Sermon based on Luke 5:17-26
One day, while he was teaching,
Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting nearby (they had come from
every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem); and the power of the
Lord was with him to heal. Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed
man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before
Jesus; but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went
up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle
of the crowd in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said,
“Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” Then the scribes and the
Pharisees began to question, “Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can
forgive sins but God alone?” When Jesus perceived their questionings, he
answered them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is
easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and
walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth
to forgive sins”—he said to the one who was paralyzed—“I say to you, stand up
and take your bed and go to your home.” Immediately he stood up before
them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying
God. Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled
with awe, saying, “We have seen strange things today.”
"Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a
student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture.
The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding
stones.
But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an
ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed.
Mead explained that in the animal kingdom if you break your leg, you die. You
cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are
meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the
bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has
taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried
the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping
someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said." 1
This Gospel story reminds me about the communal nature of our
faith—that as Christian people our call
is to community and to be in relationship with each other and that we are to
help each other through difficulty—-I love that the folks work together and the
people carry their friend to Jesus. The guy couldn’t have gotten there on his
own—and one person couldn’t have carried him and lowered him through the
roof—they needed to work to together—to take care of each other---
Over the next few
weeks--- next few months—we are going to be asked to carry each other to carry
our friends and neighbors. And at times we may even need to be carried
ourselves from time to time.
We will be called to carry each other to the gates of heaven and
place our friends and neighbors before God in prayer and supplication. We are
going to have to storm the gates of heaven with our prayers.
We may be called to carry groceries and medicines and essentials item and probably even some toilet paper to those who can no longer get those things
for themselves
We will be called to carry each other in phone calls and text
messages …as we work to stay connected and stay in community in this new time of
social distancing.
Who are the lonely people that we need to pick up and carry? Who could use a card or a letter or text
message or a phone call—who could you facetime and skype? Let us use--this crisis as an opportunity to connect
with each other.
We may be called to carry our neighbors who are on the edge
financially who could easily fall off or have fallen off the cliff—not because
they are sick but because they have become part of the collateral damage of an economy screeching to a halt----what
will it look like to pick them up and to carry them? What
will it look like to share some of our resources?
I also love that this story is about people who hold fast to
their faith—that they know that their help is in God and undeterred they scrape
and claw their way to God--- When they
encounter this large crowd blocking them from getting to Jesus- they don’t
throw up their hands – they don’t give up but they dig deep into their well of
faith and they climb up on the roof and They tear it open find a way to God—Luke says that when
Jesus saw their faith not the man’s faith but their faith—he said to the man on
the mat—your sins are forgiven- and shortly thereafter he commanded the man to
get up of his mat.
We are going to have to hold fast to our faith in the days
and weeks and month ahead—faith that can help us get up off the difficult mats
of our lives-not because of our own power –but because God is with us-God
breaths into us God’s very spirit of himself –giving us the power to do things
we could never believe we could .
Bishop Gates in a pastoral letter said yesterday--"At no time are we
alone. Here, there. Now, then. [He said] At few moments in our memory have we
more needed to remember this, to assure one another of this and to show forth
that conviction to others as Christians." 2
That we are not alone and that they are not alone – in the
days to come may we remember that –that God walks with us in the valley of the
shadow of death and that we walk with
each other in these days…May we take up that call to carry each other--- to help each other at this
difficult time –May we take up that call to remind each other that we are not
alone but that we are all in this
together.
AMEN
1https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10221031209112038&set=a.10200601275776473&type=3&theater
2https://www.diomass.org/news/diocesan-news/no-time-are-we-alone-march-14-pastoral-message-bishop-gates
No comments:
Post a Comment