"Faith in Action"
Sermon Presented February 19, 2006
Mark 2:1-12
Monday's gold medal Olympic winner in the speed skating competition was a young man from the United States who is so concerned about the deaths in Chad that he risked ridicule by speaking out on the issue when he had center stage. While most athletes spend that time in the spotlight thanking their parents or trainers or communities for their support, this Olympian used his platform to seek support for a people he knew only from what he had read. Not only did he speak out, he said that he will donate his prize money of $25,000 to the cause and challenged corporate America to get involved. Nike immediately pledged $30,000 in products. This young man put his faith in action for all of the world to see.
Is there any cause so important to you that you would risk negative public opinion or financial security to support it? Has a need worked its way beneath your skin and into your heart to such a degree that you risked something significant to see it accomplished? There were four men in our story today who risked a great deal to obtain healing for their friend. Listen to their story.
Mark 2:1-12 (Read text.)
When you hear this story, you recognize immediately that the main focus is Jesus' authority to both forgive sins and heal the sick. However, this sermon will address the secondary focus of the love and faith manifest by the paralyzed man's friends, and their part in his healing. Jesus said it was their faith that brought healing to the paralytic.
Our story is played out around a man who is paralyzed. He can't move! His paralysis may have been caused by a birth defect, spinal cord injury, polio, a stroke or any number of causes that leave people unable to move. The man's friends, who are much more faithful than most friends, bring the paralytic word that a healer is in the area, and then they convince him to allow them to transport him to Jesus.
These friends have no handicapped accessible van or wheelchair to aid them in transportation. All they have is a cot and manpower, so four of them pick him up - bed and all - and carry him to the house where Jesus is residing. However, when they reach the house, the crowd is so massive that they cannot get close to the doorway - let alone into the house where Jesus is teaching. If they don't see Jesus, their trip will be in vain.
They don't give up in despair, but believe that when God closes a door, a window will open - and they want to help open that window. Here, the window of opportunity is the home's flat roof, and they lay out their plan to the paralytic.
Can't you just imagine his protests when he hears what they plan? "Come on, guys, I agreed to let you bring me here, but now you're going too far! How can you possibly get me safely onto the roof, through it, and into the room? You'll be arrested for destruction of property, the teacher and homeowner will be furious and I won't have a snowball's chance in hell for healing. Let's just leave and come back another time."
But thankfully for him, his friends are not deterred from their purpose. They carry him to the rooftop by way of a ladder and begin to make a hole in the roof large enough to accommodate a man and his pallet. The noise from the rooftop distracts Jesus' audience. Then chunks of roofing materials begin falling onto the crowd. Some in the crowd back away, not knowing what else to do. Suddenly sunlight streams in as a large opening is exposed, and a cot bearing a man is carefully lowered into the room. (I often wondered where they got the ropes for lowering the pallet, and decided they probably used the rope belts that held their robes together.) The man is now lying on the floor looking into the face of the one with the power to heal him. His friends remain on the roof and peer down through the opening.
The paralytic and his friends want healing that will allow the man to walk out of the house on his own power, and the friends have worked hard to make this possible. Instead of being angry, Jesus is impressed - impressed that these men care so much for their friend that they overcome great obstacles to bring him to Jesus' attention. Jesus admires their faith, but he also realizes that the man needs another kind of healing more than he needs physical healing. And let's face it, if he's healed physically, he might not stick around for inner healing. So Jesus chooses to heal the man's spiritual needs first. He gives him the forgiveness that he doesn't realize he needs.
Jesus focuses on the disease at the core of the man's being - a broken relationship with God. He calls him "Son" and offers healing through words of forgiveness. But those words are blasphemous to the religious leaders and disappointing to his friends. This isn't what they expect. It isn't what they want. And besides, you can't see the results of forgiveness like you can see physical healing.
Then Jesus offers him a second healing so that everyone knows that he has the power to forgive sins. Jesus invites him to stand, take up his pallet and walk. The paralysis is gone and the man walks. The friends rush down from the roof and barge through the crowd toward the door. Praises to God leap from the depths of their being! Their friend can walk!
Jesus commends the practice of doing faith - putting feet to prayers. We often intercede for others in prayer - but we don't go any further to help them. Now, I'm not belittling prayer but usually God chooses to answer prayer through people and we must be open to be part of that answer. The friends grasped a thread of hope by taking their immobile friend to Jesus, and he was healed.
This example of faith gives us an opportunity to broaden our understanding about faith in the church. The example of the active faith of the friends can encourage and deepen our lives as Christians. When we risk making that reluctant phone call to someone we haven't seen in a while, that act is an example of an active faith. When we write or call our congressional representative to challenge him or her to rethink budget cuts for the mentally ill, that's an act of faith. When we take time to prepare a meal for a family struggling with sickness, that action shows our faith. When we use a family vacation to build a Habitat house or go to Mississippi or New Orleans or Haiti to help people, we perform an act of faith.
Faith, as dramatically illustrated in this story is the work of breaking down the barriers that separate people from justice and well-being that we know God intends for all of God's creation. It's the work of putting our lives on the line in service to others. In this work we know we can't help everyone or fix every problem, so we must seek discernment.
What did the friends of the paralytic know that made them think this would work, that Jesus could do something new in their friend's life? They must have been either pretty sure - or pretty desperate!
I believe that the key to their actions was their love for their friend. They hated what his illness was doing to him. Love was the force that propelled them forward into such extreme action. It made them brave - or foolish, depending on your outlook. And likewise, love is what propels people today to walk with the ill and disabled through their painful journey. I believe that God inspires people today to engage in great acts of faith, even though they don't recognize God in their actions.
However, faith isn't a one-sided "doing good." It's good for everyone involved. Ecstatic friends rejoiced with the healed man. Those who were called to carry one who couldn't carry himself were also carried. They were carried into new opportunities for relationship and community, as well as the opportunity to see God in action. These same opportunities are available to us, when we put our faith into action.
Perhaps we should consider the possibility that God's plans for us are often larger than our immediate concerns, even concerns as monumental as those of the paralytic. Given the limits of our finite vision, it is sometimes hard to see beyond the need to solve the present problem and satisfy the present desire. We don't have to see the whole picture. Our task is to be obedient to God and answer the needs that are ours to answer.
I invite you to watch for openings to put your faith into action. Neither you nor the recipient of your action will be sorry. When we follow Jesus' command to love others as God loves, we will live an active faith - a faith that God commends.
