the goal. They try toleave the bracelet on the same wrist for 21 days.  If they can do that, thenthey know they have been able to create a new habit.      Would you like to guess how many days it is until Easter?  Today isMarch 2 and Easter is March 23, so you can do the math.    The church is Kansas City started out giving away the braceletsfree, but it soon got out of hand.  They have now distributed 4, 954,938bracelets!  Almost five million!  Amazing, isn't it?  Does this attract you?I'd be glad to order you a bracelet, but it's going to cost you a dollar.Do you care that much about it?  Would you spend a dollar on one of these?It will take 2-3 weeks for them to get here.  Let me sweeten it a littlebit.  If you buy one, you could spend a little bit more and buy some as agift for other people.  How does that sound?      If we are to try this, I'm convinced it will make a huge differencein the way we live!  Caroline and I both went to Duke University and overthe years we've watched a few Duke Basketball games.  Coach K, the men'sbasketball coach, is a familiar topic around our house.  I don't know if youknow this, but he went to West Point.  And in one of his books, he talksabout a formative experience that happened there.      It happened during "Summer Orientation," which the cadets call BeastBarracks.  It is two months in which they are stripped of their individualidentity and prepared to become officers.      The first thing they learned during summer orientation is that thereare only three ways they can answer a question:  "Yes, sir," "No, sir," or"No excuse, sir."  That's it.      He and his roommate were walking across an open area.  When theywalk they are required to walk in a straight, erect manner.  Well, theroommate steps in a puddle of water and splashes up a little bit of mud onCoach K's shoes.  But they just kept walking until they hear the worst wordin the world for a plebe.      "Halt!"  It's two upperclassmen coming toward them and they aren'tcoming to just to visit.  The two upperclassmen look over the roommate anddeclare him okay, but not so for Coach K.  They tell him in no uncertainterms that his shoes are cruddy and he is cruddy and they want to know howhis shoes got cruddy!    Well, in real life most people would want to explain.  They wouldsay something like we were just walking and my knucklehead roommate steppedin a puddle and he got mud on my shoes.  It's not my fault!  (Did you hearthe complaining?)    But at West Point, that's not one of the three responses.  So hesays, "No excuse, sir."  And the upperclassmen agree.  There is no excuse.So they chew him out good, write him up and he gets demerits for having mudon his shoes.    When he gets back to the dorm, he is angry with his roommate.  "Lookwhat you did to me!"  He is screaming!  He's blaming his roommate.  But hesaid over the next couple of weeks his perspective changed.  Listen to whathe said.    "When my roommate stepped in that puddle and splashed mud on myshoes, I had a choice to make.  Do I continue or do I go back and change myshoes?"  What my roommate did was something I had no control over.  But thenext event was my decision to make.  They were my shoes and I wasresponsible for them...The truth is that I had no right to be mad at myroommate.  I should have been mad at myself.  And later, when I understoodthe reality of the situation, I was angry with myself.  That was a hugelesson for me."  (Leading With The Heart, p. 40-42)  And he has gone on toteach that lesson to his players as he lives it out himself.      Lent is a time of prayer and self-reflection.  Lots of people willgive something up as an act of penance.  How about this?  How about givingup complaining, gossiping and criticizing. We have 21 days to Easter.  Justenough time to start a whole new habit.