Sunday, February 12, 2012 -- Annual Meeting Sunday

MAKING THE SCENE

Mark 2:1-12

   What was the typical house in Jesus’ time like? I’m not talking about places owned by the very wealthy or how those in poverty lived. I’m talking about houses where those of average means would most likely live.

   A good place to find the answer to this question would be in the village of Capernaum, a typical community in Galilee, where people worked hard and enjoyed the fruits of their labor as best they could. Perhaps that was why Jesus chose to make Capernaum His headquarters as He began His ministry.

   The average house there was not spacious—probably less than 800 square feet. The space was usually divided into two areas—a small room where meals were prepared, and the rest of the house, where everything from sleeping to eating to entertaining guests took place. It was common practice for homes to be very public places. Most families opened their front door once they were up in the morning and didn’t close it again until they went to bed that night. And, as long as that door was open, it was a signal that anyone who wished could just come on in.

   The roof of each house was also of a style worth noting. Roofs were flat. Beams were placed about three feet apart and the spaces in between these beams were tightly packed with scraps of brushwood and sealed with clay, making them rainproof and quite strong. In the event of any damage occurring to the roof, that section could easily be repaired. It was common for grass to grow on the roof—and chairs or even a mat to be placed up there—and almost always there would be stairs to get to the roof.

   Our New Testament reading for this week is found early in the Gospel of Mark. Mark does not waste any time plunging right into telling the stories of Jesus. By the time we get to the beginning of Chapter 2 and this morning’s reading a great deal has already happened and so much more is about to happen.

   We are pretty sure that Mark was in his early teens—about the age of our confirmation students—living with his parents in Jerusalem at the time of the events of Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection. We are pretty sure that Mark saw for himself some of what happened to Jesus that week, and was naturally curious about this man and wanted to learn more.

   Perhaps ten or fifteen years later Mark had the opportunity to travel with some of the early Christian leaders who were trying to spread the news about Jesus. In these travels Mark not only met the Apostle Peter but then spent extensive time traveling with him and listening to him as he told again and again the stories of Jesus to eager listeners everywhere they went. At this time these leaders were not concerned about writing the stories about Jesus down in book form. After all, they were sure that Jesus would return soon and writing would take too long. It was best just to listen to the people who had known Jesus personally as they told their stories.

   Then a great change took place, as the Emperor Nero began the harshest persecutions that Jesus’ followers had yet faced. These persecutions led to the capture and martyrdom of many of those who had known Jesus personally. Suddenly there was great concern among the leadership of this fledgling church to have the stories of Jesus written down before they were lost, and Mark—who had listened so long to Peter and knew the stories as well as anyone—was perhaps the best person to do this.

   So, sometime in the 60’s A.D., as we now call that decade, Mark went to work on this, and he did so hurriedly. Yes, we know that Matthew’s Gospel would eventually be placed first in the New Testament, but there is no question that Mark’s was the first to be written. Matthew and Luke would even use Mark’s Gospel as a guide in writing theirs.

   I suggest that sometimes as you read Mark’s Gospel you do so out loud. Read it yourself out loud or listen to someone else doing so, because this was the way Mark wrote it. In his mind he could still hear the stories as Peter had told them so many times, and Mark wrote them word for word just as he remembered them.

   In his first chapter Mark tells how Jesus first “made the scene” in terms of baptism and temptation, the calling of His first disciples, His first teachings and miracles.   Now we begin chapter two. Mark takes a deep breath and begins another very important section. In this chapter and into chapter three Mark now tells five stories that show how Jesus is different from and in many ways stands in opposition to the other religious leaders of His time. After having “made the scene,” now Jesus will begin to “make a scene.”

   The first of these stories is our Scripture this morning, and it takes place, in all its simplicity and beauty, in a very typical family home in the very typical town of Capernaum. Imagine the story as Mark had heard Peter describe it so many times.

   Jesus enters a house and begins to teach, and many people want to listen. They keep walking in through that open front door until there is no more room inside, and then they squeeze around the outside, wanting to hear everything He is saying. During His teaching there is a strange but distinctive sound. Has someone climbed the stairs up to the roof? And it sounds like not one person but several. And—can this be—it also sounds as though a hole is being made in the roof! Now everything stops because suddenly a paralyzed man, on a mat, is being lowered through the hole in the roof and placed right before Jesus!

   “What will happen now?” everyone must wonder! Jesus, seeing the devotion and the faith of this man’s friends, says to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” These words shock the Pharisees—the religious leaders of the day—because they are sure that only God has the right or the power to forgive sins.

   These words of Jesus probably shock the Pharisees and probably surprise us as well, but for different reasons. “Why is Jesus forgiving sins here?” we ask. “That isn’t what this man or his friends wanted!” Jesus, however, understands how closely intertwined the mind and heart are with a person’s body and health.

   I have often heard people, and perhaps you have, too, in times of great stress or trials say, “God must be really angry with me about something for this to be happening.” If this is our thinking, then we cannot be open to the blessing that God in truth wants to give us. So it is that Jesus says, so lovingly, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus is saying, “God is not angry with you.” Jesus is saying, “Allow yourself to be open to the great gifts God desires for you.” Only after this will Jesus say as well, “Take up your mat and walk,” and this man will do exactly that.

At our Deacons meeting this past week, as we talked about some of the needs and concerns among our congregation’s families right now, we talked most of all about the power of prayer. We reminded one another that prayer is not the least but the most that we can offer one another. The inclination is to think of prayer as a last resort in times of need. Jesus, however, tells everyone, from this paralyzed man and his friends, to the Pharisees protesting what He is doing, to us today trying to determine what is most important—that prayer does not come last but first. Knowing forgiveness and the wholeness of mind and of spirit is the beginning of the further blessing God wants to bestow. From this beginning all else can follow—even to having us take up our mat, whatever it may be, to walk and glorify God.

   A young boy named Mark, at about the age of our confirmation students, had just enough glimpses of Jesus to want to learn more. He would be so fortunate as to listen to Peter himself tell countless stories about Jesus—and then would write those stories into a book so that all of us for all time would know these stories as well.

   One of these stories was how Jesus “made the scene” and “made a scene” in the most ordinary place there could be—a family home. In that home Jesus turned the thinking of the Pharisees upside down—and perhaps turns some of ours upside down as well. Prayer is not the least we can do but the most, because it brings us into right relationship with God. In this right relationship we understand that God is not angry with us, but loves and forgives and wants us to be whole.

   Jesus sees the faith of the friends of the paralyzed man. They were such friends that they would not let any barrier keep them from helping their friend. May we also know that through the power of prayer there can be for us as well no barriers that cannot and will not be overcome, because prayer opens us to the infinite love of God.

Rev. Harold Steindam
Westerville Community United Church of Christ
February 12, 2012
Annual Meeting Sunday

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Posted on Sun, February 12, 2012 by Harold Steindam