The Sermon Study Guide is here.
Luke 5:17-26
January 4, 2015 • Portage First UMC
Well, it’s a brand new year. We're four days into 2015, and I’m wondering how many of you made any sort of New Year’s Resolution this year. Anyone? Statistically, about 45% of Americans usually make some sort of resolution, so about half. Of those folks, 25% of them will not make it past the first week before breaking their resolution and by June, only 46% will still be maintaining those resolutions. To be honest, I was surprised that number was as high as it is! 46% making it past six months is actually pretty good! Now, what do you think the most popular resolution is? Number one on most Americans’ list is “lose weight.” Also in the top ten:
Get organized,
Spend less and save more,
Enjoy life to the fullest,
Stay fit and healthy,
Learn something exciting,
Quit smoking,
Help others fulfill their dreams,
Fall in love, and
Spend more time with family.
Research also says that those who make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t. Ten times more likely! And the reason seems to be because they’ve determined what’s most important. They’ve sorted it out in their minds and their hearts and they become determined to put first things first in their lives. As much “bad press” as new year’s resolutions get, “real life” experience says they are incredibly valuable for helping us make and follow our priorities.
The new year always feels like a new start, even though it’s just the turn of a calendar page. Still, there’s something different in the air this time of year, a hopefulness that things might just be different this year. And it's in that spirit, that hope, we make resolutions. Yet I wonder if the reason some people don't make it past the first week is because, somewhere in the midst of that week, reality sets in and we realize again that we and the world are broken. At some point we begin to believe that little voice inside us that says nothing will ever change, or can ever change. It doesn’t take a theologian or even an expert analyst to tell us that the world is not like it ought to be. Something, somewhere along the way, got broken. And many times, we experience that brokenness in our own lives. In this new year, for the next month, we’re going to be looking at some of the ways that brokenness shows up in our lives, and, more importantly, how we can find hope and healing for that brokenness—how we can head down the road to wholeness. Throughout this month, we’ll be talking about brokenness that happens in relationships, brokenness comes from doubt, and brokenness that we encounter in the form of evil. But this morning, we begin at what, at least at first blush, seems to be a more basic form of brokenness as we encounter a man who was paralyzed—broken by illness. But, as with many stories in the Gospels, what first seems to be evident is not what is really going on.
Jesus is, most likely, in Capernaum, the town he chose for his base of operations during his ministry in Galilee. He’s teaching in a house, probably Peter's house, where Jesus stayed when he was in Capernaum (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg 79). That house, by the way, has been located and it’s just down the street from the synagogue. So we shouldn’t be surprised that there were people hanging around who have fashioned themselves as religious police. We know them in the Gospels as the Pharisees. The Pharisees were not an “official” group; by that I mean they were not officially authorized by the priests or anyone else within organized Judaism (cf. Bock, NIV Application Commentary: Luke, pg. 157). You might call them a protest group of sorts. Believing that those in Jerusalem weren’t serious enough about their faith, the Pharisees group had developed as a sort of “holiness” or (we might call them) a “back to the Bible” group. They believed the secret to being faithful was to observe the Torah, the Law, very carefully, and if they did that, they would create the conditions that would enable the kingdom of God to come (Wright, Luke for Everyone, pgs. 59-60). And to make sure that happened, they spread out all over the country, trying to keep an eye on everyone, to make sure people behaved. So that’s why, whenever Jesus is teaching or preaching, the Pharisees seem to always be close by. They’re checking on this teacher, this rabbi, to make sure he doesn’t say or do anything that would be considered unorthodox.
And so, Jesus is “home,” in Capernaum, teaching while people from all over the area have come to listen to him and, maybe even more importantly, to get him to heal the sick. There is a crowd that has already gathered, probably spilling out into the street, when some men come with their paralyzed friend. Somewhere, someone has told them that if they could just get to Jesus, he would heal their friend, and so they have loaded him up and traveled—who knows how far?—to be able to have a chance for their friend to walk again. They know—they just know—that if they can get him to Jesus, if they can lay him down at Jesus’ feet, their friend will walk again.
One problem—or rather, many problems. There are too many people gathered there. By the time they get there, it’s “standing room only” and there are no tickets left. No one will give up their spot, and no one will move so that they can get to the front of the line. There is simply no way they are going to be able to get close to Jesus. And I imagine them setting their friend down and beginning to feel a bit depressed. I mean, they’ve come all this way with a single objective: healing for their friend. Perhaps the man on the mat quietly says, “It’s okay, guys, I know you tried.” Just then, one of the friends figures out a way. Many of the houses in that area in that time were built with an exterior stairway, allowing families to use the flat roof of their house for extra living space (cf. Bock 157). “Let’s take him up on the roof!” he says. And the other friends look at him questioningly. “What are we going to do with him when we get him up on the roof?” “We’ll make a hole and let him down into the house.” Now, that would involve quite a bit of work, as the roof may have had a layer of tile on it, and certainly would have had hardened mud on top of roof beams (Bock 157). It would be like digging a hole in a dry desert, but the friends were determined, and so that’s what they do. I always try to imagine what it must have been like to be sitting inside the house when suddenly pieces of dried mud start dropping onto your head. Before Peter can get out of the house to stop them, he has a genuine sun roof carved right into his house, and down through that natural solar panel is coming a paralyzed man on a mat. The friends lower him carefully, right in front of Jesus. And the friends look through the hole, down at Jesus, eager to see their friend walk again.
Because his problem is physical, right? I mean, he can’t walk, so obviously the problem is his paralysis. That’s why the friends bought him here. And as they wait, I imagine silence falling over everyone gathered there as Jesus looks down at the man on the mat. There are a lot of things that could be said just at that moment. I imagine Peter had a few things he would like to have said about his roof, but there must have been a sense that something bigger than a roof or even than this man was about to happen, because there are no words recorded until Jesus says these astonishing words: “Friend, your sins are forgiven” (5:20). Wait a minute, the friends must be thinking—his sins are forgiven? That’s not why they brought their friend to Jesus. They brought him for healing. And, amazingly, that’s exactly what Jesus offers to him in those simple words: “Your sins are forgiven.”
There are several things to notice in this text, and the first is, perhaps, whose faith Jesus is responding to. It’s not the faith of the man on the mat—the man who, by the way, doesn’t say a single thing in this whole story (though at the end of the story we are told he was “praising God”). No, Jesus responds to the faith of the friends (5:20). It’s their faith that moved him—but faith in what? Or in whom? Was their faith in Jesus? Was their faith in his “magical” healing powers? We’re not told, but it seems to be that faith is more than just thinking about something or even more than agreeing with something. Faith is putting what you think and what you believe into action. The “faith” Jesus responds to is the action of these man, the fact that they took huge chances because they believed if they could just get their friend to Jesus, Jesus would heal him. Because of their action, Jesus is moved to respond (cf. Bock 157; Card 79).
But they must have been at least somewhat disappointed in his first response. Forgiving sins? That wasn’t even on the menu, Jesus! And besides that, the man didn’t even ask for forgiveness of any sort, nor did his friends. What in the world is going on here? What’s happening here is that Jesus is able to see what we really need, not just what we think we want. Jesus is helping this man put first things first, to deal with what’s really troubling him. Now, certainly, there are passages in the Bible where it’s clear there is some sort of connection between sickness and sin. I’m not saying that every sickness is caused by someone’s sin—not at all. But there certainly is a sense that some conditions can be caused or even made worse by spiritual problems, by having no sense of forgiveness. God made us as whole persons—body, mind and soul—and our whole life is interconnected. So refusing or failing to deal with forgiveness issues in our lives, not confronting the sin that sneaks into our lives can leave us very broken people. Jesus doesn’t say outright if that’s what’s going on here or not with this paralyzed man. All he does is look into the man’s heart and deal with the most important thing first: “Your sins are forgiven.”
And that’s when the Pharisees pop up and accuse Jesus of what was probably one of their favorite accusations against him and against most anyone they didn’t agree with: “This fellow speaks blasphemy” (cf. 5:21). “Blasphemy” is one of those good, religious words we sometimes might use but often have little idea what it means, or at least what it meant when the Pharisees accused Jesus of it. Blasphemy is a “slander against God” (Bock 158). It's doing something or saying something that detracts from the power or the glory of God; in other words, it’s getting in God’s way, shining our own light rather than his (cf. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, pg. 75). I found it interesting that the Greek word here comes from various words which mean “injure, throw, strike, harm” or “stupid.” And certainly the Pharisees considered anyone who would commit blasphemy to be stupid. But, really, for the Pharisees, the blasphemy of Jesus centered around who he claimed to be, because, to their understanding, the only one who could forgive sins was God alone. The Old Testament law, which the Pharisees were trying to get everyone to obey in detail, had all sorts of practices and sacrifices and rituals by which you could get God to forgive your sins. And though a priest may pronounce you forgiven, the priest was not the one doing the forgiving. God along could forgive sins, so when Jesus tells this man his sins are forgiven, he’s claiming to he equal with God himself. Jesus is claiming to be God, and that’s something the Pharisees will not put up with. All of this teaching and dispensing of wisdom—they may not like that, but they can put up with it. But forgiving sins—well, now Jesus has crossed a line.
But, you see, the simple fact of the matter is that this man needed to know he could be forgiven more than he needed to know he could walk. We don’t know the circumstances of his life, but Jesus saw into his heart and knew what needed to come first. “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” And then, when the Pharisees grumble to themselves, Jesus takes it a step further. “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?” (5:23). Well, both are equally impossible; you simply don’t tell a man to get up and walk any more than you can pronounce the forgiveness of sins (Card 79). And then Jesus makes his point: “But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (5:24). And that’s when he heals the man. The man stands up, for the first time in we don’t know how long, and he goes home. And everyone in the crowd, we’re told, is “amazed” (as people often are in Luke’s Gospel) and they say, “We have seen remarkable things today” (5:26). The word translated “remarkable” there really means “paradoxes.” They have seen paradoxes, things you wouldn’t normally expect to see (Wright 61). They’ve seen something here out of the ordinary. So the question is: which was more a paradox: the healing of the man or the forgiveness of his sin?
And even more than that, we need to ask why this scene was so remarkable to this crowd. I think it had little to do with the healing; many of them had probably seen Jesus do something similar before. In fact, he had healed Peter’s mother-in-law right here in this very house not that long ago (4:38-39). He had healed a man with leprosy in the passage just before this (5:12-16). What’s amazing here is how Jesus handles forgiveness, how he sees into the heart of this man and knows what he needs. What’s amazing is how Jesus doesn’t deal with insignificant things; he deals with the first things first. This man needed forgiveness; he needed to know his sins could be taken away. And so, I would bet, did most every person in that crowd. All of their lives they had lived with this idea that the only way you could be forgiven was to go through the rituals, the sacrifices, the festivals—especially the Day of Atonement—and if you did everything correctly, the priest would announce your forgiveness. You had to present something, some offering, in order to receive forgiveness. You had to do something, you had to ask for it. And now Jesus sees this man, who asks for nothing, who may not even be there willingly, and he offers forgiveness. That’s remarkable, and the crowd reacts this way because deep inside, they have this longing to be forgiven just like that.
So do we. There are things in each of our lives that have us paralyzed, feeling hopeless, feeling as if we are simply stuck in this place. And while we worry about the externals, the appearances, Jesus looks down into our hearts and sees that often what we first need to deal with are the places where we have been broken by unforgiveness. Every time you see her, there’s anger and animosity because she walked out on you. Decisions that should be about the best thing for your children become huge arguments because it’s become a power struggle. Who will win? Who do the children love the most? Who will get the most time? Divorce has broken your family and there is a root of bitterness that grows stronger every time the two of you interact. The externals, the details, have become more important than the seeking of any forgiveness. Then there’s the person you see at the grocery store, the person who hurt you some time back with their words or their actions. Do you speak to them? Do you ignore them? More importantly, what happens inside of you when you notice them ahead of you in line? Does your gut clench up? Do you want to find some way to hurt them back as much as they hurt you? Do you even think about forgiving them, even if they never ask for it, or has it become all about payback?
Maybe you’ve been to some family gatherings over this Christmas season, and there, across the room from you, eating the same green bean casserole you’re eating, is the one who, for all those years, abused you, verbally, physically and spiritually. You’ve never told anyone, and the two of you have never talked about it. He shows no remorse, never has. You wonder if he ever thinks about what he did to you, and just then, he looks your way and smiles. Suddenly, the emotional and spiritual paralysis you thought was gone takes over again. How can you ever forgive someone like that? And then there are the deep-seated, generation-spanning issues that are erupting all over our country these days. Whether it’s a racism issue or an authority issue or an anger issue, we’ve have story after story of persons who have been shot and killed when they shouldn’t have been. No matter what side of the issue you come down on, Jesus calls us to look past the bloodshed, past the rioting, past the angry words and threatening tones, to look deeper into the situations and see the need for forgiveness. Whether “the other side” wants forgiveness or not, there is simply no way for our country to move forward—politically, economically, socially and certainly spiritually—if we don’t find a way to put first things first and forgive one another.
You see, forgiveness is not ultimately about the other person; forgiveness is about you and your relationship with God. It’s not about letting the other person off the hook; it’s about finding healing for your soul. As it’s been said before, refusing to forgive someone is allowing them to live rent-free inside your head. It’s giving that other person or that situation more power and influence in your life than they deserve. Refusing to pursue forgiveness hurts you more than it hurts them. Or, as another person has put it: refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Unforgiveness poisons our soul, and Jesus came to bring healing. This man in Luke 5 was not really broken by his paralysis. He was broken by his need of forgiveness, and once Jesus showed him that forgiveness was possible, everything else became possible, too.
The problem we encounter, at this moment, though is that this is where I’m supposed to give you the magic formula for forgiveness. Three easy steps to finding healing and wholeness. Pray this magic prayer, do this ritual, whatever, and forgiveness will happen. The problem is this: that’s not what Jesus does. He never gives us a formula. He simply asks us, even commands us, to be forgiving people. He doesn’t say forgiveness will happen overnight. He doesn’t say it will always happen in an instance, and he doesn’t even give us a really good picture of what it looks like when we have forgiven, when we’ve experienced forgiveness. What he did, instead, is to offer himself in our place, to take on himself the punishment for our sin—indeed, for all the sin of the world—when he died on the cross. And even then, as cruel men were nailing his hands and feet to a piece of wood, Jesus prayed forgiveness for them (cf. Luke 23:34)—the ultimate example of asking for forgiveness for someone who didn’t ask for it, who didn’t want it, and who, we would say, certainly didn’t deserve it. But there it is, nonetheless. And when we take communion, as we’re going to do in just a few moments, we remember Jesus on the cross, what he gave and what he did to allow us to find forgiveness, to be forgiven.
This morning, we are the paralyzed man. Perhaps some of us are more paralyzed than others today. We need to hear Jesus say to us, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” But we also need to be aware of the people who need to hear that from us as well, who need words of hope and reconciliation to flow their way. This morning, we are undoubtedly a mixed bag of those who are paralyzed and those who are on their way to healing. That’s what a church is; that’s what a community is. Today, as we come to this table, this place of forgiveness, may you find the strength to take that first step, whatever it might be, to pursue healing from the brokenness of unforgiveness. I pray that in this bread and in this cup, you can sense the presence of Jesus and hear him saying, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” Let’s come to the table and find healing for today, tomorrow and all the days yet to come.
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