A few years back, Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston starred in a movie called Along Came Polly.  The plot finds Stiller’s character as an insurance actuary who makes a living analyzing risk for insurance purposes.  After getting burned in his personal life, he becomes obsessed with calculating all of his decisions with their level of risk, not wanting to do anything that is not a sure thing.  He lives strictly by the rules of percentages, likelihood, and safety.

 

How many of us find ourselves in those shoes?  We’ve been burned one too many times.  We’ve trusted too far.  We’ve had our hearts broken. So we risk nothing.  We chart out the course of lowest risk and set out to live that course.  No matter how hard we try, a risk-free life is simply not a possibility.  Author and contemporary philosopher of science, Larry Laudan, penned the work “The Book of Risks”.  It is full of calculations that make it very clear how risky our lives truly are.  Just getting up this morning was a risk.  Did you know that every other day an American dies falling out of bed?  For my Christian brothers among us this morning, you need to know that you have a one in 7,000 chance that in the course of a year, you will suffer from a “shaving injury” serious enough to require medical attention.  That’s why I haven’t been shaving as much of late.  Or how about this: one in 6,500 Americans is injured by their toilets every year.[1]  Before you even left the house this morning, you took a tremendous amount of risk.  And that doesn’t include the car ride here.  I imagine we have some ladies among us this morning that practice the two handed mascara application method while driving.  Others have found driving the best time to read the morning paper, talk on their cell phones, and eat breakfast all at the same time. It is amazing we all got here today.

 

Risk is a part of life and something we all deal with … some more than others.  We want to do the right thing; however, make the best possible choices and so we must find a way to measure up the value of risk.  Our text for today from John’s gospel shows that taking a risk by not doing the right thing can actually still please God.  We see Jesus making his way back to Jerusalem for one of the religious festivals.  It was his duty as a Jewish man and Jesus seems to enjoy a good party as much as the next guy.  On his way, he comes by a pool said to have healing qualities, lined with many “invalids” waiting for the waters to stir so that they might jump in and be healed.

 

The belief of the people was that every so often, an angel would disturb the water and the first person to bail into the water after the disturbance would be healed of their infirmity.  This was great news if you were suffering from indigestion or a hangnail as you would be able bodied enough to be the quickest into the water.  However, when Jesus walks onto the scene and surveys the crowd waiting for the water to bubble, he spots a paralyzed man who would obviously have no chance of beating Mr. Hangnail into the pool. Being that he was Jesus, this piqued his curiosity so he begins a conversation with this man.

 

“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asks the man.  The Bible says the man responds with a family friendly PG rating, “Sir, I have no one to help me into the water so someone always gets in before me.”  I imagine his response to Jesus’ sarcastic-like question could have been met with a few choice words followed by, “Does it look like I’m here for the suntan and poolside drinks? Of course I want to be made well.”  It does seem like a wrong question to ask a man who has been ill for thirty-eight years but is it that off a question?  I imagine he might ask the same question of us if he were standing in front of us right now.  “Do you want to be made well?”  Sometimes we don’t.  Sometimes we are afraid that getting rid of the baggage we carry with us today or the sin that has a grip on us will only mean that we’ll have to live differently… more nobly or something.  This man being “well” would mean that he would have the burden of finding work, earning a wage and sometimes we don’t want to do the work that is necessary to be “well”.  More is expected of someone who is “well”.  But this man wants to be healed.

 

Jesus has options at this point.  He could walk on.  He could wait for the water to bubble and then push the man in.  He could lecture this man on the useless superstition of waiting for the water to be moved. Or, he could do what he did… he says, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

 

At once the man was well and could walk again.  This is where the trouble begins.  It was the Sabbath and it was unlawful to do any work on the Sabbath.  In the Jewish faith, 39 things were classified as “doing work” and bearing a burden was one of them which this man was certainly doing by carrying his mat.  The strictest enforcers of this code even considered carrying a sewing pin in your pocket as “bearing a burden”.  Jesus knows it’s the Sabbath… he knows it’s against the rules… he knows that he’s going to catch flack for it, but he is willing to take the risk.

 

The business gurus among us are used to risk taking.  You have likely heard of “The Law of Two.”  It has been noted that if you want to start a business, or just survive in business for that matter, you need to remember the “Law of Two.”  The Law of Two says that “it will take you twice as much time as you think to ultimately succeed; it will take twice as much energy and twice as much as money than you’re willing to invest. You’ll risk twice as much as you think you should.  You’ll sacrifice twice as much as you planned; you’ll fail twice as much as you succeed; and your success will be twice as sweet as you dreamed it would be.”[2]

The Law of Two.  It goes beyond the business world.  It is true about life and faith is it not?  When you are a parent who works too much, you must try twice as hard to make those baseball games and dance recitals.  When you have a controlling demeanor, you have to try twice as hard to let things go that are out of your control.  If you’re retired, you’ve got to try twice as hard to stay retired. And when it comes to your faith, sometimes you’ve got to believe twice as much as you think you’re able.  You have to trust God twice as much as you are comfortable doing and expect to accomplish twice as much as you could with your own abilities.  And sometimes, you have to take twice the risk … to break the rules to bring about God’s will for the world.

 

Jesus takes a risk on love … on compassion.  He heals a man who did nothing for it.  So many of the stories we read in the Bible show Jesus healing someone who has tremendous faith, courage, or has done something to meet Jesus in the middle.  But this is not a “your faith has made you well” story.  This man didn’t know Jesus… he actually reports him to the Jewish leaders so that Jesus can be the one in trouble for breaking the Sabbath.  When the leaders begin persecuting Jesus for this he answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”  This story is about Jesus revealing a God who continues to act for human good, even on the Sabbath.  Sometimes God changes the rules.  There is no wrong day to relieve human misery.  And when Jesus acts favorably toward one in whom no reasons can be found for the favor, we call it radical grace.[3]

Sometimes the Law of Two causes us to break from the norm… to break from the rules and regulations our society and even the church has put in place in the name of “maintaining order.”  These rules can unfortunately step in the way of compassion, mercy, and even the call to love every person.  Religion may say, “exclude this one and that one” for one reason or another, but Jesus says, give them twice the welcome.  What could the church be, what could your life look like, if we practiced the Law of Two?  It may not be natural for us and that is why I challenge you to try incorporating it into your life.

 

Find someone who is half as whole as you are and fill their soul twice as much with encouragement.  Find someone who has experienced twice the hardships you have of late and give them twice as much support.  Find someone who has worked twice as hard as you to know half the earthly success you know and give them twice as much energy and resource as the one who helped you find the way.  Find the lonely and offer them twice the time you think you can afford.  Forgive twice as much.  Compliment twice as much.  Appreciate your spouse twice as much.  Be twice the friend you want to have.  Pray twice as much you did yesterday.

 

The world might think you’ve lost it.  They might tell you that you’re breaking all the rules of what is normal and what is needed to ensure you get to the top yourself.  When you take the risk even to the point of fearing that you might not do the right thing, the acceptable norm, but do it in the name of the One who shattered the norm with radical grace; the return on your investment will be exponential.

 

Mary Ann Bird tells of a story from her childhood in a work entitled, “The Whisper Test”.

Annually we had a hearing test…. Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn.  I knew from past years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have to repeat it back—things like “The sky is blue.” or “Do you have new shoes?”  I waited there for those words that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life.  Mrs. Leonard said, in her whisper, “I wish you were my little girl.[4]

It’s the Law of Two.  It’s the power of taking a risk on love, going beyond the expectations of the world so that your life can count for twice as much.  Without risk, you cannot know love.  Ben Stiller’s character, Reuben, in Along Came Polly would discover this very thing.  Though the calculations don’t add up… though it might not seem like the right thing to do, when it comes to love, it is worth the risk.  By giving himself over to the risk, he would know love in a way he would never have otherwise.  Love is the risk of the cross … without it, we would not know true sacrificial love.  When you are reading the rules you live by or the regulations our society puts before you … measure it against love … against a radical grace that says human need for healing, acceptance, and purpose should always come first.  Take a chance.  Choose love… choose radical grace … and you just might find how not to do the right thing and still please God.

 

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