Four of a Kind Beats a Full House

A sermon from The Rev. Dr. David A. Marcus, Jr. preached on February 8, 2009. This sermon explores how our faithfulness can help us overcome obstacles in life.

A sermon based on the following Scripture passage:
Mark 2:1-12

Today in worship we recognized our Scouting program at New Philadelphia Moravian Church. I believe the Scouts are an organization that provides our young men an excellent set of rules to live by as shared in the Boy Scout Oath or Promise which says the following:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

As I think of this motto from the Scouts the phrase, “To help other people at all times” captures the motivation of four friends in our morning gospel lesson. Today’s passage does not have anything to do with poker although the sermon title might lead you to think otherwise. In poker the expression “four of kind” describes a hand in which a person contains four cards of the same rank and an unmatched card. It does rank above a full house which describes three cards of the same rank along with two cards of the same rank. In today’s passage, we learn a paralyzed person has four friends, indeed four of a kind who brought him to see Jesus. Upon reaching Jesus, they learn that the house where Jesus was teaching was filled with many people. This was a full house, too crowded for them to make their way through the front door.

These four would have made great scouts, because we see they wanted to help another person, they were physically strong and were mentally awake as this predicament did not discourage them from achieving their goal of their friend meeting Jesus. Despite the crowd, these friends were not discouraged even though they could not enter through the front door. They had the initiative and imagination to work through this obstacle. They decide to lower him through a hole in the roof in the middle of this large gathering. Imagine the surprise of Jesus and others who were in this home as a roof made up of leaves, dried mud and sticks began to fall upon their heads.

It took real courage for these four people to send their friend through the roof to meet Jesus. Perhaps a more appropriate word than courage to describe these people is faith. Faith I have heard described as having the ability to overcome obstacles to get to Jesus. These people, who carried this paralyzed person to Jesus and then carefully lowered him through the roof, were courageous. More than courageous these people were faithful. They had faith that Jesus would be able to heal their friend. Jesus recognized their faithfulness and was motivated to respond. Yet how Jesus chose to respond is interesting. Rather than declaring this person healed by his God given powers, Jesus said to the paralyzed person that his sins were forgiven. In order to understand the impact these words had upon the crowd, we must first remind ourselves of the view of God held by those during the time of Jesus.

God was a God of power, the creative force in the universe, the enforcer of justice. God also punished those who were sinful. Sins were not forgiven as much as they were paid for. For the people of this day, they believed that some sort of price had to be paid if sins were forgiven. The concept of God as a loving parent was not a part of the theology of the day. Jesus in granting the forgiveness of sins was doing something controversial and out of the ordinary in the minds of his listeners

What was Jesus thinking one might be asking? Was Jesus playing into the hands of the legalists present at the time? Included among the crowd of Jesus were politically powerful people who were members of the Sanhedrin, a tribunal group consisting of the respected elders, chief priests and teachers of the law in the community. These legalists believed that a person could not be forgiven until they were healed of their sickness. By making sin the cause of sickness, they could justify neglect for millions of sick people throughout their land. At other times in his ministry, Jesus rejected the idea that sin was synonymous with sickness. Yet in this moment of surprise, when a bed came down through the roof, He responded as if healing and forgiveness were inseparable. Jesus saw all people were in need of forgiveness.

Those who witnessed this event assumed that the paralyzed person was guilty of some serious wrongdoing. While we do not know whether or not this is true, for the people in our gospel lesson, this is what they believed. Jesus did not question the person about his past, nor did he ask him whether he was sorry for anything he might have done. Jesus cut through all of this because of one thing–he was moved with compassion for this suffering man and chose to do something. Jesus says to the paralyzed person, “Stand up take your mat and go home!” He did just that and people began to shout the praises of Jesus!

This action left those in the Sanhedrin in an uncomfortable position. Since they insisted that illness was caused by sin, and since the person suddenly got up and walked away, it was therefore proven that Jesus could forgive sins. These officials were outraged, and some of them began to plan the arrest of Jesus. While the religious establishment could continue to dispute among themselves that Jesus did not have the power to forgive sin, they could not dispute the fact that Jesus had the power to heal. For the first time in the gospel of Mark, we see through Jesus’ actions that God was not just a God of power but also a God of love and forgiveness.

Sometimes accepting God’s love and forgiveness in our lives is difficult. Bruce Larson, an Editor for Leadership Magazine tells the story of a Catholic priest living in the Philippines. He was a much-loved priest who once carried a secret burden of a long past sin buried deep in his heart. He had committed that sin once, many years before, during his time in Seminary. No one else knew of his sin, he had repented, suffered years of remorse for it, but he still had no peace, no inner joy, and no sense of God’s forgiveness. There was a woman in the priest’s parish who deeply loved God, and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ, and He with her. The priest however was very skeptical of her claims, so to test her visions he said to her, “You say you actually speak directly with Christ in your visions. Let me ask you a favor. The next time you have one of these visions, I want you to ask Him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary.” The woman agreed and went home.

When she returned to the church a few days later, the priest said, “Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?” She replied, “Yes, He did.” The priest said, “Did you ask Him what sin I committed in seminary?” “Yes, I asked Him.” The priest was very nervous at this moment not certain whether his ministry would be ending with her revelation. “Well, what did He say?” She replied, “He said, I don’t remember.”This is what God wants us to know about forgiveness. God freely offers forgiveness to each of us. Likewise we too must be willing to forgive others who have hurt us in the past. Lewis Smedes, Professor Emeritus of Theology and Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California has written several books on the subject of forgiveness. He shares that when you forgive someone you do these following things:

1. You surrender your right to get even.
2. You give your enemy’s humanity back.
3. You get the freedom to wish that person well.
4. You are willing to be open to what God wills.

While this is an easy concept for us to understand, it is not so easy to follow. I believe this passage from Mark challenges us as individuals to look deep within ourselves. We begin to wonder what sins we need to ask God to forgive in our lives. As we reflect on the actions of the four friends we ask what obstacles we would overcome to help save a loved one’s life. Perhaps some of us wonder what life would be like if we were paralyzed. If we search our souls, we realize we are in fact paralyzed in some aspect of our lives. Perhaps we are paralyzed by our occupations, paralyzed by an illness to ourselves or loved ones that restrict us; maybe we are even paralyzed in our spiritual journeys. It could be argued that we all are in some sense paralyzed by fears of the unknown.

The destructive effect of fear and worry on our faith is vividly illustrated by Daniel DeFoe’s character Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe rejected his father’s pleas and left home in search of wealth and adventure. His life was one of recklessness and godlessness until following a terrible storm and shipwreck, he found himself stranded on a deserted island in the Caribbean. There his soul began to respond to God. He found a Bible among the effects salvaged from the ship. He was converted and grew into a thankful, devout, hard-working person of faith. His life, though missing human companionship was peaceful and prayerful and his faith grew stronger. One day Crusoe found a footprint in the sand and he suddenly realized that he was not alone on the island. Knowing the fierce, cannibalistic practices of the native tribes, he grew into a fearful person. He looked over his shoulder with every step. He no longer slept peacefully. He altered his habits and patterns. He would often visualize himself being captured and killed. In reflecting on this change in his life Crusoe offered these following reflections:

Thus my fear banished all my religious hope. All that former confidence in God, which was founded upon such wonderful experience as I had had of His goodness, now vanished, as if He that had fed me by miracle hitherto could not preserve, by His power, the provision He had made for me by His goodness…

This is what fear does to us it diametrically opposes our faith.

For the four friends and indeed for the paralyzed person in our gospel lesson, we see that fear served as an acronym:

F = For
E = Everything
A = A
R = Reason

Their faith in God and his great mercy allowed the improbable to become reality; a face to face encounter with God’s son and our Savior, Jesus. Jesus demonstrated His authority both to forgive and to heal in remarkable ways throughout his ministry. Where in your life do you need healing? Where in your life do you need to experience the forgiveness of God? I would like to close this sermon by sharing with you a poem entitled, “When I said…”

When I said to the Lord “I don’t know who I am.”
He gently answered “That’s okay. I know who you are.”

When I said to the Lord “I am so short of where you want me to be.”
He gently answered “That’s okay. That’s all the farther you and I can walk together.”

As we continue our walk with God let us give thanks for his mercy and love for each of us.

Finis
The Rev. Dr. David A. Marcus, Jr.