Forgiveness Starts with Us

Mark 2:1-12

Welcome back to Capurnaum. A couple of Sundays ago, we explored what it meant to be a family during Jesus' first pass through town, when he cured Simon's mother in law. Some time has passed, for us and for our story, and now Jesus is back. People have had some time to share the news and to gather for a new round of teachings and miracles. There are so many people gathered around that it is hard to get near him at all.

In fact, they are starting to take the house apart. Literally. Houses in Galilee were, and are, made of sparse wood frames with mud plaster. Roofs are flat; there is a staircase outside the house leading to the roof and there is a small hole to let smoke rise. It is reasonable to assume that there were people trying to listen to Jesus' teachings from the roof but this group of people are actually busting up mud above Jesus' head in order to get to him.

Why in the world were they doing that? This is a time when illness is the direct and God given punishment for sin. Everyone might not know what you did, but the sicker you were, the more wicked you were. We know from the story of Job that if things got bad enough for you, even your friends would leave. Imagine the amount of love these friends had for this man that they would carry him on a pallet from wherever, haul him up a roof, and dig through the roof to lower him down. That is a lot of effort, that is a lot of faith, for a person that most everyone present would assume was just some bad guy.

This is one of those places where the editing is slim. Just imagine trying to talk, let alone heal someone with dirt clods landing on your head. If I didn't have to clean it up, it would be interesting to throw a dirt clod here. And then there is Simon, one wonders how he feels about having to replace the roof.

So after all that dirt, here comes a man, inert, on a bedroll, into the center of the room. Show stopper. And Jesus says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” It wasn't the faith of the paralytic that got him cured. This is important. He didn't do anything except lie there. It was the faith of his friends that Jesus rewarded. And that reward wasn't actually a healing. The miracle was forgiveness.

We don't have to imagine what the scribes are thinking. We are told. Blasphemer. Jesus is saying things like, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Scribes had a pretty powerful stake in who forgave sins and how you went about getting such forgiveness. Healing people, that is one thing, but forgiving sin, that was for God alone, through their mediation of course. Jesus is threatening their livelihood.

I like to think it was the dirt shower that finally set Jesus off. He finally turned to those scribes and said, What's wrong with you? You act like it is easier to cure paralysis than to forgive a mistake.

They did think that. And they thought curing paralysis was impossible. They thought only God had the authority to pronounce forgiveness. It might well be the case. But Jesus is bringing a new kingdom. He is carrying a new authority. Only God has the power to forgive. True. But Jesus has the authority to pronounce God's forgiveness. Jesus called on his authority as the Son of Man, not the Son of God, to forgive the sins of the paralytic man, and to drive that point home, then he told the man to get up and walk. And he did.

This story tells us two very important things. One, it shows us that we are to work on behalf of others, not ourselves. The miracles of faith are not granted for ourselves, they are granted on our behalf for others. Two, it shows us a different and difficult authorship of forgiveness.

Jesus uses his authority as Son of Man to offer forgiveness. In doing so, he is claiming an authority that can be claimed by all of us. We are being shown a new way by Jesus. We are being shown a way beyond what the scribes knew to be a truth about God to a larger, more magnificent vision of who God is and how he relates to us. Jesus, by his crucifixion and resurrection, shows us that God will do anything for us, if we only ask. And not for ourselves are we to ask, but for others. In asking for help for others, we are offering God's forgiveness to each other.

Genuine, God inspired forgiveness involves changes by both parties. We must step outside our own desires and opinions and see the other. Offender and offended must acknowledge their culpabilities. Both must carry the other to a new paradigm. True forgiveness is a process of community. Jesus came to show us how to care for each other, to step outside our fears and most especially to care for the prisoner and the widow, the sick and all the disenfranchised. They are always a part of community and they are always worthy of forgiveness.

What is difficult for us, is what is difficult for the scribes. We think we have a direct line to God, that we can always, accurately discern the will of God. So if we are offended, someone must have sinned. If we are offended, so is God. But sin is being out of line with God himself, not with any one interpretation or opinion of what God wants. We must admit that we cannot discern the will of God for all people, in all circumstances, for all time.

One of the great things about Anglicanism is that we are generally more concerned with our corporate worship than with interpreting individual sins. We have a rich history of the three legged stool; scripture, tradition and reason. These are as varied as we are, shaped by our language, our culture and geography and our incarnation in time. If there is a place where we can honor difference and build community. If there is a place where genuine God-inspired life changing forgiveness can occur. Where world changing forgiveness can occur, I am sure that this is the place.