There was a man, who was a workaholic. He had a son, who was about seven years old, and like most seven-year-olds, he wanted to spend time with his father, playing catch or some other activity. The father kept promising to spend time with his son, but he was always breaking his promises because the demands of his job often forced him to take his work home with him. So instead of playing catch with his son, he worked. This happened so much that his son became upset. The man knew that he had to put his work aside and spend some time with his son playing catch. He told his son, “Tomorrow when I get home from work, I promise.”
The next day arrived and he was even more burdened with his job than ever before. His son came to him, expecting his father to put aside his work and pick up a ball and a glove. But the father didn’t feel as if he could drop what he was doing at the moment. The father tried to quickly come up with a way to postpone playing catch without hurting his son’s feelings. He found an issue of National Geographic and opened it to a map of the world. He quickly tore the map up into pieces and told his son that it was a puzzle. He said that when his son had put it together, he would stop working and play catch. The father expected that this task would keep his seven year old son busy for an hour or two. After about five minutes, however, the son returned to his father. The puzzle was completed. The father was dumbfounded. “How did you put it together so fast?” he asked his son. The boy replied, “I noticed that on the other side of the map, there was a picture of a man–and when I concentrated on putting the man together, the world just fell into place.”
It doesn’t take much insight to see that the world does not seem like an orderly place most of the time. To many people, the world just makes no sense. It’s a puzzle, and what makes matters worse is that it seems to many people as if some of the pieces are missing. I’m certain that someone out there knows what I’m talking about. To a great many of us, the world seems out of whack, and most of us can never recall a time when it ever was “in whack.” But I’m going to make a radical promise. I don’t mean that it is radical in the sense that it is revolutionary or extreme or crazy. I mean radical in the original sense of the word that refers to something that “cuts to the root” or “cuts to the core” of something; although, to some, what I’m about to promise may sound revolutionary and it may seem a little extreme, and I’m certain that it will sound more than a little crazy to some. The promise that I’m about to make is radical because it cuts to the core of Christianity. The promise is this: your whole world can start to fall into place if you concentrate on putting your life together. But here’s the catch, the one requirement for putting your life back together is faith. If we live a life of faith, our world will fall into place, and we will discover a world of stability. That is the promise.
"Forget what happened in the past,” the prophet Isaiah said, “don’t dwell on event from long ago. I am going to do something new. It is already happening. Don’t you recognize it?
Believe it or not, there is stability in the world. Believe it or not, the world can make sense. It’s already happening! Don’t you recognize it? Can’t you see it? If you can’t, then you’re not looking at the world the way it is. The world is not like you think it is. This is what Jesus preached. If you really want to know how the world is, then you have to look at it in a new way. That new way is through faith.
The very first thing that Jesus said to anybody in Mark’s Gospel was a declaration that world was not what people thought it was:
“The Kingdom of God is near. Change the way you think about the world, act differently (that is the meaning or “repent”), and believe in the Good News.”
This simple declaration got people talking. Jesus exorcized a demon from a man in a synagogue in Capernaum, and people continued talking. When they heard that Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, people started talking even more, and based on what was said, they brought to Jesus the sick and the possessed, and Jesus cured them and exorcized demons. Jesus was becoming famous.
Jesus then decided that his mission was to go to other towns and preach to them about the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God to them as well. So he traveled around visiting various synagogues, preaching, exorcizing demons, and curing illnesses. And still the people were talking about him. Then Jesus came across a leper who asked to be made clean so that he could rejoin society, and Jesus did as he was asked. He cured the leper and the leper went around telling everybody he came in contact with about what Jesus had done for him. The result was that so many people came out to see Jesus that he could no longer move about freely, but had to take measures to avoid the crowd and hide out in the middle of nowhere. But still the people were talking and they searched him out and found him wherever he went.
Now this sounds like a good thing. Fame, recognition, people coming from all over to hear us and see us–this is every American’s dream. This is why people debase and humiliate themselves on reality T.V., so they can have their fifteen minutes of fame and feel like they were somebody. People like to be recognized. People like people wanting to know them. We have been trained to think that large crowds equals success. Something or someone is successful if a lot of people show up. A church with 20,000 members is thought to be infinitely more successful than a church with 20 member. When it comes to standards of success, size matters. So Jesus draws a crowd and people are talking and we think that this is a sign of Jesus’ success.
But the crowds actually signal a failure. According to the Greek, Jesus pushed the leper away, getting him away from him as quickly as he could. He told him to go to the priests so that he could be pronounced “clean.” But the man instead went around proclaiming the healing he had received from Jesus. Here’s the irony of that story: when the story begins, Jesus could move around freely and was a part of society, while the leper was cut off from society. At the end of the story, the leper could move around freely and was a part of society, but Jesus was cut off and had to hide out in the middle of nowhere. Jesus and the leper had changed places.
Remember, Jesus saw his mission as going to other towns and proclaiming the good news about the coming of the Kingdom of God. This included the challenge to think differently about the world and act differently. The leper’s response to Jesus made it so that Jesus could not accomplish his mission. Jesus’ mission is undermined by his fame. The crowds got in the way! Jesus couldn’t do what he thought he should be doing.
A crowd is not a congregation. A crowd is not a following. A crowd is not filled with disciples and followers. A crowd is filled with people whose commitments are undirected and undefined. Crowds are fickle. Their motives are often spotty at best--as Jesus will learn by the end of Mark’s Gospel. The crowd may or may not care about the coming of the Kingdom. The crowd may or may not care about Jesus’ mission. Crowds in the Gospels are frequently described as being amazed by what they saw, but it was never enough for them. They always wanted more. The crowds were constantly demanding more miracles, more signs–the crowd didn’t want salvation, the crowd didn’t want to change the way they understand the world, the crowd merely wanted entertainment. The crowd was looking for distraction, not discipleship. The crowd wanted to see a spectacle. They don’t care about the preaching of the word of salvation. Certainly there were some in the crowd who were, or would become, committed to Jesus and his message, but for the most part, the people in the crowd were never for or against Jesus. They were the worst kind of people, the uncommitted. According to Dante’s Inferno, there is a special place in hell reserved for those who cannot bother to be for or against God and his Christ. This is the crowd. It is filled with people who want to take, but who don’t want to receive.
So Jesus went back home to Capernaum, his base of operations. When the people of Capernaum heard that Jesus had returned home, they stormed the house that he was staying in. It was literally standing room only. The house was packed with people and crowd spilled out of the door into the yard. Jesus preached to them about the coming of the Kingdom and about the need to change the way they think about the world and the need to act differently. And the crowd grew larger and larger, waiting for Jesus to stop talking and do something cool like he had done in the past.
Then a group of people arrived, four of whom carried a paralyzed man on a stretcher. They wanted Jesus to heal him and make him whole again, but they couldn’t even get close. Once more the crowd got in the way. So this group of people took matters into their own hands. The paralyzed man’s friends were not deterred by the crowd and found a way to get him up on the roof. This was a major effort. They had to find a way to lift him up without dropping him. Once on the roof they dug a hole in it. This also was no small thing. This would result in a major repair for the homeowner. In first century Palestine, the roof served as an extra room and had to be sturdy enough for a family to live on and sleep on during hot nights. They had to dig though a thick layer of dried mud brick that was reinforced with plant material and the whole thing rested upon sturdy wooden beams. In addition to being effort, digging the hole would have resulted in the creation of a large amount of dust and debris. The crowd inside the house is packed in there and there is no way to get out once these guys started digging. All the people in the house could do was cough and choke while they dug through the roof. Once the hole was dug, it would nearly be impossible to fix it again so that it wouldn’t leak. The owner of the house would most likely have to build a whole new roof. This was a major effort on the part of the group of people with the paralyzed man. They destroy a house to get their friend to Jesus.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Child, your sins are forgiven."
Jesus saw something in the actions of these men and refers to it as “faith.” Faith is an important component in the Gospel narratives. In Mark’s Gospel a woman with chronic bleeding is healed and is told that her faith has made her well. Blind Bartimaeus is given his sight and also told by Jesus that his faith has made him well. Jesus will tell the father of a demon possessed boy that “All things are possible for the one who believes,” that is, for the one who has faith. We are also told that Jesus could not perform miracles in his hometown of Nazareth because of the peoples’ lack of faith. So faith is a very important concept in the Gospels. It seems to work along side of God’s will and activity in the world. It is the force that makes things, all things, possible. Lack of faith opposes God’s activity. In the Bible, a person of faith goes along with God’s will, but a person with no faith goes against it and undermines God’s will. That may sound like a tough judgment, but that’s the way it is.
So what can be learn about faith from Mark’s Gospel this morning so that we can learn to go along with God, rather than oppose God?
The first thing that we learn is that biblical faith is a matter of trust. That is simply what faith means, “to trust.” This, however, is not how most people understand faith. The general consensus about faith is that it is merely some sort of intellectual assent to an idea or a proposition. For most people, faith is merely a mental exercise that rarely makes it outside the confines of the mind. We say things like, “I believe that God exists,” and we tell ourselves that acceptance of such a proposition is what faith is. This isn’t faith; it’s a concept. Most people confuse concept with faith. We are told a concept, and if we agree with it, we call our acceptance of that concept faith.
Biblical faith is a trusting in, or a reliance on, God. It is no mere acceptance of God as concept, but a trusting and reliance on God as a reality. When we recite the creed together and say, “We believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of everything seen and unseen,” we are not declaring that we believe in the existence of God and this is what distinguishes us from others. The creed was written by Christians to settle an argument with other Christians. Both parties accepted the concept of God’s existence. They argued over what kind of God they believed in. It wasn’t a matter of existence, it was a matter of character. It was a matter of ability. When we recite the creed we are declaring the kind of God we believe in.
When a student has a big test the next day and confesses to her mother that she is uncertain how well she will do on it, and the mother says to her, “I have faith in you,” the isn’t saying, “I accept the notion of your existence.” Instead she’s saying something like, “I trust in your ability.” She is also saying something like, “I trust that you will do well on the test.” That is what biblical faith is. It is the trusting in God’s ability in a way that is certain about the outcome. The mother’s declaration of “I have faith in you,” isn’t a suggestion that the daughter can or may do well on the test; it is a bold declaration that the daughter will do well on the test. The mother doesn’t trust in the possibility of what the daughter can do, she is certain about what her daughter will do. That is what faith is! Faith isn’t just believing what God can do; it is being certain of what God will do.
The second thing that we learn is that biblical faith always results in some sort of action. Our trust in, and reliance on, God compels us to behave in certain ways. If I truly believe in something, it’s going to affect the way I act. If I say that I believe that stealing is wrong, but I cheat on my taxes and I scheme to get free cable then I really believe that stealing is okay. I may intellectually assent to the idea that stealing is wrong, but I really believe that it is right, at least, right for me when it serves to my advantage. I think that what a lot of people mean when they say they believe that stealing is wrong is, “I believe that stealing is wrong for you if you do it.”
Every child is aware of their parents’ really believe by what their parents’ do, not by what their parents’ say. If a father tells his children that smoking is bad, while a cigarette is hanging out of his mouth, the children learn that the father doesn’t believe that smoking is bad at all. If a mother tells her children that using foul language is bad, but she uses profanity all the time, the children learn that the use of profanity is okay. One of the most common accusations that non-Christians levy against Christians is that they are hypocrites–they say one thing but do another. People who don’t go to church know that it’s what you’re doing that states what you believe, not what you say. People learn what we really believe by what we are doing. If we are not doing it, we don’t believe it. A person of faith is a person of action.
A third thing we learn is that biblical faith is not hindered by obstacles. The people in the Gospel reading don’t just accept that Jesus can heal their friend, they are totally convinced that he will. They just have to get to him. Their belief in Jesus–not in his existence, but in his character–compelled them to take their paralyzed friend to him to be healed. They immediately face the obstacle of a huge crowd that separated them from Jesus. They could have just said, “Oh well, we tried. We’re never going to get close enough to him, so let’s just go home.” But instead, they find a way around the crowd. They defy the obstacle of gravity as they find a way to carry their friend up to the roof. And the very real and tangible obstacle of the solid, physical structure of the house doesn’t stop them from getting to Jesus.
Understand this: if you trust in God, and that trust compels you to take action, obstacles will arise. Understand this: if you don’t trust in God, whatever actions you take, obstacles will arise. Obstacles are a part of life. A life of faith isn’t a life that is free from obstacles. A life of faith is a life of conviction and action that keeps on going in spite of whatever obstacle is in the way.
I’ve heard it said in the past that fear is the opposite of faith and that a person cannot have faith and be afraid. That is totally wrong! Faith and fear occur together all the time. Faith in the midst of fear is what courage is. Courage isn’t a fearless existence. It’s doing something in spite of being afraid. I had many friends who fought in Operation Desert Storm. Every one of them told me that they were afraid most of the time that they were engaged in combat. But they had faith in their training and they had faith in their mission. They did their job and they did it well in spite of their fear. Faith gives us the courage to face any obstacle and the perseverance to overcome it..
In The Empire Strikes Back, the young Jedi, Luke, is being trained by the Jedi Master, Yoda. At one point, Luke’s spaceship, which had crashed in a swamp, starts to sink. Luke is concerned that he is going to lose his ship. Yoda tells him to save his ship by using the Force. Luke doesn’t think he can, but makes an effort that results in failure. In fact, the situation is even worse because the shifting of the ship caused it to sink even faster. Luke walks away discouraged and angry. Then Yoda steps up and uses the Force to stop the ship from sinking. He pulls it out of the swamp and sets it safely on dry land. Luke, happy that his ship is safe says to Yoda, “I don’t believe it.” Yoda answers him, “That is why you fail.” Some of the greatest obstacles to our faith comes from our lack of it.
The fourth thing that we learn is that biblical faith is a source of stability. In Hebrew, the primary nouns that are derived from the verb, “to trust” are the words for “firmness” and “stability.” The Bible makes it clear that a stable life is a life of faith. A life of wholeness, a life of completeness, is a result of living a life of trusting in God and acting accordingly, regardless of the obstacles that come about. The paralyzed man was made whole because of faith. He was made spiritually whole as well. His sins were forgiven. He was carried in a broken man by his friends who trusted so much in Jesus’ ability to heal him that they didn’t let anything get in their way, not even a house. He walked out a whole man, forgiven and healthy.
We live in an unstable world. It often seems as if the world is falling apart just a little bit more each day. There is continual violence in the Middle East. There are suicide bombers. There are riots all over the world over cartoons printed in newspapers. There is road rage. There are strains of super bacteria that don’t respond to antibiotics. You’ve read the headlines. You’ve watched the news. The world is chaotic and crazy. The general consensus is that it is continually getting more and more crazy and unstable all the time. And the reason for this is lack of faith.
I’m not saying that the problems of the world are getting worse because people don’t believe in God anymore. The problem is that people just don’t believe in anything anymore. There is a general epidemic of a lack of the ability to trust. People don’t trust government. They don’t trust politicians. They don’t trust the police. Nobody trusts the news. People don’t trust others’ motives when they go out of their way to help them or do something nice for them. Sex scandals and televangelists have undermined peoples trust in the church and in Christianity.
Since we believe that there is nothing that we can trust, we take matters into our own hands and we chase after seemingly trustworthy things like wealth and material objects. When they prove themselves barren, we try to ignore the instability by distracting ourselves by engaging in a host of activities such as drinking, drugs, sex, careers, whatever. Then one day we wake up to discover that all of our endeavors to keep instability at bay have only made our lives more unstable, and all our efforts to keep ourselves distracted have only sapped us of whatever fight we may have once had. And we just give up. We accept the inevitability that life is filled with dissatisfaction and despair and something in us dies. You don’t have to be confined to a stretcher and unable to move to be a paralyzed man or woman in today’s world.
The antidote to all the chaos and instability of the world is faith. So I will finish where I began–with a promise. The world is indeed chaotic and unstable and filled with obstructions, but the one who made the world is superior to the world. If you can just find the courage to trust in him, to rely on him, to turn your life over to him, then your life will be restored to a state of stability and sanity. Trust in God’s character and ability, behave as if you really do trust him, don’t let anything get in your way or keep you down, you’ll find that the world will start falling into place.
Many of us have become paralyzed by life. We have become paralyzed by circumstances, by finances, by addictions, by failed relationships, fear, despair, hopelessness–the list goes on and on. Things have arisen in our lives that have hurt us and keep us down. Some of us have been paralyzed so long that we no longer have any friends left who are willing to carry us. And we add to our paralysis our sense of unworthiness. We become convinced that nothing can lift us from our stretcher of chaos and instability and despair. But there is something that can–faith. There’s an old African-American spiritual that says that a saint is just a sinner who gets back up when he falls. “Child, your sins are forgiven,” says Jesus seeing our faith, “Get up and walk!”
Amen.
