Mark 2:1-5 (3) "And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men."
The word "compromise" is a red flag among people of principle. But in the real world of human relationships, compromise is perhaps the most overlooked source of genuine joy.
The fact is (1) bringing people to Jesus is just about always a cooperative effort. In fact, doing anything for Jesus means cooperating with His people. And (2) cooperative effort just about always involves holy compromise. But the strange and wonderful truth that follows is (3) holy compromise just about always brings about holy fellowship and joy.
No minister of integrity would ever suggest that we compromise with any form of sin. But by the same token any minister of integrity would have to say in all honesty that more pain and damage has been done than one can imagine by people who not only refuse to compromise on issues of principle, but refuse to bend or adapt or compromise in lesser matters of opinion, custom, or even personal taste.
Here in Mark's gospel is a newspaper report about some people who tore the tiles off a flat roof and lowered a paralyzed man down into the interior of the house where Jesus was. [Bringing people to Jesus is just about always a cooperative effort.] It goes without saying that here was a cooperative effort that required some compromise. Unless these four men were all the same build and same height and same strength the simple fact of carrying a heavy, inert object requires bending and stretching. But in my mind's eye I have gone into considerable more detail. If some of the personalities of the Wollaston church had been present the line-up might have looked like this [and any resemblance to Wollastonians living or dead is purely conjectural]!
FIRST THERE WAS AMOS.
Amos was a rather old, seasoned believer. He had been brought up in the scriptures from a lad. He had waited for years in faith that Messiah was coming. Early on in Jesus' ministry he had been convinced that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the OT prophecies.
Amos is MATURE! Secretly in his heart of hearts he is a little impatient and even irked by immaturity. He detests taped accompaniments! He is not the least impulsive and not too outwardly emotional. But Amos is the salt of the earth, and he loves Jesus and follows Him with all his heart.
THEN THERE IS BARTHOLOMEW.
Bartholomew is a young believer, full of energy. He is not a rebel, really— but he really has this feeling that anyone over 30 is "over the hill." Bartholomew is full of JOY!
And Bartholomew is full of LIFE! He has never had a sick day in his life, and frankly he isn't too patient with people who have aches and pains. He doesn't understand people who don't like LOUD hosannas—preferably with at least 100 watts of amplification behind them. Bart will be at all the Christian rock concerts within 50 miles radius!
THE THIRD MEMBER OF THE CAST IS CRISPUS.
Crispus is an intellectual, and a dedicated social activist. He has heard Christ's call to minister to the poor. He has put his life on the line. He has sold all that he possesses, and is personally involved in inner-city ministry. And quite frankly, Crispus questions other Christians who don't do the same as he has done.
AND THE LAST OF THE FOUR IS DEMAS
Demas is a died-in-the-wool conservative. Demas wears a Jesus-First pin. He is a real "Mary" type who simply wants to sit at Jesus' feet. He only has a job because he has to eat, but he wants to keep unspotted from the world— so he doesn't use dice with board games, and he doesn't think the church teens ought to go roller skating.
But he really belongs to Jesus and loves Him with all of his heart.
Four people about as different in temperament as you can imagine. Four people who agree on just about one thing and only one thing— at least at the beginning of this little drama. They knew in their hearts that Jesus IS the answer to the needs of the world. No matter that they saw those needs very differently. They didn't even stop to consider that the needs of the world might be different from the way they understood them. But they agreed (without knowing it) that Jesus is what this sinful world needs!
These people had a great deal more that was NOT in common, at least on the surface. They would have disagreed violently on political candidates. They would have almost come to blows over whether or not one could fall from grace, or just 'from fellowship with God.' Any kind of abstract or theoretical question probably would have started WW I 1900 years early!
Christians are like that! They disagree in theory— they love to argue minor points of doctrine in various kinds of abstract argument And there (probably) is a place for that, but . . .but what saved them was the fact that these four men faced a very specific problem. They had a mutual friend SILAS, who was dear to them all. Perhaps he was related to one, and a friend of a friend of another— but at any rate each of these four, Amos, Bartholomew, Crispus, and Demas had said to himself many times: "If I could just get Silas over to Jesus I know that Jesus could touch him and meet his need!"
I'm not sure how they got together. Since I'm telling the story I can imagine it was one of those strange coincidences that God can arrange whenever He wants to. And in my imagination there was a mutual disappointment when the four met.
Amos thought: "A lot of good hallelujahs will do now! We need someone who KNOWS someone, and some money to hire an ambulance."
And Crispus is thinking: "That Demas guy will want to have a prayer meeting for this guy— and what he REALLY needs is a new pallet and we need to arrange hot meals for him until we can find a way to get him to the meetings."
But one of them— I don't know which one— says out loud: "If only we could get Silas to Jesus I believe HE could heal him!" And the rest agree. They realize that together they can do what they can't do alone. And they demonstrate that (1) BRINGING PEOPLE TO JESUS IS JUST ABOUT ALWAYS A COOPERATIVE EFFORT!
What a sight they are! It is not an easy or a dignified task. And as they get nearer they see that their task isn't only hard—it is apparently impossible. They simply cannot get through the crowd. There are too many people! You can't find Christ in a big crowd! You can't really worship! You can't really get near to Jesus, can you?
But by now someone comes up with another suggestion. "We've come this far! Too far to be defeated! We won't take 'No' for an answer! Let's go up on the roof! Let's take off a few tiles and drop Silas right down on the front row!"
AND THEY DID! And the Word says "Jesus saw THEIR faith!" And Jesus forgave Silas his sins. And then Jesus healed him, and sent him walking out in the sight of everyone.
How, do you suppose, did Amos and Bartholomew and Crispus and Demas "debrief" after the service was over? What was the "afterglow" like that day?
I see them as they put the tiles back and they talk. "Well, I'll have to admit that I could never have done it alone! And no two of us could have done it, either!" "Yes, I'll have to admit that we make a pretty good team!"
I see it as the beginning of genuine Christian fellowship— cross-generational, cross-cultural, even cross-intellectual, if there is such a thing. They were still persuaded that Jesus was the answer to the needs of their world. And they still saw those needs from their own perspectives. But they also began to see that there were other, honest, Christian perspectives beside their own.
That is the way Christian faith in obedient action tends to work. It brings people together who seem to have little in common, and makes them love and deeply appreciate one another.
[Illustration: It happened during the 'Jesus revival' in New York—Brother Mac (Walter MacPherson) hugging the rock musicians— big, black Isaiah McKinnon and little Charlie Rizzo— one of the 'proofs' to my own heart that this was a genuine moving of the Holy Spirit.]
THERE ARE SOME ISSUES THAT DEMAND SOLID, UNIFIED CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE.
Our compromise can never be with sin, with the breaking of any of the clear commandments of God. But as amazing as it may seem there are many serious issues, important issues, where good and sincere
Christians can and will disagree. Issues that would divide and kill fellowship if we would let them. There are "outside issues" about which Christians feel strongly:
"What about sanctions in South Africa?" "What about Reagan's policies in backing freedom fighters?" "Should we pull out of public schools and teach our own children at home?"
Just mentioning these may be foolish, but I am trying to show that in so many ways we can agree to disagree— and still agree to love each other, and to love God, and to do our best to bring people to Jesus.
And particularly these days in Wollaston there is the challenge of bringing people to Jesus—of developing and continuing ministry to families with both father and mother at home, to a college population where the students are here for a portion of four years and have a hard time feeling "plugged in." And particularly these days there are "inside issues," those matters of policy, of building, of financing, and above all, of ministry and serving Christ here in Wollaston.
Some church experts tell us that the growing kind of church is the homogenous-unit type of church. And this church is about as heterogeneous as a church can get! But in more ways than dear Reuben may have meant in his wonderful little book, WE REALLY DO NEED EACH OTHER!
We have an opportunity right here in the Wollaston church to meet and know people who love the Lord and yet are very unlike ourselves. We will be stimulated, if not offended, by many different ways of looking at the task God has set before us. We will be seeing the curse of sin as the problem— but we will be seeing it in many more than just FOUR ways!
But if we agree that Jesus is LORD; and if we agree that Jesus is what this world needs— then like these four men who brought the paralytic to Jesus WE WILL FIND WAYS OF GETTING AT THE TASK GOD HAS FOR US!
And the best part, perhaps, is that as we learn to work together we'll discover the holy JOY that comes from finding how BIG and how BROAD and how WIDE God's holy family can be!
We are in for some dramatic surprises! We'll find that TOGETHER WE CAN BRING PEOPLE TO JESUS! And when Jesus sees OUR FAITH we'll find that holy compromise brings holy JOY!
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Dr. Russell Metcalfe is Pastor Emeritus of the Wollaston Church of the Nazarene. Permission to reprint or publish this material is GRANTED as long as the reprinting or republishing is not-for-profit.
You can access more of Dr. Metcalfe’s sermons at his scripturally indexed sermon archives web site. Now with MP3 audio sermons and audio bonus material. http://russellmetcalfesermons.nazarene.nl/Sermons/Sermons.htm
