release or paralyse

Mark 2: 1-12
as usual, this is an amalgam of ideas from a variety of reading

This story from the Gospel of Mark has a variety of possible interpretations.  But to start, a few comments about this passage.

1.   In verses:6, 8 "...wondering" is literally "...discussing in their hearts..." Ancient people around the Mediterranean believed the psychological seat of the person lie in the heart, not the brain.[i]

2.   The friends dug through the roof – yes! They took off the roof, made a hole in it. In this time, houses usually had a set of stairs on the outside of the building, and the roof was  place where you could sit, and sometimes sleep, in warm weather. The roof was made of beams, covered with tree branches, then several feet of dirt. So the friends of the paralysed man, dug through the roof and removed part of it. [ii]

3.   Another thing to keep in mind is that this story follows the healing of the leper we heard last week. Jesus is still confronting the idea, the belief, that people who are ill, are unwell because of their sin. And sin could only be forgiven by God. When Jesus says ‘your sins are forgiven’ that is blasphemy.

When the friends of the paralysed man lowered him through the roof, Jesus doesn’t mention the dirt or the mess, doesn’t ask why he can’t walk, how long he has been like this, doesn’t ask if he believes, doesn’t tell him to wait in line, all that is recorded is that Jesus recognised the faith of the friends, and said to the paralysed man: your sins are forgiven. We don’t know if the paralysed man responded, Mark doesn’t record anything about him at this point; we don’t even know if he wanted to go and see Jesus.

The overriding view of illness was that you had sinned, you had done something that angered or saddened God. Illness was a result of God being offended by something we have done. [iii] There are still times when illness or disability is considered to be somehow the person’s fault. Can’t get a job, then you are not trying hard enough; injured in an accident, you must have been to careless; diagnosed with cancer, and you are asked to go through your life and see what you may have done to contribute. Today there is still an element of blaming the victim in our understanding of disease.

The Greek word translated as forgiven, was generally used in a legal sense, as being released from an obligation.

Jesus says you are released from your defects, which is translated as your sins are forgiven. God is saying, I am not offended by you, I release you, from that which prevents you living fully. In his interaction with the leper last week, and the man who is paralysed this week, there is no sense from Jesus that God’s judgement has anything to do with illness or healing.

 Basic Christian primer: Maybe now is time for a reminder that we are loved by God. Really! God loves us, always has. God didn’t send Jesus, so that we could be loved, Jesus came because God loved us, as a sign of God’s love. Yet for many the message of the church is you are not worth loving; you have to follow certain protocols, pray certain words, live in certain ways then God will love you. At times the message that comes from churches through the media is that you are unlovable without Jesus, that God can’t stand the sight of such a fallen, weak, sinful person. That is plain wrong. I can remember when I thought that even with Jesus in my life, I was of no value to God, that God only put up with me because of Jesus, because somehow Jesus stood between me and God, and somehow Jesus filtered all my badness. There couldn’t have been much of me left for God to see. I can remember the time when I realised that God loved me, not an image of the perfect me, but this me – unsure, nerdy, fearful and spiritually lazy me.

 Back to the story, another aspect I want us to think about today is the role of the man’s friends. There are times when we all need people around us to carry us to Jesus. Over the past few weeks as various groups have looked at the belonging unit on the church, I have heard a few times that church isn’t only about what we get out of it, but what we give to others. By worshipping in a community, as we do each Sunday, we support and affirm our own faith and the faith of others. Just attending worship can be a challenge to the rest of society, some people wonder why anyone would give up their Sunday morning to come to church when there are so many other options.

The friends of the paralysed man knew that the best place for him to be was in the presence of Jesus. We all know people we would like to place in front of Jesus, and there are times we wish for friends who would do that for us. we do this when we worship together and when we take people to Jesus in our prayers.

Now as far as I know none of you are paralysed, thought I have heard that some of you know what that is like. At times we are all paralysed, it may be physical, but it may that we are paralysed by fear. I know I am so scared of heights I freeze sometimes, paralysed by fear. Other things which can paralyse us are guilt and shame, or even the thought that if people knew what we were really like, then we would be shamed, so we are paralysed by trying to keep things in our life a secret.

I suspect for many there is also the paralysis that comes from a sense of inadequacy. The idea that we are not good enough or clever enough.

What paralyses you?

 As a congregation do we release sins, or do we remind people, both in and outside the church, of their guilt, fear and shame?

This is a powerful story, a story that challenged the theological understanding of the time, a story that hinted again at the divinity of Jesus. Placed in the presence of Jesus, released from that which holds us back, we are sent out to live.

We take some time to reflect

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[i] word-sunday.com Larry Broding (Copyright 1999 -2007)

[ii] Rev. Dr. Delmer L. Chilton

[iii] Rev Peter Woods