Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I’ve long been struck, beloved in the Lord, of the similarity between two gospel scenes: the one in John (the one we had this morning) and another in the synoptics, where Jesus speaks to a paralytic, somebody who has a paralysis. Both of those scenes share something which I don’t really find in other stories of Jesus healing, his miracles, or anything like that—and that’s a reference to sin. In the synoptic story, the paralyzed man is dropped through the ceiling—we’ve thought about that together many times—and he’s paralyzed, but before Jesus says anything else to him, he says, “Your sins are forgiven you.” And in this morning’s story about the paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus’ last words to him are: “Go and sin no more.” I don’t see him ever saying that to a blind man or a leper; he says it in two cases to somebody who’s paralyzed.

That’s always been a puzzle to me. What is there about their paralysis that he relates it to sin? To me it suggests some sense of sin, and why? I don’t know! Let me make a “for instance,” a suggestion. Perhaps paralysis is something more than physical. Paralysis has a special kind of spiritual meaning. Now, we know that blindness does; that is a spiritual meaning. You can see that all through the imagery of John 9, about the man born blind. We’ll be having that two weeks from now. Is it two weeks from now, the man born blind? Okay, there the blindness certainly has a spiritual quality, because he’s arguing with the Pharisees and accusing them of being blind. And he heals this blind man who repents. We know that deafness has a spiritual quality, because if you’re deaf you can’t hear the word of God. But what about paralysis?

You know, there’s more than one kind of paralysis. There’s a spiritual paralysis, a paralysis that I especially think of in connection with intellectual laziness. It appears to me that it’s the worst kind of laziness, but it’s the most common: intellectual laziness, the inability, the refusal, to engage the activities of thought. I’m afraid the Orthodox Church almost encourages this, because we sing, “God is beyond all thought,” so people stop thinking. I mean, it just happens. It’s not intentional, but we tend to convey a certain kind of spiritual laziness. I don’t know how many times I’ve told newcomers when they want to pray they want to go to the highest mystical forms of prayer immediately; I say, “Start by memorizing the psalms!” You work; you use your mind. You’re not going to slip into mystical prayer immediately. Give it 40 or 50 years—maybe. If you’re a monk maybe 40 or 50 years; if you’re in the world, it’ll take longer. But you engage your minds; you engage the word of God.

What was the sin of these two men? Because Jesus says they’re sinners; he says so. Let me suggest to you this—I can’t say this by word of God; I say this by Pat Reardon’s educated guess—or at least guess—feeling sorry for themselves. This morning Jesus says to this paralytic, “Do you want to be healed? Do you want to be healed?” Well, of course he doesn’t want to be healed! He’s on the public dole. He doesn’t want to be healed: he’s going to lose his food stamps. He doesn’t want to be healed. “Do you want to be healed?” And what’s his answer? “Well, I just can’t get down to that water fast enough. There’s nobody to take me. Nobody to carry me down. Here I am. I’ve been lying here for 38 years. I can’t even take part in a protest march. I’ve been lying here for 38 years. And it’s not my fault! Nobody’s carrying me down there.” Now that is spiritual laziness. That is a lack of imaginations. And that introduces the first of three points.

The first point is this: life as the pursuit of life. Life as the pursuit of life. When I was a boy, many years ago, one of my heroes, probably from about the third grade on, was Theodore Roosevelt. I identified with Theodore Roosevelt because I had asthma and he had asthma. He had asthma so bad that the doctors were predicting he would never live to adulthood. His father thought otherwise, and his father built a gymnasium for him in their home. Well, we just had a little tiny home; there was no way to put a gymnasium in there, and we couldn’t afford a gymnasium anyway. But I adopted for myself—it wasn’t particularly spiritual, but I had asthma, and here was somebody else who had asthma, and he made something of himself by engaging in what he called the robust life. So the robust life became an ideal, the energetic life. You work at it and you don’t blame other people; you just work at it.

Now why did the early Christians, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, why did they gather at the porch of Solomon? I suggested this to you in Sunday school, maybe last year or the year before. That was their favorite place to gather, was the porch of Solomon. It appears to me that there was something terribly Solomonic about this attitude. By that I mean the robust life is exactly how I would describe the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is all about working very hard, self-discipline, and never blaming anybody else. You see, in a society that follows the book of Proverbs, the poor will always be taken care of, but there will never be a welfare state. That’s discouraged. We’ll take care of the poor, but we will recognize and honor work and the importance of work. And that work is not just making money; that’s also working on the soul, working on spirit, working on character.

The book of Proverbs sees life as a challenge and a pursuit. You notice that the Orthodox Church requires the book of Proverbs to be read every year. I won’t ask for a show of hands of all those who have read it this past Lent. That’s when it’s prescribed. The Orthodox Church prescribes that the book of Proverbs be read every year. Now, for whom was the book of Proverbs written? For young people. Notice how it gets: “Listen, my child. Listen, my child.” It’s always that. “Listen, my child.” The book of Proverbs is a book of instruction for the young. And what’s the first step toward attaining wisdom in the book of Proverbs? Get wisdom! [Laughter] How do I get wisdom? Get wisdom! I’ve often suggested—or sometimes suggested—that that should be translated as: You want to get wisdom? Wise up! I love that. “Wise” becomes a verb! You ever see that in the locker room? Use your head; wise up!

I say this to every parent in this building, every parent within my voice, from coast to coast over Ancient Faith Radio: Make sure you read the book of Proverbs to your children every year! Every year, pace yourself and go through the book of Proverbs. Make sure that the spirit of the book of Proverbs lies deep inside your children’s souls. Especially for yourselves, read the book of Proverbs in times of discouragement and despondency.

And I think—I suspect; I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that one or two of you here may sometimes have to deal with disappointment, despondency, and discouragement. Don’t feel sorry for yourself! Read the book of Proverbs. Get busy on changing the shape of your soul, the internal shape of your soul. The Greeks have a special word for this—here’s your Greek word for the day.

The Greeks have a special word for the internal shape; it’s called kharaktir. Hear the Greek word? That’s kharaktir; that’s internal shape. It’s the shape, for example, of the inside of a coin, which has an image on it. The coin’s still shaped the same way, but the inside is changed. Kharaktir describes a field that has been plowed; it has an internal shape. Kharaktir. The quest of character is one of the most important things we could teach the young and develop for ourselves. So especially read the book of Proverbs and assume an attitude of robust life, with emphasis on work and discipline.

This morning I want to share with you three actual paralytics who took the book of Proverbs to heart, three real paralytics, historical paralytics. All of three of them have German names. I can’t think of any place that’s taken the book of Proverbs more seriously than the people of Germany and German-speaking people. I guess that’s preeminently true of Switzerland. All three have German names, but two of them are Jews. The first one—I’ve spoken to you about this man on more than one occasion over the last 19 years: Hermann von Reichenau, who died in that fateful year of the Great Schism, 1054: Hermann von Reichenau. In Latin he’s known as Hermanus [Contractus]: Herman the Hunchback. He was paralyzed. He was born paralyzed. The doctors probably thought he wouldn’t live, but he did live. He lived to be 41 years old; he died in the year 1054.

When he was a little boy, the parents took him to a monastery, the monastery of Reichenau, to live there. He never walked in his whole life. He had some use of three fingers of his right hand. Those three fingers—the three fingers you write with, the three fingers with which you hold your spoon, or the three fingers you hold your crayon… They took him to the monastery when he was a boy. He died at the age of 41.

He became one of the most brilliant men of the 11th century, a century of brilliant men. He was a linguist. He was fluent in several languages, not just Old German (Teutonic), but Latin, Greek, and—get this—Arabic! He learned Arabic; he taught himself Arabic—in Germany, in the 11th century! He taught himself Arabic, and he wrote the first Arabic grammar in Europe. He wrote it in Latin. It’s from that Latin Arabic grammar that the works of Aristotle were translated from Arabic into Latin in Spain, using the grammar of Hermann of Reichenau.

He was an astronomer and a mathematician, constantly investigating the stars and plotting their paths. He invented the astrolabe. The astrolabe was used for navigation on sea for centuries. He invented it, a man who never saw the sea! How to read the stars and find out where you are on the earth: he knew how to do that. He was a historian. He wrote the history of the German nation—at least, up to the 11th century. A man of immense, immense effort.

Now, this is a man who could have felt sorry for himself and wasn’t going to live very long, but he made sure that that was a fruitful life. Toward the end of his life, he went blind, and he couldn’t do astronomy any more. He couldn’t even do Arabic any more, because none of the other monks could read Arabic to him. So what did he do? He started composing hymns. He wrote hundreds of hymns and poems. His most famous hymn is a hymn to our Lady, which goes:

Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae,
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy,
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

He wrote that hymn. There’s one of them. There’s a paralyzed man; you would never know he’s paralyzed.

The second, probably not a saint—Hermann von Reichenau certainly was a saint—the second one perhaps not a saint, a little closer to our time: Heinrich Heine. Heinrich Heine died in 1856 at the age of 59. He’s one of the greatest of the German poets. He’s up there with Goethe and Rilke among German poets. Most of his life, two-thirds of his life, he couldn’t live in Germany. Had the wrong politics. He spent much of his life living in Paris, which I must say is not a bad deal. [Laughter] Living in Paris: I don’t feel sorry for him at this point.

He wrote poems, essays, literary criticism. He’s one of the first masters of what came to be called literary journalism, that is to say, journalism worth reading, but you don’t just report the news. It’s a journalistic essay which has character and quality to it, the sort of thing you would find in, say, G.K. Chesterton: literary journalism.

The last decade of his life, he suffered from spinal paralysis, and this is when he did his best work. He became the very embodiment of the book of Proverbs. He wrote poetry: published three volumes of poetry in the last decade of his life. He not only suffered paralysis: he went blind. His poetry provided the text of some of the great Lieder in German, especially Schubert. He never felt sorry for himself. I’m presuming he learned the book of Proverbs when he was being raised in the synagogue. He was eventually baptized in the Lutheran Church, but that’s beside the point.

Let me give you a third one. This one’s still alive, and I suspect some of you have heard this one: Charles Krauthammer. Charles Krauthammer still lives. If you have not read his book, Things That Matter, make sure you do so before you come to your next confession. [Laughter] That is one of the most important books written in the last decade: Things That Matter. It describes how he became paralyzed from a swimming accident, and he said: I had a choice. He describes that in there. Paralyzed, completely paralyzed except for some use of his right hand; completely paralyzed.

He finished med school, became a psychiatrist, then a journalist, and he writes a regular column even today. I’ve never read the regular column; it’s not… I just haven’t read it. I think the only thing I’ve ever read of Charles Krauthammer is Things That Matter, and that, beloved, is an important book. All three of these men suffered paralysis, but all of them lived robust life.

Let’s take point two. I promise these next two points will be shorter. Point two: the relationship of life to hope. The relationship of life to hope. I want to begin by reading you some golden lines by one of my favorite authors, a man by the name of John Lukacs. John Lukacs is a Hungarian-American historian. I recommend him, too, but we’ll talk about him another time. Here’s a quotation from John Lukacs.

Life amounts to the wish for more life, and when that wish flickers out and dies, we die. Every human action and thought is more than a reaction.

Ponder that, please. If an action or thought is really human, it’s more than a reaction. Cats react; dogs react. Human beings are capable of more than reaction. Every human action and thought is more than a reaction, because we are not merely pushed by the past but pulled by the future. A dog, a cat, a canary is not pulled by the future, because a dog, a cat, and a canary are not made in God’s image and likeness, and we are. We have this thing—I described this to you a couple of weeks ago, didn’t I?—about the deepest memory within us is the image of God. But memory is eschatological. Memory is pointed toward the future.

During today’s Liturgy, you’re going to hear what you hear every Sunday during the Liturgy. Pay close attention to it. I’m going to recite it for you right now if I can, from memory.

Calling to remembrance those things which have come to pass for us—the cross, the grave, the third-day resurrection, the seating at the right hand, and the second and glorious coming…

“Those things which have come to pass for us… the second and glorious coming.” That’s already—those things are in the zikaron; they’re in the memory already, because memory points to the future.

The image of God, beloved, is more than an indelible mark. It is the down payment on an inheritance. Human memory contains a promise. Because we are formed in God’s image and likeness, our future is infinitely larger than our past. The maintenance of this hope, the hope that’s part of the image of God—the maintenance of this hope is a major burden of our moral responsibility. We are responsible for the hope that is in us—please hear that. We are responsible for the hope that is in us, that hope of which Clement of Alexandria said that nothing can destroy the hope that is in us; only we can do that.

Hope is and must be the object of our stewardship. Hope is God’s gift. We guard it as we do our lives. Hold onto hope. Nourish hope. Do any of those things that encourage hope, foster hope, and nourish hope.

And third, let us consider the power of God’s word, especially as we find it in the mouth of Christ. This morning’s paralytic hasn’t been able to walk, can’t get up, and Jesus says to him, “Rise—take up your pallet—and walk.” Notice here that the word of Christ comes as command. Everything Christ gives is gift, but it’s more. “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk. You have not walked in 38 years. Basta! That’s enough! Get up and walk!” And his word gives us the power to do that. That’s why it’s very important constantly to be meeting Christ in his word. He gives us the power to get up and do what we cannot do of ourselves. “Walk, and sin no more,” he tells this paralytic.

Now comes your Latin word for the day. I love this Latin word. I gave it to you in a weekday sermon a couple of weeks ago. The Latin word is m-u-n-u-s: munus. Munus, genitive muneris. Munus, muneris, muneri: munus. The word “municipal” comes from that. Munus means gift, but it means more than that. It’s gift as responsibility. It’s quite different from the donum. A donum in Latin is a donation, a donum, that kind of gift. It’s a birthday present, a donum. Munus conveys gift in the sense: this is something you must take care of. For a child, I’ll tell you, a munus would be if they’d give you a dog or a gerbil; give you something you have to take care of. You follow? That’s a munus.

Child: I have a fish.

Fr. Pat: A fish! [Laughter] See, a fish is a munus; a fish tank is a donum, but you can’t do much with a fish tank without fish. Munus is a gift that implies responsibility: I’m giving it to you, and you’re responsible for it. Now, most of the gifts that God gives to us are munera, for the plural: munera. They’re gifts for which we’re responsible, and we must guard them.

Primary among these is hope. The gift of God ultimately can be described as, with Hebrew, chaim. Chaim means life. Life. You see, beloved, human beings are not called to vegetation. He came that we might have life, he tells us. He came that we might have life, chaim, and have it more abundantly.

Christ is risen!

Congregation: Indeed he is risen!

Fr. Pat: Christ is risen!

Congregation: Indeed he is risen!

Fr. Pat: Christ is risen!

Congregation: Indeed he is risen!