Rector's Sermon - Sunday, February 23, 2002

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Isaiah 43:18-25		2 Corinthians 1:18-22	Mark 2:1-12

      We commonly remember it as the story of the paralytic who was let down through the roof. Many a Sunday school class has built a model house with a hole in the top, and ropes that dangle almost to floor, suspending a figure on a pallet. Like many of the traditional titles of the stories and the parables in the Gospels, however, there is much more to the story than the title reveals.
This is one of the stories that would make a great Sunday School drama. There is a crowd surrounding Jesus. People are not waiting in line for Jesus to cure them and then moving on. It becomes apparent that Jesus is speaking and people are firmly planted in place. There is tightness and tension all around.

      A sick man is brought up to the house by some friends. His friends try to get him through, but no one gives way. The friends persist, going around to the back of the house, but that avenue is blocked, too. Yet they don't give up. They find a ladder, crawl up the thatched roof, undo some of the bundles of thatch, and let the man down by ropes. People look up in amazement and even in a bit of pique at the interruption. How did this person ever get through? Jesus has compassion on the man who is before him, but then comes the real climax of the story. Jesus looks up at the friends who were so persistent. Seeing their faith, Jesus says to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven."

      As the murmur and grumbling begin to rise among those surrounding Jesus, we have a hint of what was really going on. Jesus had been teaching. He had invited the crowd to become more open to the possibility of fresh starts, and of God not being disposed to punishment or retribution, but rather desiring reconciliation and healing. Some in the crowd were arguing back, afraid Jesus was being too easy on sin. "How dare you claim that forgiveness may be a sign of God. Those type of people need to be truly sorry for what they've done," they would retort.

      The Gospel story's focus is the contrast between a tight crowd not wanting to budge or give an inch, not wanting forgiveness to be dispensed too freely, and a group of friends who have compassion for their friend and who believe that God will also. We don't know anything about the past of the man on the pallet. What we do know is that his friends thought the man deserved every chance for a new life, and that they believed that God had an even larger heart than any of them.

      In times of danger there is always the tendency to encircle the wagons, close ranks, and protect what we consider is our precious heritage. We become suspicious of anything too new or novel or strange. The old ways become solidified into the best ways.

      That is not how the prophets thought. In a very unsettling time in Israel's history, Isaiah proclaimed, "Do you not perceive God's signs of greater growth. God invites you to accept the task to make ways in the former wilderness and rivers in the dry desert." Perhaps it was the words of Isaiah that Jesus was using as the paralytic was winched down from the roof.

      The Gospel, across centuries of danger and insecurity, is saying that the response of graciousness, generosity, and kindness usually serve the witness of the people of God better than intolerance and hostility. Jesus' mission was primarily to invite people in, not to keep them out. The commonwealth of a new world is announced by building highways, not by fences and fortifications. God's heart is always larger than any of our hearts. When God cannot not make it through the door, or the usual channels don't seem to work as they used to, the Holy Spirit makes God's love known often in surprising new ways.

      We may feel uncomfortable venturing onto roofs and that's OK. What Jesus wants us remember is that the Holy Spirit always welcomes the help and ingenuity from friends, like those friends of the paralytic. That is why if someone had asked me, I would have called this story "the story of the four friends."

      And I offer this to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.