"Aspens" by Ansel Adams
Shalom
Mennonite Church
Sunday,
May 5, 2013
Don't
Forgive Too Soon – Part 4: Depression
Texts:
Psalm 23 and John 5:1-9
Eric
Massanari
"through
the valley of the shadow"
This
passage in John bears some of the markings
of
a more typical gospel healing story:
Jesus
heals someone,
it
happens on the Sabbath,
it upsets some of the religious leaders,
it inspires faith for some
and
rouses animosity for others.
However,
there's strangeness here, too:
the
ailing man at the pool never asks to be healed,
he doesn't recognize Jesus as teacher or healer—least of all a Messiah,
and Jesus
is the initiator from start to finish.
Do
you want to be made well?
This is
how Jesus greets the man
lying on his mat next to the healing waters
of the Pool of Bethsaida in Jerusalem.
I
wonder what this question sounds like
to
someone who has been ailing for thirty-eight years?
Do
you want to be made well?
What
do you mean, 'Do I want to be made well?!'
I'm
here by the pool, aren't I?
I'm
lying here paralyzed, aren't I?
I've
been like this for thirty-eight years!
And
let me tell you, this world isn't
a
nice place for the likes of me.
I
wait here for the Spirit to stir the water of the pool
so
I can get in and maybe be healed,
but
I never make it in time.
And
you'd better believe that no one pauses to help me!
Does
he want to be made well?
What
do you hear in his response?
Notice how the
man answers Jesus with blame,
blaming
his condition and his situation on others.
I
imagine his tone being one of bitterness and resentment.
After
thirty-eight years he has
grown
angry, fearful and hopeless.
Perhaps
he can no longer imagine himself
as
being anything but broken and sick.
Perhaps
he can't afford to hope for anything more than this.
Perhaps
he realizes that his bitterness
and
anger have only deepened his hurt,
but
he doesn't know how to let them go any more.
He
is paralyzed.
To borrow more contemporary language,
he
is depressed.
I
want to offer this man by the pool of Bethsaida
as
an image for a particular kind of
depression
that many of us know from time to time.
Depression
takes many different forms,
and
depression is widely experienced
by
people of all ages in our North American society.
More
than 1 in 10 U.S. citizens are
currently
taking a prescribed antidepressant.
That
figure includes some who may be
taking
those medications for some reasons
other
than depression, but it does not
include
many, many more who suffer
recurring
bouts of debilitating depression.
This
morning, when I speak of depression,
I
am not intending to speak of the deep
and
persistent depression that is sometimes
called
“clinical depression” because of its more acute nature.
Such debilitating depression can arise
for many different reasons and sometimes
it lays hold of life for no apparent reason at all.
It can be life-threatening, and it often requires
immediate medical and therapeutic intervention
before one can afford to step back and reflect
on its possible root causes.
This
morning, I want to speak more about
the
sort of depression that will inevitably arise
in
our lives at one time or another
simply
because we are human,
and
we live in relationships with other humans,
and
we care about those relationships.
When
we experience hurt in our relationships
we
experience pain and suffering.
Often
it isn't a simple matter of one
person
in the relationship being to blame;
much
of the time the pain cuts both ways.
Sometimes
we take the pain and hurt
we
suffer in relationships and turn it inward.
Our
wound, our pain, our anger
gets
turned around and directed
at
our own selves, and sometimes
we
begin to blame ourselves for our hurt.
We
harbor our pain as guilt and shame.
As we peer within we may not be
terribly pleased
with what we find there.
Sometimes, upon inner reflection
we realize that we bear some amount of
responsibility
for our own hurt,
and
we may see how we have
taken
out our pain on others,
or
welcomed them into our own suffering.
This week I was reading descriptions of varieties of depression
in
a very large and weighty book that sits
on my office shelf:
The
Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling.
I
came across a particular description of
depression
that felt uncomfortably familiar
to
me for the way depression takes shape in my own life:
In
many people there is a strong connection between anger and
depression. While depressed, they seldom show direct hostility or
others...[However] one can notice passive aggression in sulking,
forgetting, and self-isolation, for instance, insofar as these
behaviors seem calculated to make sure other persons are affected by
their suffering. Because of fear, the depressed person may not be
able to express his or her anger toward the source of frustration but
instead turns it toward the self, engaging in minor or serious
self-destructive acts. These persons may not be convinced that anger
is a normal part of life, including religious life.
from The Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, p.1105
"These
persons may not be convinced
that
anger is a normal part of life, including religious life.”
Such
depression can be particularly evident
among
good religious people,
especially
when the religion in question
emphasizes
guilt and shame,
and
amplifies those feelings that
we
can never quite become the people
we
would like to be,
the
people we think we should be.
This
should sound familiar to some of us at least,
because
Christianity, in many of its expressions,
has
emphasized guilt and shame,
and
a sense of fundamental unworthiness.
Alongside
great proclamations of God's goodness,
we
have made fundamental assumptions of human unworthiness.
This
fuels guilt, and fuels our anger
that
has been turned inward,
and
sometimes our anger at the world.
Sometimes
what passes for “good religion”
has
often become very bad medicine for the soul.
The
man at the pool of Bethsaida
is
a good religious man.
He
is there in Jerusalem,
at
the pool near the temple,
holding
the belief that it is
the
very Spirit of God who stirs
the
waters of the pool and imparts
a
healing energy to the water.
He
is a “believer” you might say.
He
believes in a healing God.
However, it appears that he also believes,
after
38 years, that he will no longer
come
to know that healing.
He
can no longer say that he wants to be made well.
Perhaps
he assumes that
he
doesn't even deserve it.
He
assumes the world is a mean place,
full
of uncaring people.
He
believes he is his illness;
he
is his bitterness, his anger.
He
believes people are the jerks they seem to be,
day
after day after interminable day.
He
is paralyzed by his beliefs.
Do
you want to be made well?
Jesus'
question suggests that
the
desire for wellness is important.
It
is a sign of a living hope within us.
Our
deep longing for wholeness
for
well-being, for transformation,
is
an expression of the image of God
we
bear in our very being.
Our
desire for healing in the midst
of
the wounds of human relationship
is
an impulse of God's own Spirit—
a
stirring of the waters of our soul.
Our
anger-turned-inward,
our
depression that comes alongside our hurt,
does
have something to teach us.
It
can reveal how we may have
taken
part in and bear some responsibility for
the
pain that has been inflicted.
It
may reveal to us the truth that
we,
too, are capable of hurting others
and
drawing them into our unresolved
pain
and suffering.
It
can direct our attention to our
own
separation from love—our sin.
But,
here's the important qualifier:
not
sin as a fundamental state of being,
but
sin as something we have capacity for,
and
can also heal from.
Carl
Menninger, the renowned 20th century
psychologist
once described “sinner” this way:
A
sinner is one who can accept responsibility
for
unloving actions, and who can work toward change,
with
the belief and faith that change is possible
for
the simple fact that our sin does not define us.
It
is the living God who gives
the
most basic definition to our being.
We
are never unworthy or undeserving of God's love.
In fact, it is sometimes at the heart of our brokenness,in that gap of realization when we come to terms
with our own capacity to inflict and amplify
pain and suffering in this world,
where we are better able to recognize
the steadfast flow of Love, and Life, and Mercy.
At
the end of the gospel story,
Jesus
heals this man by the pool,
even
though the man has reached
a
depth of pain where he can no
longer
articulate his desire for wellness.
Jesus sees this man for who he truly is.
He loves this man.
He heals this man.
“Rise,
pick up your mat, and walk,”
Jesus
tells him.
And
he does.
He
walks away carrying the mat
that
has been his home
for
38 years.
Notice that he
still carries it.
He
still carries this sign of what
he
has been asked to let go of,
and
let die so that he might live
and
be made well.
And,
funny thing, as the story goes on,
the man runs into some of the good religious leaders
there
in the great holy city of Jerusalem,
and
they see him carrying his mat,
and
they say to him, “Hey, what are you doing?
You're
not supposed to carry your mat on the Sabbath!”
What
are you doing? Get back on your mat!
We
are left to wonder, as the man disappears,
will
he keep walking?
Will
he stay up off his mat?
Will
he want to be made well?
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