Wellspring UMC; Eighth
Sunday after Pentecost; July 22, 2007:
-Psalm
41 (UMH 776); Mark 2: 1-12
“Working
Together to Get Them to Jesus”
Maybe
it was during
I
remember feeling bad that someone wanted and needed to get to Jesus but because
of circumstances they were not able to get there. I imagined being the man who could not
walk. Feeling helpless, feeling like an
outsider who was missing out on what everyone else experienced, and now the one
chance to get in and hear the teachings of Jesus comes, and he couldn’t get in
to hear or see.
I
remember thinking about what it must have felt for his friends. Seeing their friend there, knowing that he
really wanted to be where Jesus was, but feeling helpless to do anything. I thought about their frustration with the situation, and then I imagined that one
of them saw the ladder on the side of the house, a ladder, which my teacher
explained to us at the time, was used frequently because on hot nights they’d
sleep on the roof and at times eat meals there.
I imagined that someone saw the ladder, a lightbulb went off in their
mind, and a work party was assimilated.
Four men, wrapping their paralyzed friend up on his mat, each grabbing a
corner, picking him up, and with determination getting him up that ladder and
onto the roof.
My
young mind thought, “Wow, they must have really cared for him to do all that, just
so he could see Jesus!”
But
the story moved on, and I imagined the struggle to break through the roof. I worried about those who were underneath,
that no large pieces would fall on them, especially if Jesus was under there! I thought about the dirt and dust, and how
the man who couldn’t walk was subjected to that dust, lying at roof level,
breathing in all that yuck, coughing, and thinking, “I can’t believe that they
care this much about me!” And I remember
thinking, Jesus must have stopped speaking and the crowd had to have gotten
quiet while they chipped away the mud and sticks...as a small ray of sunlight
poked through, then a large piece of the roof pulled off and still more.
I
imagined what it might have been like to have been in that crowd, looking up to
see four faces peering down below. I
remember thinking, “Where’s the owner of the house? Boy will they be mad!” I imagined that the kids in the crowd thought
it was really cool, and I wondered what Jesus was feeling, that people would go
to such extremes to get to him.
I
thought about the friends tying ropes to the mat and the man trusting them to
lower him down from above. And I
remember as a kid thinking throughout the whole lesson that day, “His friends
wanted so much for this man to experience Jesus, that they did what they could,
together, so that he could live again.”
Maybe you have thoughts and memories
of this story as you learned it growing up.
Maybe you’ve never heard this story until today, and if that is the
case, I welcome you to one Bible story which brings to life God’s love. It’s a story of faith and hope, given and
received by Jesus, these friends, and even the paralytic. It’s a story that invites us to put our faith
in God and rely upon our friends to help us do that. It’s a story that reminds us that, when we
are paralyzed by whatever, we have to rely upon the help of others to get us
closer to Jesus. It’s a story that seeks to convey that we are called to help
those who are paralyzed and hurting.
It’s a story that points out the strong correlation between our sin and
our wholeness. It’s a story that tells
us that with God, anything is possible.
When
you hear this story, what sticks out?
What is important to you in this story?
(Invite folks to respond)
As one can see, there are many ways
one can receive this story, but the one that seems to hit home with me, at
least for today, is that there were four people willing to take a risk and put
in some work so that this paralyzed man could get to Jesus. They were touched by God in their hearts to
do something for another person...a paralyzed person.
If we examine the story closely, we
notice that in fact, there were probably more than four people who were there
to help this man. “Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them,
(vs. 3)” implying that there were more than four but four actually
fulfilled the collective will.
Secondly, we don’t even know if they
were friends with this man. We can
assume probably so, but there is no relationship implied. Nor is there a sense that these folks go out
of their way to demolish a rooftop expecting anything to happen. There is no actually no reason or motive for
their actions, except for the fact that they wanted this paralyzed man to get
to Jesus, and their passion for proximity was enough to drive them to
participate in what would be considered by the homeowner a heinous act and by
the rest of us just plain crazy.
Finally, their role in this story is
crucial but not the focus. They are not
the main characters, Jesus is the main character. Interesting enough, the paralytic is not even
the main character, but is a part of God’s plan to reveal the authority of
Christ to forgive sins and to heal. The
role of this crowd of well-wishers was to find a way to get this one who was
not acknowledged by society and often overlooked by the world, someone
considered unclean and about as useful as the mat he walked away with...their
role was to get him to Jesus. That’s all
they were.
We’re taught in seminary to preach
to the point of the Gospel story. Well,
I didn’t always listen to my professors.
They are not the point of the story, BUT without them, the story would
not be told. Without them the man would
never have walked. Without them the
authority of Christ would not have been revealed. Without them those who were there would not
have witnessed a miracle that was unexplainable. They are NOT the point of the story, but
without them, there would be no story.
We
are in our seventh week of an eight week sermon series on giving. Over the past almost 2 months we’ve been
praying, “Lord use me to give your love away everyday.” We’ve been inviting God in and listening to
our hearts and following where God leads us to give a smile, a hug, some time,
some money. To give ourselves
opportunities to rest or serve or share.
To give Christ, so that Christ might be revealed to friends, family, and
strangers. We’ve been giving
individually and collectively, and at times we’ve been blessed to experience
Christ’s working...Christ’s miracles so that those who are hurting, lost, or
paralyzed, might experience wholeness and new life.
Much
of what we have been sharing over these weeks has been about how we’ve been
giving as individuals, but what has been a blessing for me has been the way in
which our individual giving has converged at times to become collective giving
for those who are paralyzed by fear, hurting because of their situation, or in
need from circumstances.
It’s
a blessing to see the support of the church as 11 youth and adults served in
mission in
Whether
you see it or not, God is shaping us into a community that truly cares as Jesus
cares, and reminding us that, though our individual acts of caring are
important, God’s most powerful and meaningful witnessing comes through the Church
serving together. God is inviting us to
become more like a crowd of people going to extreme measures to find a way for
the outcast, the hurting, the needy, the friendless, the homeless, the
helpless...the paralyzed among us, around us, and those who surround us...for
all of these to get to Jesus. God is
showing us how to work together, so that we can live out God’s true call for us
to get those who are not here to experience Jesus Christ.
The
great Good News is that when we do that, we don’t have to have expectations of
one another, of the person we’re helping, or even of God, but we can simply
witness Christ’s love, seek God’s will, and let God do the rest. We don’t have to worry about if we’re doing
it right or wrong, or what the result might be, or how we should do this or
that, but we can work together to carry out the ideas and passions God places
upon us, so that others can get to Jesus.
We don’t even have to worry about the obstacles that may arise, because
God can make a way, even a way to break through the roof to prove a point!
Through these weeks of giving and
receiving, God has been working with and through us to become a people who care
as Jesus cares, and through that caring, through this learning, by Christ’s
teaching and our willingness to follow, God is allowing us the privilege of
working together to get others to Jesus, inviting us to reach out especially to
the paralyzed, forgotten, and deeply hurting.
In researching this passage I came across this quote, “When we own the authority to care, we will help release people from their paralysis, we will be unfazed by the ‘interruption of human need,’...because we have discovered that authority is really about authenticity in being open to the breaking through of God’s reign in our lives.” My friends, God is working, God is moving, God is helping us to own the authority to release people, and in doing so, God is revealing the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God through us! God is moving us to work together to bring others to Jesus. May we be faithful, as God is faithful, and may we continue to live out God’s call for us to truly care as Jesus cares. Amen.