Seeing their Faith…
Reading: Mark 2.1-12

Practical Love

Last week we were thinking about the man at the pool of Bethzatha (Jn 5.1-18) and the question of Jesus, "Do you want to get well?" This week's reading is about a different situation - the people who cannot answer such a question for themselves.

There was a paralysed man in Capernaum. We have no idea what was the nature of his paralysis, nor the extent to which it impaired communication as well as mobility. What we do know is that he had four friends who had stuck to him through it all.

An old saying puts it, "A friend in need is a friend indeed." Certainly, the son who took his inheritance to the glamorous city life soon found that, when his money was gone, so were his friends (Lk. 15.11-32). And for Jesus too… In spite of their protestations to the contrary, his disciples deserted him when the pressure was on (Mk 14.27-31, 50, 66-72). Tragically (and too often), marriages as well as friendships can break down when disability strikes and someone feels they are no longer "getting anything" out of the relationship.

But these four friends have stuck by this paralysed man - always seeking his highest good, their practical love doing for him the many things he was unable to do for himself.

Active Faith

Jesus is back in Capernaum. In fact "the news spread that he was at home" (2.1).
Mark has already told us about Jesus healing a demon-possessed man in the synagogue at Capernaum (1.21-28). News of that healing "spread everywhere in Galilee." People were saying that "This man has authority to give orders to the evil spirits and they obey him."

Jesus had then gone throughout Galilee "preaching in the synagogues and driving out demons" (v. 39). At the end of Mark 1, we read of Jesus touching and healing a man "suffering from a dreaded skin disease" - literally "leprosy", though the term was used to include a number of skin ailments besides what we call "Hansen's Disease." Jesus didn't ever seek publicity through his miracles, but got it anyway. As a result he had to stay in a lonely place where people came to him (vv. 40-45).

But now he has come back to Capernaum and so many have come to hear him - friends and enemies, sympathisers and the curious… - so many have come that the house is full with the overflow completely blocking the entrance.

The four have heard about Jesus and his power to heal. All else has failed and here is the one hope that their friend will be healed.

Practical love moves into active faith as they carry him to the house where Jesus is staying. But the crowd blocks their way. So they carry him up the stairs onto the roof. Their only chance is to break through the roof and lower him down.

J.A. Thompson tells us, "Most ordinary roofs were supported by wooden beams resting on the walls. Across these beams were laid smaller 'beams' (often just thick branches, sycamore in poorer houses, cedar or cypress in richer ones). Then came layers of brush, reeds, mud, grass and clay, levelled off with a roller. The roof would be rolled after heavy rain, too, to flatten it out" (Handbook of Life in Bible Times, IVP, 1986, p. 67).

With the greatest care in the world, it would be impossible to do what they did without the crowd below realising what was happening. They may have wondered at first, but as the mud, dust and rubbish began to shower down and as the daylight began to break through… "When they had made an opening, they let the man down, lying on his mat. Seeing how much faith they had, Jesus said to the paralysed man, 'My son, your sins are forgiven'." (vv. 4b, 5)

Whose faith? At this point in the story, it is the faith of these four friends as their practical love has been translated into active faith. Everyone's eyes were focussed on the man who had now "landed" in their midst. Jesus could see the four faces grinning through the hole in the roof!

Healing and Wholeness

Seeing their faith, Jesus says to the paralysed man, "My son, your sins are forgiven." As we reflected on the healing of the man at the pool of Bethzatha last week, we noted, "There is something far more significant than physical healing" - as Jesus said to the man, "Listen, you are well now; so stop sinning or something worse may happen to you" (Jn 5.14). Here the word of forgiveness of sins comes before the physical healing. R.A. Cole notes, "The paralysed man himself, to judge from the Lord's dealing with him, was not so much conscious of his physical need as of his spiritual burden; so the Lord gave forgiveness" (St Mark, Tyndale, 1968, p. 65).

There are teachers of the Law present. The word of forgiveness prompts them to think, "How does he dare to talk like this? This is blasphemy! God is the only one who can forgive sins!" (v. 7) The words of Jesus aren't human words forgiving what may have been done against oneself. Jesus is forgiving in the absolute. Only God can do that. They have discerned correctly. Jesus is a blasphemer who needs to be condemned outright, unless, of course… Jesus is divine and needs to be believed and followed.

Words are cheap, we are told. The inward reality of forgiveness cannot be tested, but the healing of this paralysed man can - "I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home!" (v. 11) - the same words recorded for the healing of the man at the pool of Bethzatha. "While they all watched, the man got up, picked up his mat, and hurried away. They were all completely amazed and praised God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this!' " (v. 12). The crowd at least recognised the hand of God in the miracle, not necessarily perceiving the deeper implications noted by the teachers of the Law.

Jesus sees more than the outward presenting problem of physical need. For him it is always important that the underlying spiritual issues be resolved - sometimes before, sometimes after the physical healing.

Do you want to be whole? Come to Christ in faith. Open all your life to him. Let him deal with your inner motivation, with your hidden hurts and your secret sins. Trust him with all your life. He will never let you down.

Is there someone else you want to see made whole? Believe for them - in all that Christ has done and can do for them. Bring them in prayer if you cannot bring them in person. In the final count healing and wholeness will come in their own encounter with Christ. But in the meantime, Christ sees your faith as he reaches out to meet their need. He is already reaching out to touch them with healing and wholeness through your practical love and active faith.

Homiletic Ideas

? the linkage of physical and spiritual healing. There are many cases of healing (or cure) only happening when faith has been demonstrated (story of woman with cancer being healed after participating in a healing service). In this passage, faith is demonstrated by the men in lowering the paralytic through the roof. Note that the lack of faith by the people in Nazareth prevents Jesus from performing miracles there.
? Christ does not say "I forgive your sins" but rather "your sins are forgiven", implying that the forgiveness comes from God.
? through his healings, Christ is removing the illnesses which separate a person from the community. Through forgiveness, Christ removes the sin which separates us from God.
? sin separates people from God. In Jesus' day, because disease and disability were thought to manifest the power of evil, these were commonly linked with sin. Sin violates the boundary between God and people as well as the boundaries between people. Forgiveness can restore the person to relationship with others.
? If forgiveness is the key theological issue of the text, intercession is the key practical issue. Most congregations and individuals pray regularly for people who need healing. Today's gospel dramatizes active intercession which can also be called advocacy. The actions of the four men were prayers, expressing faith, hope and love. The text gives Christians encouragement to intercede for those who are ill or in special need.
? Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, there are many examples of intermediaries acting on behalf of others. For example, during their wanderings in the desert, it is Moses who constantly begs God's forgiveness of the Israelites for their sins. After David had sinned and Nathan had rebuked him into terror and David had humbly confessed his sin, Nathan said: "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die." (2 Sam.12:1-13.) Nathan was not forgiving David's sin, but he was conveying God's forgiveness to David and assuring him of it.

Homily

Intermediaries With God

Over the past few weeks, we have heard the evangelist Mark write about Christ's miraculous powers. First, there was the casting out of an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue. Then there is the healing of Peter's mother-in-law and many more cures and exorcisms which Mark says were performed throughout the whole of Galilee. Finally, there is the healing of the leper that we heard last week which brings us to today's passage.

Before we begin to look at what we can learn from this gospel passage, I think there are two things which would help us to understand some of the facts behind the incident. First of all, we need to understand how the men were able to lower the paralytic through the roof. "The roof of a Palestinian house was flat. It was regularly used as a place of rest and of quiet, and so usually there was an outside stair which ascended to it...The roof consisted of flat beams laid across from wall to wall, perhaps three feet apart. The space in between the beams was filled with small branches and twigs which had been cut up, packed tightly with clay and then covered over with a layer of dirt. Because of this composition, a flourishing crop of grass often grew on the roof of a Palestinian house. Thus, it was the easiest thing in the world for them to dig out the filling between two of the beams and repair the breach once again."

Secondly, we might think it strange that our Lord's first words to the paralytic are "Your sins are forgiven". What we need to understand is that "the Jews integrally connected sin and suffering. They figured that if a man was suffering he must have sinned. That is, in fact, the argument that Job's friends produced when they said: "Who that was innocent ever perished?" (Job 4:7). The Rabbis had a saying, "No sick man is ever healed of his sickness until all his sins have been forgiven him."...To the Jews, a sick man was a someone with whom God was angry. We do not make the close connection that the Jews did, but any Jew would have agreed that forgiveness of sins was a prior condition of cure.
Earlier, I mentioned all of the miracles which our Lord had performed throughout Galilee, as noted by Mark. Each of the illnesses or demonic possessions had the effect of removing the afflicted person from the community. Thus, the purpose of each of these healings or exorcisms was to restore each person to their rightful place in the community. But in today's passage, our Lord is kicking the stakes up a notch by not only restoring the paralytic to the community but also repairing the rift between the paralytic and God caused by sin. And notice that he did not say "I forgive your sins", but rather "your sins are forgiven", that is, by God. So we could say that what Jesus was doing was assuring the man of God's forgiveness.

There is one more thing which we need to note about the miracles which Mark has mentioned so far: for the most part, they are very generic. What I mean by that is that there is no record by Mark of anything happening which is "out-of-the-ordinary". Jesus casts out the unclean spirit, dispels Peter's mother-in-law's fever and continues his healings and miracles throughout Galilee. Until last week's recounting of the healing of the leper, that is. Only the leper approaches Jesus and says: "If you will to do so, you can make me clean". He is the first one who makes a profession of faith in Christ before requesting a healing.

It is this same faith which is so evident in today's passage. Our Lord must have been amazed at the faith and persistence, perhaps even the loyalty, of the four men to their paralyzed friend. In essence, they acted as intermediaries. Without their help, the man would not have been able to get into the house to see Jesus and thus be healed.

Just as the four men in our gospel were intermediaries in bringing a man to Christ for healing, so was Father O'Malley in enabling a penitent man to die at peace through his own forgiveness. Before he ascended into heaven, Christ assured the disciples that "whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them". In our own lives, we are called to be intermediaries who bring others to God through our own forgiveness of the wrongs they may have done to us. And if we do so, we can be certain that on the last day, our Lord will intercede with the Father on our behalf and assure us that because of our faith, our sins too have been forgiven.

REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL READING OF THE 7TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

20 February 2000

FRIENDS IN CHRIST; FRIENDS TO ONE ANOTHER

When we gather together for worship we usually address ourselves as "brothers and sisters in Christ." In most cases this has become an empty phrase without any practical meaning. How can we claim to be brothers and sisters when we can't even relate to one another as friends?

The event described in today's gospel, the healing of the paralysed man, took place in Peter's house in Capernaum. From early church history and archeology we know that the house of Peter became one of the first Christian house churches. The early Christian readers of Mark's Gospel knew this, so they would probably read the story as something happening within the setting of a church. The huge crowd that gathered around the house would represent worshippers, each one seeking to obtain one blessing or the other from Jesus. But in their preoccupation with their own personal needs they became insensitive to the needs of someone who was in even greater need than themselves, the paralytic. The paralysed man was forgotten in their rush and struggle to get the attention of Jesus. After worship they would probably pass by him and drop a coin and say "God bless you, brother."

The twist in the story occurs when four men who proved to be friends to the paralysed man gave up their places in the crowd and went to pick the paralysed man lying by the sidewalk to bring him to Jesus. They realised that this handicapped man should have the priority because his needs were greater. Their movement to Jesus was impeded by the insensitive crowd. But where there is a will there is a way, even if it meant un-roofing the church. And that is precisely what they did. "When Jesus saw their faith," - the faith of his friends not that of the paralysed man - he healed the paralysed man in soul and body.

One may then ask, which group proved themselves to be brothers and sisters to the paralysed man? His fellow worshippers who called themselves his brothers and sisters? Not at all. It was the four men who identified themselves as his friends.

Sure enough, God has called us to be brothers and sisters in the church. But it might be more realistic for us to aim at being friends with each other first of all, real friends in need, before we dare to call ourselves brothers and sisters.

KAKAARO ED KRISTO; KAKAARO NA ARUM

No onla tayon manpikasi, say tawag tayo ed balang sinansakey et “brother” odino “sister” ed Kristo. Mabetbet tayo layan ibabaga, singa nababalang la ingen so kabalikasan to. Panon tayon tuan natawag ya “brother” odino “sister” iray arum no agtayo met lamlamang mankakabat?

Samay naistorya ed say Ibanghilyo natan et agawa ed abong nan katulangan nen Pedro. Dakerakel so onlang mipulong tan onkerew na bendision ed si Jesus. Lapud say malalon panaaburido tan pananununot da ed say inkasikara, alingwanan day sakey a mas dakel so kaokolan to nen say sikara: samay toon paralitiko. Alingwanan da may paralitiko lapud say panlabay dan onasingger ed si Jesus. Siguro, kasumpla na pulong, ompano pelagan day payabol dan kuarta, igalang da tan ikuan da, “Masantos ya kabuasan, brother”.

Balet wala ray apatiran totoon kakaaro ton yan paralitko. Inter da so pasen da parad  samay paralitiko. Nilara, tan inalsa ran inawit ed si Jesus. Abirbir dan sayan paralitiko  so mas mankaukolan  nen say sikara.  Balet saramay dakerakel ya totoon anggapoy pibabali ra ed arum so mansesebel ingen ed say labay dan nasumpal irayan apatiran totoo ed say kaaro ran paralitiko. Balet walay seet tan seseg dan ituloy iyan linawa ra, angganman deralen day atep na simbaan. Kanian, ontan ingen so sinumpal da! “Nen anengneng nen Jesus so pananisia ra”.  Say pananisia na saray kakaaro na paralitiko, aliwan samay pananisia na say paralitiko. Kanian, sikatoy tinambal nen Jesus ed say sakit na laman tan kamarerwa to.

Siopa sirin so tuan agi na samay paralitiko? Saraman kasi so kakaiba ton manpipikasin manatawag ed sikatoy “brother”? siguro aliwan amin. Saramay apatiran totoo ya angiab ed sikato so tuan kakaaro to.

Tua, tatawagen itayo na Dios ya magmaliw ya “brother” o “sister” ed simbaan. Balet, madmaong ni para sikatayon amin no say getma tayo et magmaliw nin sankakaaro tayo antes tayon mantatawagan ya sanaagi.

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