First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

John 5 and Revelations 21 and 22

“Whero is the Batho Roomo?”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

June 25, 2006

            In the canyons behind our house in San Diego there were trails through the chapperel.  During the day these were used by people walking their dogs and riding horses.  The trails were part of the draw of the development: live in the suburbs and yet ride your horse through miles of groomed, back country trails.  Horses were common in my neighborhood and the trails were well used.  But it’s hard to say if the trails were used more during the day or during the night. 

            During the night the horse trails connected to the fire roads that crisscrossed the foothills of Mt. San Miguel.  As the sun went down a steady flow of migrant farmers would begin.  Traveling in threes and fours, they became so common that it didn’t feel strange greeting them.  Buenos noches amigos.  The farmers would wave and smile quietly. 

            In the fields with lakes or ponds it was not uncommon to see make-shift shelters where they would sleep during the day.  They would travel at night when they could blend in better.  During the day their pilgrimage was easily detected.  Anyone could see they didn’t blend.  The migrant farmers, often with a wife and child in tow, looked like they had slept outside and were not dressed as if they lived in an upscale suburb.  In certain places of San Diego they would have look less conspicuous, but not in my neighborhood.

            As a young boy I can remember hearing my grandparents refer to the migrant farmers as wetbacks.  For the longest time I expected to see at least one migrant farmer who was dripping wet.  Yet, wetback refers to those who crossed the Rio Grande into Texas.  To enter Texas the migrant farmers would wade across the Rio Grande and thus could be easily spotted as the only people in the crowd in wet clothes- hence wetbacks.  And while there are a couple of creek beds it is necessary to cross to enter California, there are no rivers. 

            When our mission team goes to Tijuana next week they won’t see any wetbacks and it won’t be because they are not in Texas. They won’t see any wetbacks because all the people in Tijuana are the ones that didn’t make it. 

            This is the best way I know to describe Tijuana: it is a city of two million people that didn’t make it; recast in biblical terms these are the one who didn’t make it to the promise land, the ones who didn’t cross over the Jordan to the other side.  For this reason there is ever a deep sense of lingering disappointment in Tijuana. 

Tijuana is on the border of San Diego.  As our team drives toward Mexico the hillside, border city of twisting neighborhoods riddled with shanties and new condominiums will be visible from the US side.  And then in a blink of an eye you will enter a whole other world.  The strangest part of this is that you can look back and see the US; from many places in Tijuana you can see America.  It’s right there.  I have come to believe part of the edginess of Tijuana is that you can see hope but you cannot have it; it’s just out of reach.

            Although I can describe a hundred sights and smells of Tijuana from the taxis to the tacos, I just can’t think of a better image of the city and its people than the man by the pool at Bethesda.  Here is a lame man who has been living in despair for thirty-eight years, living amongst the rabble of the broken- the blind, the sick, the paralyzed, living in the nooks and crannies, living year after year watching the water stir and some one get in ahead of him.  That’s Tijuana.

            You live at the water’s edge as it were watching other people enter ahead of you year after year.  I’ve built houses for people who have been waiting for the dream to come true for an entire generation.  One house we built was for the grandchildren of people who had come to enter the promise land, America, only to be caught at the edge for thirty years. 

            In a surprising way, building for these folks was a real joy.  They had come from southern Mexico and slowly but surely found a life amongst the porticoes, found a life like the lame man had.  They had lived in a hovel for thirty years at the water’s edge watching people get in ahead of them. 

            Building for a family who had just arrived from Guatemala one year was just the opposite; it was terrible.  They weren’t mean or ungrateful, they were lost.  This was a heartbreaking thing to see, to see someone’s dream be so close just a moment ago and yet in a twinkling of an eye become a million miles away.  Everyday I would watch this family and it was as if they were not convinced it was true.  It was as if they must still be asleep and this was all a terrible dream.

            I have certainly seen a greater depth of poverty in Africa than our team will see in Mexico.  Folks on the “Dark Continent” truly have nothing while the people in Tijuana for whom we build houses may have a television or a toilet that works or a car even.  Yet, the need we meet in Tijuana is not defined by what possessions they own, or even by their physical inabilities.  The need our team is going to meet is that three families can see the dream that didn’t come true and this creates a culture of desperation.  For this reason our house building is an imperative.  The weight of disappointment is the challenge which makes the poverty oppressive. 

            Three families who live in the midst of the disappointment will be given a modest home which will dramatically improve their daily life and this is good.  Yet, it is not miraculous.  The house is a poured concrete floor, some stick walls, a shingled roof and a stucco exterior.  The miracle, and there is one, the miracle is the one Jesus brought to the lame man at the porticoes of Bethesda, the miracle is hope and a very particular hope.

            People in Tijuana believe good things can happen.  They have seen people make it across the border and send back fabulous amounts of money to their families in the southern part of Mexico and Central America.  They know good things can happen.  The people we will build the houses for just don’t believe it can happen to them.  The man at the porticoes knew healing could occur.  He had been there thirty-eight years; he had seen life after life changed when the water stirred and the lucky man or woman waded into the healing presence of a descending angel.  He believed it could happen; he just didn’t believe it was going to happen to him.

            Whether the three families for whom we build houses have been in Tijuana three months or thirty years, they share a common life of being so close to the healing water, yet never making it; they are truly the ones whose backs are not wet. 

            And yet neither was the man Jesus healed.  Notice, Jesus didn’t help him into the water; he didn’t stir the water or call upon an angel to descend so the man could enter.  He brought the power of God to him.  And so it is with our team.  You are not making a way for families to enter America; you are not helping the families into the water.  You are bringing hope to where they are.  You may be giving a family a house and this is good; but the best gift is the power to pick up the pallet and walk, to be whole again. 

            When we read the stories of the healings in Scripture we have to remember that Jesus didn’t fix anyone’s life.  He restored their body or their sight or drove the demons from their soul, true; but, the rest of their life was just as it was.  They would have to find joy and work and rest and be honest and be forgiven from then on like everyone else.  Yet, for just a moment, a miraculous moment, they had a start; they had the power to begin.  The houses we build in Tijuana are that: a place to start living life from the power of hope.  The real house you are building is the one we heard of in Revelations.

            “The angel speaking with me had a gold measuring stick to measure the city.”  Remember when you are mixing the concrete and pouring it into the forms, the foundation being built in the hearts of the family is gold; remember when put in the modest windows they are but an image of the real “translucent glass”; remember when you carry stucco, you also carry jasper upon the hawks.  For the house you build is hope.

            There is one final part to our story that seems to fit so well with your mission.  The man who was healed didn’t know who Jesus was.  The Pharisees were angry that the man was carrying something on the Sabbath and they said, “what are doing?”  And the man who had lived 38 years by Bethesda said, “the man who made me well told me to.”  It says, the healed man didn’t know who healed him for Jesus slipped into the crowd.

            Fortunately or unfortunately none of you will be able slip into the crowd, especially wearing those green shirts.  With your “o” enhanced Spanish you will never blend.  But you will slip away.  Four days and then you will be gone.  Like the who was healed, the families will not remember your names, but they will remember what you did; they will remember the miracle that came into their midst and they will start life anew from it. 

            So as you venture forth eat fish tacos, hope for a warm shower, and measure twice so you can cut once.  Do these things and then slip away so there is nothing left but the blessing.  Amen.