First Parish Unitarian UniversalistTroubled Waters
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton
September 26, 2004
There’s a typo in the sermon title in the order of worship. It’s supposed to say “Troubled Waters.” The title could as well be “the only way out is through.” It’s about facing trouble by wading right into it.
“Wade in the water, wade in the water, children, wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water.” It’s an African American spiritual that was sung at baptisms, but it also was a “map song.” That is, it gave coded directions to safety or to stops on the underground railroad for runaway slaves. It’s said that Harriet Tubman sang this song to warm escapees to wade in the water thereby washing off their scent, to throw off dogs and slave trackers.
Map songs worked because the instructions were disguised in biblical quotes and imagery or lines of religious piety. This one comes from the gospel of John in the Christian scriptures, as we heard a few moments ago.
I used to hear a threat in this song. “If you don’t wade in the water, if you don’t walk a righteous path, if you don’t get involved in righting the world’s wrongs, God’s gonna trouble the waters!”
But, if we listen to the gospel reading, we learn that troubled waters were healing waters. It was not the pool’s still water that brought healing at Bethesda. The healing came when the water was stirred up, when it was troubled.
Hear it again.
“Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed—waiting for the stirring of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had.” (John 5:2-4).
As in the reading a few moments ago, whether an angel was responsible for stirring up the water, or not, is not crucial to the story. An explanatory note in my New Revised Standard Version Bible, the one with the new translations and gender neutral language, the one that many people say lost all the poetry of the 1610 King James version, simply states, “Movement caused by an intermittent spring was attributed to divine action.”
Kind of takes all the fun out of it, doesn’t it? We post-modern folk, perhaps we Unitarian Universalists especially—we who laud reason over superstition when it comes to matters of faith— are so serious!
But, this is not my topic for now. My topic is troubled waters, and whether we can be healed by them today.
Certainly, the waters are stirred up here at First Parish right now, stirred up by change. Over the summer, our former DRE of three years left, as planned, for the next phase in her preparation to become a minister. And someone new, Patsy Hatch Reinterson arrived to fill the vacancy, starting what is for her a dream career as a Director of Religious Education in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. We’re fortunate to be the congregation to benefit from her warm enthusiasm and resourcefulness. Change stirs the waters.
This fall, we also welcomed a ministerial intern, Megan Lynes, for whom First Parish is a field education site, an important part of her training for UU ministry as a student at Andover-Newton Theological Seminary in Newton. She sought us out, on an intuitive leap of faith, and we decided to leap with her, into being a “teaching congregation” for the first time in nearly twenty years. We’re fortunate to be the congregation to benefit from her careful insight and energy, I am sure. Change stirs the waters.
In a few weeks, on October 17 th, we will welcome a third new staff person, our new, and first professional in at least 28 years, Music Director, Jim Chubet. We’re fortunate to be the congregation to benefit from the his training and gifts as a musician. He will play the piano and organ for services, accompany instrumental and vocal soloists, and direct at least an adult choir and maybe a children’s choir. New voices, trained and untrained, will be welcome at Jim’s first rehearsal at 9:00 a.m. three weeks from today and every Sunday thereafter. Change stirs the waters.
These changes here at First Parish are all welcome ones. We chose these changes. Wade into them, we must. Getting into them, into the thick of the change, we will forge new directions together. We trust that out of the turmoil caused by change will emerge new vitality.
But, sometimes the waters of life are stirred by trouble, not by choice.
A year ago today, my good friend Susan was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The waters of my life were all of a sudden more than stirred, they were troubled.
I remember that I was sitting at the kitchen table at lunchtime one Saturday soon after, with the sun streaming in on the same autumn hued tablecloth that’s on the table today, when I realized how very scared I was. I knew she could die, I felt she would die, and I felt anguished remorse for allowing the possibility to enter my mind. To be freed of my fear, I did the only thing I could do, which was wade right into it, which was to care for her day by day, be with her, love her and, with other friends, try to insure she got the best medical care possible.
This past summer, I was reminded of that day-by-day wading into my fear, while backpacking on the Pacific coast. At certain places where the land jutted out into the sea as a cliff-like tumble of rocks, making passage around impossible on foot even at low tide, the trail went inland. But first it went up. In a few places, it went nearly straight up. So, in those places, a wire cable and log rung ladder was provided.
At the first such place, as I looked up from the bottom, scared. Weighed down with my backpack, I feared I would not make it to the top. If my backpack swayed out behind me, wouldn’t its weight pulling me out and down if I lost my grip on a rung or my foot slipped? Me being over fifty—one of the elders on the beach, could I do it? But we were only an hour, maybe, into a three day hike. I really really wanted to get further down the beach where there would be fewer people. I couldn’t stop there!
Obviously, I came home with no broken bones, so I suppose it sounds trite to say this, but I forced myself to pull myself up one rung. And that’s how I discovered that if I took it just that way, rung by rung, not looking down or up, and hugging the incline as closely as I could, I made slow steady progress and was freed of my fear just by doing what I had to do.
These troubled waters, are they healing waters?
One day, when my daughter was in sixth grade, new to the school and new to the town, she overheard a hurtful thing said about her. She was very troubled by it, but that evening, she told us nothing about it. The following morning, however, she refused to get out of bed. Absolutely refused, totally unlike her; she rarely had strong reactions to anything, happy or sad. I was completely surprised. I finally cajoled the reason out of her, which wasn’t easy, because, as she said, “If I tell you, you’ll want to do something about it.”
Well, duh! Yes, you’re right, I will want to do something about it… Was she going to stay in bed the rest of her life?! Yes, in her pre-adolescent angst, that was indeed her plan! “I can’t go back there, Mom.”
I remember telling her that when problems come up in life, as they do for everyone, the only way out is through. I convinced her to at least get dressed and have breakfast. She soon came into the kitchen, fully dressed, but to my total astonishment, she then bolted out the back door and out into the conservation land near our house.
While she was out there, I called the school and told them my daughter had run away from home, and why. They said to bring her in when I could. When we got there, a teacher who she liked sat down with us, heard her out, understood her pain and that the other girl had been unkind, and vowed to help with the situation. The teacher suggested that this be our private “take your daughter to work day,” and she’d look forward to seeing Alexa in school the next day. So, we got through that troubled water.
These troubled waters, are they healing waters?
The waters of our public lives are troubled right now. Troubled by terrorism. Troubled by war in Iraq we started that’s not over yet. Troubled by the nuclear threat. Troubled by a presidential election campaign that is more ugly than it is instructive, troubled by violence in Boston with more people dead this year than in recent years….the troubles are real. Is the principle the same, that by wading in, we’ll be healed?
I believe it to be so. I experience it to be so. That the troubles are less fearful when I get involved. When I wade in. For example, both presidential campaigns are working hard in NH because in 2000 the election there was won by very few votes. Both are calling for volunteers from MA to come up and help identify undecided voters for follow-up persuading and supporters for later get out the vote efforts. My feelings of discouragement, disgust, and frustration this campaign season were somewhat healed by doing some door knocking and phone calling up there yesterday.
Can we be sure that by wading in, we’ll be cured? Unlike at Bethesda, in real life just wading into troubled waters guarantees no cure.
My volunteer efforts won’t win the election. My daughter did not become so-called “popular” like the girl who had been mean to her. My friend Susan died, three months after her diagnosis, of complications caused by the brutal treatment she bravely pursued.
To be healed is not necessarily to be cured. I cannot speak for my friend, but I know that for me, wading into the experience of being her friend in her illness healed the worst effects of the fear I had of her death. Had I not waded in, had I withdrawn or flailed about in the troubled water flinging my anxiety all over her and everyone else, fear would have prevailed.
To be healed of our fears is to have faith that, as the song goes, God’s gonna trouble the waters, and that if we wade in, those waters will be healing waters. One day at a time, we will do what we must do. And then, and then, our fear will be replaced by a deeper hope, a deeper wisdom, one that will indeed get us through.
Amen.