Seventh Epiphany, 2006:   

Two friends went out to play golf and were about to tee off, when one fellow noticed that his partner had only one golf ball.    

“Don’t you have at least one other golf ball?” he asked.  The other guy said that no, he only needed the one.    

“Are you sure?” the friend persisted.  “What happens if you lose that ball?”    

The other fellow said, “This is a very special golf ball.  I won’t lose it, so I don’t need another one.”    

“Well,” his friend asked, “what happens if you miss hit on the # 3 lake hole and your ball goes in the water?”   

“That’s okay,” the fellow said, “this special golf ball floats.  I’ll be able to retrieve it.”    

“Well, what happens if you hit it into the trees and it gets lost among the bushes and scrubs?”    

The other fellow said, “That’s okay, too.  You see, this special golf ball has a homing beacon.  I’ll be able to get it back; no problem.”    

Exasperated, the friends asked, “Okay, let’s say our round goes late, the sun goes down, and you hit your ball into a sand trap.  What are you going to do then?”    

“Again, no problem,” the friend said, “You see, this ball is florescent.  I’ll be able to see it in the dark.”    

Finally satisfied that his friend only needed the one ball, the other fellow asked, “Hey, where did you get a golf ball like that anyway?”    

The other fellow said, “I found it.”    

Friends rejoice at the good fortune of others.  Friends also stand by when things are not going so well or when trouble strikes.  What distinguishes a true friend from just an acquaintance is that a true friend will go to any length to help out.      

The story in the Gospel for this Sunday, Mark 2:1-12, gives us an account of true friendship.  Jesus had returned to Capernaum after having ministered in Galilee.  The report of his return had gone out that he had returned to his home by the seas and a crowd began to gather.  He was teaching and healing many of the sick, when a noise interrupted the gathering.  People looked up at the source of the disturbance and saw four men removing a section of the roof from the house.  Then the four began to lower a paralyzed friend down by ropes into the midst of the gathering.  See the length to which these friends were going to help their friend, Jesus went from preaching to meddling.   

 Things are about to get interesting.  This healing story has certain things that may well speak to our modern-day assumptions.  First, I know you have noticed that anytime a person of some reputation speaks or does anything there are a few who attend just to take exception, just to shoot holes in the presentation, or to argue with the speaker.  That’s the situation in which Jesus often found himself.  That’s true in the Gospel for today.    

A little reminder might help us better understand what is going on in this incident.  This healing miracle happened in a culture that assumed a direct connection between illness and sin.  Obviously, this man was paralyzed because he was a sinner and was continuing to sin against God.  The rabbis had been teaching for centuries that no one could be healed of any sickness until their sins had been forgiven.  This man was in this sad shape because God was angry with him.    

It may also be true that the man being lowered into the presence of Jesus agreed with those assumptions.  Perhaps even the good friends who had carried him and lowered him believed the same thing.  He must have done something that caused his condition or maybe he was unable to move because of the sin of his parents.  It is also probably true that Jesus knew that was what this man was thinking.  So, the first thing Jesus says to him is not, “What’s wrong with you?”  He doesn’t ask, “How long have you been this way?”  Nor does he ask, “Do you really want to be healed?”    

The first thing Jesus said to the man was, “Son, your sins have been forgiven.”  Hearing that God was not angry with him, nor was God punishing him for things done or left undone, made the healing possible.  Being relieved of the burden of God’s wrath, the man could hear that everything would be okay.  His healing was possible precisely because he now felt that he had a new heart.  I would want to say that Jesus says the same thing to each one of us.  Accepting God’s forgiveness allows us to not be afraid.    

The second thing about this healing is that granting forgiveness to this paralyzed man was an even greater affront to the Pharisees than the teaching about God’s Kingdom or even the healing itself.  Forgiveness of someone obviously unworthy, as this man most assuredly was, always threatens a purely legalistic system.  Doing what he did places Jesus at odds with those who assumed equality between behavior and punishment.    

So, what about us?  Do we assume equality between behavior and punishment?  As a nation built on laws we most assuredly do.  What else could we do?  But, we must always remember that a political system is not God’s Kingdom.  If that’s what we believe we really have only two choices, like the scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel.  We can turn away from Jesus the Christ and his cause in the world or we can join with those who pray, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”  Obviously, the scribes and Pharisees decided Jesus was wrong.  He was so wrong that their opposition would lead to crucifixion.    

The third truth about this healing is that at the heart of the Christian enterprise is forgiveness.  Jesus taught that the Kingdom is not for the good and righteous people.  Surely, some good comes from striving to follow Jesus.  But, Jesus came, he said, to call those who know they are not good.  A religion that demands evidence of goodness as a prerequisite for salvation will become so burdensome that it will finally break.  Or, it will lead to a fanaticism that we see in many parts of the world today.  That applies with equal force to fanatical Christian expression of the faith as it does to other religions.  We sometimes forget that the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.  And just so we don’t get too narrow in our definition of neighbor, Jesus told the story about the Muslim man who fell into the hands of Christian robbers whose wounds were tended to by a Jewish fellow.      

I hope you have noticed that Jesus does not demand goodness as a prerequisite to receiving God’s love or entering God’s Kingdom.  What he does say is that we can follow him, we can make some spiritual progress every day, we can grow more and more Christ-like in this spiritual journey, and we can reach out to others with this loving Gospel of forgiveness.  We are not worthy!  We have been made worthy by the blood of the Lamb.    

We pray every day, I hope, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  We have to say it over and over again.  That allows us to have a rebirth as a sinner into the fellowship of fellow sinners, into the fellowship of the forgiven.  This fellowship, the one you are in this morning, is made up of those who recognize that the first qualification for membership is to admit we are unworthy.  That alone flings wide the gate.      

A paralyzed man, unworthy as he was, loved by his friends who would do anything to help, got lowered into the presence of Jesus by those four unworthy friends.  Because they did that, they found a wonderful savior that day.  I pray we will find the same and not worry about being good enough.  Remember, we worship a savior who does not love us just when we are good and when we find a magic golf ball, but when we are bad and hit shot after shot into the water.  It is a wonderful thing to have good friends who will go to any lengths to bring us into the saving presence of God in Christ.  That awareness gives us renewed energy to take the next step along the path.  Amen.