Through the Roof
Mark 2:1-12

February 23, 2003

It is quite fitting that one of the most memorable of Jesus’ healings features the roof of the house as the main character. The roof could perhaps be perceived as the patron saint of the local church.

Every church in Christendom has a roof problem sooner or later, and again and again. It’s part of the ethos of being a church, to have a leaking and faulty roof. To prove it, we just got our roof resurfaced last summer at considerable, although necessary, expense. A roof has to be able to think and emote, for as soon as you start to take it for granted, it acts out and starts doing terrible things on you.

Almost as surprising to hear that in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus was evidently born in a house is the statement of fact that Jesus returned to the big little town of Capernaum and was “at home.” He had a house, a permanent settlement, at least at that point in his life. Just a subtle reminder that whenever you think you have Jesus defined and fitting your patterns, he does something you haven’t counted on. You want Jesus to stay put and be a settled urban resident, he wanders all over the country with no place to lay his head. You like the idea of a carefree, unfettered Jesus with no ties to the institutions of society, then you find him sitting at home.

Unfortunately again for Jesus, everybody else in Capernaum found him sitting at home. They jammed into his house, and crowded the front door area, despite the warnings of the fire department. He was speaking the word to them, and the word had to be shorthand for the Gospel. He had all their attention, except for five men who were not ignoring or denying the word, but had heard all they needed. Besides they couldn’t get into the house to be near Jesus.

The principal man was paralyzed lying on some kind of mat or perhaps what we would think of as a stretcher. Four men carried him. There is no description of the paralyzed man beyond his affliction, but he must have been either very persuasive or very beloved, probably both, to get four people to go to such lengths. Of such character, faith is molded.

But now our hero enters the scene: the removable roof. Sticks and earth kept the rooms below well insulated and cool in the hot days and probably a good place to sleep at night. These guys had a mission in which they would not be stopped. There often was a stone staircase going up the side of the house to the roof, so they ascended with stretcher in hand and dug through to open a hole above Jesus. Ridicule was not a concern, and it must have been a remarkable event to be sitting in the room below when they finally broke through, no doubt spilling dirt and twigs and dust over all assembled.

Jesus took it all in immediately and knew this was an act of unmovable faith. What do you say to someone who has dropped in suddenly upon you looking for a favour? “Son, your sins are forgiven.” There was such a commotion at these words that it seems the action was halted for a moment. Jesus did not heal this man right then. His first act is to forgive the sins of a paralyzed man.

Jesus had been teaching and preaching the word prior to this, and he attracted not only those hungry for a word from God, but also those anxious to put Jesus down. Scribes in the crowd started thinking their theological traps. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Not a bad question, if it were not motivated by the human desire to protect their own turf. Who forgave sins in first-century Palestine? The scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees and priests were the ones who interpreted the laws about who could be forgiven and under what circumstances, and the priests were the ones who presided over the ceremonies and rituals that gave formal forgiveness to an offender.

I guess they were all sitting pretty close to one another and you could just smell their disgusted thoughts, for Jesus sensed it right away and named their game. “Which is easier to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk?’” There is a pause like in a language tape in which you are expected to say the correct answer.

Well? The question is directed to you and me too.

No answer. Theology had been had. I have heard this story for decades and usually thought, “Of course, it’s easier to say that your sins are forgiven. Those are just words. To heal someone so hopelessly crippled would almost be humanly impossible.”

And to push you off your uncomfortable pew, Jesus looked first to all these glaring scribes and assured them, “So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” and then turning to the man on the stretcher, “Stand up and take your mat and walk and go to your home.” No editorial comments: he stood up and pushed his way out the door and went home. Have you ever seen anything like this?

Let’s not kid ourselves: healing someone is doable and you would do it in a flash, without thought. Remember that man who pulled the woman from a burning car and who then simply said he just reacted instinctively? Lots of miraculous rescues like that, lots of doctors and nurses who go to heroic measures regularly, if not routinely. Lots of parents who heal their children of all sorts of injury and disease. It says something wonderful about human nature that it is so often our instinctive response to save and to heal without thought for one’s own being.

To forgive the sins of another person, especially sins against you, that is almost infinitely harder. Nothing instinctive about it: you have to think about forgiving someone else and that makes it even more difficult for most of the reasons your normal mind and normal society will supply declare no forgiveness is possible or necessary.

Jesus calls it an issue of who has the authority to forgive and the authority has been passed on, delegated. It is one of the Protestant principles that you do not need a priest to receive forgiveness. The Protestant solution is so much more demanding, that you forgive someone else’s sins. Back then and still today we believe extraordinary illness and injury are deserved, not just randomly received. To forgive another of their sins against you is to heal that person, if not physically, then mentally and spiritually in an undeniably divine act of compassion and mercy. There is no forgiveness without the presence of God; or better to say, whenever you actually do forgive, God is invariably present and shedding tears with both of you.

Who says religious faith is all emotion and ritual? It is an intellectual faith, for you have got to think the most difficult thoughts, to think through your grudges and injuries and overpowering emotions. You have got to think with all your mind, think with all your heart, think with all your soul, and especially think with all your strength.

It is easier to heal, to restore property and rights, to attempt to make up for past injustices. Courts make us do it all the time. Somehow you and I seldom exercise our authority to think as the children of God, forgiving the sins of a criminal, someone who has offended you, a people whose leaders and citizens oppressed and discriminated against you. Like Jesus, that is our first step, to begin all over again with new life having forgiven and forgotten the old life, and then who knows who will stand up and walk home?

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan