May 22, 2022 – Sixth Sunday of Easter

Over the past week, I think that many of you may have learned of a new, or rarely used term: food desert. It’s used to describe “an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.” This doesn’t mean that food is scarce – it means that healthy, unprepared, fresh food is unavailable. Within six blocks in any direction of the Tops on Jefferson Avenue, one can find a corner store, which presumably sells chips, soda, and other sundries, in addition to cigarettes, vape juice, and alcohol. But fresh vegetables and meats that can be added for protein? Those are harder to come by.

How many of you live where it’s difficult to get fresh food on a daily basis if you need it? The neighborhood in which Tops is located isn’t a particularly wealthy one. A 2020 study published by the Pew Research Center offers some interesting data about economic inequality in the United States. In 1968, the families earning in the top 20 percent of households took in 43 percent of all the pretax income. The bottom 80 percent got 56 percent. By 2018, it was 52 percent for the top 20 percent, more than the other 80 percent combined. In a much more disturbing trend, the wealth gap between America’s richest and poorer families more than doubled from 1989 to 2016. In 1989, the richest 5% of families had 114 times as much wealth as families in the second poorest category. By 2016, the top 5% held 248 times as much wealth. 

OK, so that takes care of rich versus poor, but how about on a racial divide? The black-white income gap in the U.S. has persisted over time. The difference in household incomes between white and black Americans has grown from about $23,800 in 1970 to roughly $33,000 in 2018 (as measured in 2018 dollars). Median black household income was 61% of median white household income in 2018. In other words, a black household could expect to bring in income about three-fifths of that of a white household. I am well aware that these numbers don’t tell you what’s happening behind the scenes, including how higher paying jobs are tied to more schooling (which requires money), that those higher-paying jobs are located in predominantly white neighborhoods (requiring reliable transportation), and that they require more investment to get the job (an outlay before you get hired); even without that detail, these numbers are startling.

The effects of such upward movement of income and wealth are dire for many sections of the society. In their 2016 book, $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer discuss our current economic reality wherein more than 1.5 million American families live on **$2 a day.** Edin and Shaefer highlight how disadvantaged families are often forced to rely on extreme measures such as selling plasma to make their ends meet. Their work, as well as the Pew study, shows how our current economic system consistently benefits the rich and leaves millions in a perpetual state of increased poverty.  Let me restate that: Many families live on $2 a day per person. Most of us have spent that before we even get to work or school in the morning, between our $5 a gallon gas, our $2.50 coffee, or our stop at the fast food restaurant to get breakfast (or even breakfast at home).

In our Gospel story today, we hear of Jesus encountering many sick people who were lying by the pool in hopes of getting healed. The pool had a reputation for healing the sick. According to tradition, an angel occasionally stirred the waters and the first to enter the pool after would be healed. The pool was deep, and those wishing to be healed needed knowledge of its layout and some help to enter it. Jesus encountered a man who had spent thirty-eight years there in the hopes that someone would assist him into the pool.

On the face of it, Jesus’ question, “Do you want to get well?” seems unnecessary. Jesus’ question should be seen in the context of a paradox in the story. The story presents an image of numerous disabled people possibly getting healed. At the same time, the most vulnerable and helpless are denied healing because they lack access to the pool. The pool is inaccessible to those who need it the most.

Despite having waited for many years with no results, the “invalid” did not seem to have doubted that the pool would work for him. He must have heard many stories about the pool’s healing powers and he believed that he simply had to wait patiently. The presence of the great number of disabled people suggests that society at large understood the myth that everyone could benefit from the pool. So I think Jesus’ question actually becomes whether the man thought he could really get well in this societal system.

Rather than helping the man into the water to be healed, Jesus asks him to get up, pick up his mat, and walk. His action has the symbolic significance of bypassing and challenging the systems that seem to grant equal opportunity to everyone but don’t truly ensure equal access. Without the equal access, the opportunity seems meaningless, especially when coupled with the obstacles that prevent some from becoming whole. Why design the pool so deep that only a few have the means to use it?

The Gospel story today exposes how systems – social and economic – in Jesus’ time, as well as ours – that claim to assist the needy often keep them in perpetual poverty. Even as income and wealth disparities increased rapidly in the last 30 years and the structures that accentuate such inequality have been strengthened, there has been a perpetuation of myths that potentially weaken attempts to address those problematic structures. One myth is that if one works hard and long, they can make it and that economic mobility is an option for everyone. The myth of the American dream continues to ensure that millions of underprivileged, marginalized Americans invest significant time and energy without question, even though it rarely serves their interests.

This myth ignores the fact that Black people were enslaved for 247 years, which was followed by 12 years of reconstruction during which time laws known as “Black Codes” were designed to restrict the activity of freed Black people. This time period overlapped with and was subsequently followed by the Jim Crow Era, which lasted until 1965. At that point, Black people had been enslaved and oppressed for 347 years. Today, they’re being told to “catch up” to their white counterparts, many (if not all) of whom have had the benefit of upward mobility and privileged status for the past (almost) 350 years. This timeline doesn’t even take into consideration the systems and structures such as redlining that have been in place in this country since then that still impact the Black community in 2022.

Personally, I think there is not enough embarrassment, on the part of the wealthy and the powerful, about the fact that many people who work hard can rarely make ends meet. Perhaps we – both without access and those with – have gotten so used to our current economic realities that we’ve lost the capacity to envision alternative ways. 

Today, Jesus empowers the man to move past his unquestioning faith in the system. The story suggests to us that if one wants to become whole, a healthy dose of doubt about the system might be in order. In picking up his mat and walking away from the pool, the man critiques the system that promised to heal but never truly healed society. And yet, the man continues to participate in the larger community; in the next verses of the Gospel we hear what happens as he participates in rituals at the temple.

Today, our Gospel highlights – through both the man’s actions and those of Jesus – inherent structural problems in the societal system. And from there, I think we get some critical questions of our faith:

• What does it mean to turn one’s back on oppressive economic structures WITHOUT completely excusing oneself from the larger community?
• What might it look like for each of us to challenge unhelpful myths about our economic system?
• And finally, and I think most importantly, how can we, as a faith community, help build a society that can make people whole? How do we Christians work WITH those who are ensnared by our economic systems without just doing work that is FOR them?