Lord, oil the hinges of my heart’s door, that it may swing gently and easily to welcome your coming.
The gospel of Mark wastes no time getting down to business, after the preliminaries of birth, baptism, temptation and disciple recruiting—subjects that consume whole chapters of the other gospels—are gotten out of the way. No, Mark is in a big hurry to let us know that this Jesus story is going to be different—it’s not business as usual, with scribes lecturing and proof-texting, leaders negotiating and equivocating, people heckling and hounding while secretly hoping this guy will be different from the ones who came before. Mark doesn’t have time for all of that, because the world he lives in is going to hell in a hand basket, and the people he calls “home” are hiding in the hills, harried and hounded by the war machine that was Rome, but even so, still longing to be whole.

What makes Jesus different? What makes his story worth telling, his teaching worth following? Mark says: he taught them as one having authority.

What does that mean? When I became moderator of the presbytery some years ago, the outgoing moderator handed me the gavel that is used to keep order during our meetings and said: this gavel is the symbol of the authority of your office. If you have to use it, you don’t have it.

That’s genuine authority—to know who you are and what your work in the world is, and neither to need to win the validation of others, nor to make “Others”—that is, enemies—out of those people who don’t approve of you. In this month of January, I have spent many evenings travelling to four neighboring churches, from the Keys up to Palm Beach, for meetings with sessions and congregations who are seeking dismissal from our denomination because they think the “big tent” of the Presbyterian Church is too big, too inclusive theologically and socially, and because of that diversity, too scary to be any longer a part of. As I have listened to their concerns and perspectives, as I have been invited to speak from my own perspective, I have prayed to speak and listen with this kind of authority; neither being afraid of “Them” nor proud of “Us,” trying to speak the truth in love, and honor the fact that someone else’s truth is different from my own. I have wondered, on long drives home, why our big tent cannot shelter all of us. Then, on other evenings this month, I have listened to presidents and would-be presidents, listened for them to speak and listen with authority; and wondered why we can’t as a body politic, as a nation, get our acts together, and address the needs of our poor and marginalized and the rest of us without all the opposition and fear. Doesn’t seem to matter which party we cleave to, we’re all in it together, and we are all of us infected with this polarizing anxiety that makes us point the finger and blame, all the while wishing we could be better, we could be whole. Mark wants us to know that Jesus had that kind of authority that we are longing to experience from our leaders and feel within ourselves.
In two stories that take place at “home” in Capernaum, Mark shows us what a game-changer a person of authority can be.

In the first, Jesus showed up to teach in the synagogue. It didn’t matter what the text was, or the subject for the week—what mattered was he taught as one having authority, he was different from the other teachers who sought their authority from the crowds or from having the symbols of the office. He spoke his truth from the heart, and connected with the hungry hearts of his listeners. He served them by bringing his best self to the people: And when a heckler from the crowd—well, Mark calls it a man possessed with a demon—tries to change the subject and create a climate of Us against Them (have you come to destroy us? I know who you are!) Jesus doesn’t get distracted or defensive or buy into the premise that someone has to be destroyed for someone else to move forward—he just rebuked him and stopped him from destroying the holy space that had been opened up by the teaching and listening and genuine communication in that synagogue. He didn’t destroy his opponent; rather he gave him a way to experience healing by refusing to allow him to harm himself and his neighbors with his verbal abuse and fear-mongering.
In our second story, it was reported that he was at home. It was a homecoming so longed by the people of Jesus that immediately it drew a houseful of friends, a gathering of us so joyful and intent that the gospel story reports there were so many gathered around that there was no longer room for Them, not even in front of the door. Just stop for a moment and think about this, about how true it is: we are welcomed home, into the arms of our own; and almost as soon as we have received that embrace that says you are one of us, the camera lens widens to reveal Them, outside the door, looking in. Whenever we find ourselves comfortable, secure, at home….there is the world, and others, ready to challenge us and make their claim for our attention, for their fair share.

Then some people came, bringing to Jesus a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.

Unless we just refuse to see, we don’t get to be at home for very long before we are made aware that there are people outside, people outside who may want or need to be inside, where we are. They may be the “them” to our “us.” The system we live by—and let’s be honest, we’re not just talking about our global system or our system of law or culture of success, we’re talking about our faith and family systems as well—these systems set boundaries, erect barriers that protect us and our peace of mind from being overwhelmed by the needs and the smells and the noise and the accents of those who are crowded outside the door. And we use those systems every day by whom we invite and whom we ignore, who we see and who is all but invisible to us. The paralytic was one of the unlucky ones in this story: a man who needed what Jesus had to offer as much as, if not more than, any of us already crowded inside the house. . . a man who had less ability than many to position himself favorably to get what he needed. He was a paralyzed man, but he could be anyone outside: a gay teenager, a downsized business man or woman without prospects or insurance, a soldier trying to do the job he has been ordered to do and maintain his humanity, a colleague whose ideological affinity group has just lost the majority position, if only by one or two votes. You know who they are, or at least who “they” are for you, for us: people paralyzed by fear or circumstance by who they are or who they aren’t, people waiting outside the doors and windows we have inadvertently or deliberately locked and barred, because we need to feel at home, and there is simply, unfortunately, no more room. That paralytic was in no position to help himself. . .but others were. Inside the house, plenty of us didn’t notice, or didn’t care, or couldn’t figure out a way to help or were too busy meeting our own needs to see him lying outside on his bed, yearning for a chance to come inside, to belong. Apparently, Jesus himself didn’t even notice! but four men did. Out of that whole crowd of outsiders, four looked beyond their own needs, chose to become a community of healing, decided to tear down some walls, rip up some boundaries, make the tent bigger yet. It was not a solution most people would have thought of. It was neither pushing into the house nor taking turns; not shaming those who had arrived first nor blocking the streets, windows and doors with protest or appeal. It was a curiously creative solution. A humane solution. A solution at once gentle, humorous, effective, and inclusive. A solution that permitted four strangers to become community with one man who needed to be healed, and with a whole household of oblivious or even regretfully impotent people, people who needed to see beyond their refuge to the wide open sky and smell the fresh air of new ideas and loving solutions. No one had to leave. No one gave up much. Everyone moved a little bit, and the room turned out to be a whole lot larger than anyone had thought possible. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic: your sins are forgiven.
Now this is an interesting thing: right here, right at this place in the middle of what is really a typical miracle story, everything changes. You know the formula: Jesus teaches. People come. One comes needing healing. Jesus responds: your faith has healed you, rise and walk, open your eyes, and see. And they do. They see, walk, speak, regain their health, praise God and go their way. That’s the way miracles happen, right? But this story from this point on is no longer stock stuff, and I’ll tell you why. Jesus doesn’t say, your faith has made you whole, rise, take up your bed and walk. Instead he says: your sins are forgiven. What is that about? Did Jesus believe that a person’s sin caused their illness? No. Jesus didn’t believe that illness or infirmity had anything to do with the judgment of God, but his neighbors did. His friends did. His teachers did, and his culture did. And what they believed sustained the system, the rules that let some people be at home, inside, and kept the Others out.
So when Jesus saw their faith (not the man’s) and said your sins are forgiven, this is what I think he meant: sometimes, an entire society, a prevailing world view, a typical way of being, can be blown to kingdom come because one or a few people see another possibility, another vision and act with authority to bring that vision into reality. Rosa Parks sat down in the last seat on the bus and wouldn’t give it up to a white man because she was tired, and it wasn’t fair. A couple in California went to the county court and registered to be married, carefully crossing out the word “husband” and firmly inserting a second “wife” because there wasn’t any good reason, really, why they shouldn’t have the marriage their heterosexual next door neighbors had. “Sin” isn’t the condition of the people crowded outside the door; sin is the ways we keep the rooms of our home so full of us that we won’t or can’t make room for the Others. Sin, after all, can be defined as separation. Sin is the breakdown of relationship—between God and us, between us and them, between the spark of the divine that gives us a soul, and the soulless, demonic powers that sneer, I know who you are and what you’re trying to do, and then do everything in their power to kill the possibility of health and life together. And people who are possessed, paralyzed, separated or fearfully excluded can be restored to wholeness-they can be!— if and when some people—be it four or forty or forty thousand , get off their butts and do something about it, for God’s sake.
Jesus saw their faith, that is, their authority, saw that a few people were willing and able to think outside of the box, and then he acknowledged publicly and for the sake of that paralyzed man what was already patently obvious to him: that divisions had been torn down, the power of sinful separation broken by the healing actions of four strangers and a guy in need. The family room got bigger, and the family had five new members, and whenever that happens, there’s a little less space for sin in the room.

Sunday, Feb. 12 6:00pm in the RPC Sanctuary.

There will be no charge for admission but your donations to Habitat for Humanity are appreciated.

Desserts and coffee will be served.

Changing Our Mind
(lose your mind and come to your senses.)
–Fritz Perls, gestalt therapy founder

Why are you on this planet?
What principles do you choose to practice in service of this purpose?

How many of you have ever breached those principles, or failed to live, even for a while, in consonance with your personal code of honor and covenant?

Those of you not raising your hands, go straight to heaven—do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. The rest of you—that is to say, the rest of us– listen to this tall tale, this fable, this parable from the bible: the book of Jonah.

In the Israel of the fifth century before the birth of Jesus, things were complicated. It was the time of the return of the Jewish people from exile—a time to celebrate a newly reconstituted nation, a time to affirm national identity. People who had maintained their religious and cultural integrity throughout seventy years of captivity were coming home in triumph to restore their heritage; those who had remained behind to keep the candles of Judah’s faith dimly burning rejoiced with hope and energy renewed. But times were hard, resources scarce. Natural disaster and the depredations of wartime created a situation of endemic poverty and widespread discontent. It was a difficult time—a time that needed vision, and unprecedented national unity. But then, as now, fear and anxiety drew the people, individually and as a nation, away from their purpose and principles—to be a light for the nations, seeking justice, loving kindness, and showing mercy—and made them far less than their best selves. Then, as now, in seasons of perceived scarcity and polarizing, paralyzing fear, a national consensus was built upon a politics of negativism, exclusivity, and hatred.

The fable, the satire that is the book of Jonah was, for those who wished to recover their practice of what Paul later called a more excellent way, the strong medicine of self-examination; a mirror held up to the inevitable effects of our devolving into our smaller, meaner selves. For Jonah, our reluctant hero, it was a lesson grudgingly learned, if at all. The story is set in a period of history when Israel was destroyed by the Assyrian nation—by the way, the land now occupied by the nation of Iraq. Commissioned to preach to that despised nation, Jonah, a righteous and God-fearing Israelite, is filled with horror and revulsion at his task. Assyrian power had brought Israel to her knees. Assyrian atrocities had deeply embittered the Jewish people. For hundreds of years following the fall of the Israelite nation, the name of Assyria and its capital city were the very expression of evil incarnate, the perpetrators of holocaust.

And the God who could not stand silent in the face of the suffering of his people spoke, and said, go, and inform Nineveh that their wickedness has become known to me. And Jonah went—the other way. Called to travel overland to the limits of the civilized East, Johan hopped a ship and went West, as far as any soul could go. We all know the fish story that followed, the storm on the deep and the bed in the belly of a great fish; and how Jonah was compelled at last to fulfill his call, and burped up on the shores that were the gateway to the great and terrible city of Nineveh. He would fulfill his call—and how.

Stalking a day’s journey into the city, burning with rage and humiliation, with resentment and fear, Jonah found a likely spot, unpacked his striped tent,
cranked up the sound system to its highest volume, , raised his big black bible in his clenched fist and roared: yet forty days, and God will destroy Nineveh!!! . Eight words, and what an opening line! Lord, did it feel good. He paused to gauge the effect of his words, and licked his lips in anticipation. Sucking in another great breath, he prepared to go on but—wait, what was that?

Before Jonah’s unbelieving eyes, an entire nation fell to its knees in sorrow and hope. Cattle and other beasts, men and women and children alike, tore their clothes, threw ashes over their heads, and prayed as they had never prayed before to a God that they scarcely had known existed. And the hope of that enemy people in the heart of a God not their own was a sobering and holy thing to behold: let us all repent, the king said, for it may be that God will relent, and spare the people.

And God did. And Jonah? Jonah stood dumbfounded in the midst of the empty tent, tears filled his eyes, and he bowed his own head in prayer. Lord, he began,. And as bitterness filled his heart, he went on, almost spitting out the words, I knew you were a God, rich in mercy, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. I knew you would repent, and permit those disgusting people to live… And then, in the last round of the story that comedians refer to as the rule of three, Jonah disappears into the wilderness, cries in the best Borsht-belt joke tradition oy, you’re killing me!, rests in the broiling heat, receives with entitlement the shade tree God “causes to grow up above him” and then, when that shade is destroyed by the worm of his own bitterness and fear, begs for mercy for an inanimate plant! But God asks him, as God asks us,

Do you do well to be angry? If you want mercy for a dying tree, can’t you find room in your heart to have mercy for another human being, and for yourself?

Let us turn to the words of philosopher, theologian and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, who lost his entire family and was forced into degrading and dehumanizing circumstances in Auschwitz: We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves. ….It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation but in right action and in right conduct. …Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.

Why are you on this planet?
What principles do you choose to practice in service of this purpose?

Don’t you want to change the world? Don’t you want to change yourself?
If you, like me, are tired of the rhetoric, sick of the paralyzed polarization of our nation and our Christian tribes, join me and MJ in looking at the man in the mirror Jonah holds up for us. Join me in believing the good news of the gospel, even the gospel of Jonah: God wants a better life for us than we want for ourselves. God can bring about renewal, redemption, shade and blessing, even in the midst of hard circumstances, even despite our worst efforts. God wants us to go into the heart of our fear with faith and hope. To confront our worst selves and the way we project that yuck onto others, and experiences forgiveness for our shame and hopelessness, and reunion with those who we thought were our enemies but who are really just another version of our selves. To live without regret and undivided. God has given us the resources to do this: and to remain centered in our mission and filled with joy, peace, hope and purpose—regardless of the circumstances. Those of you who participated in our compassion fatigue and resiliency workshops a couple of years ago, and those of you who remember our compassion fatigue sermon series will recognize those God-given resources as the 5 antibodies for a resilient life: 1. Know your purpose in life and practice it.2. Relax your body, have a soft body and relaxed muscles when you perceive yourself in a circumstance of threat or danger. 3. Grow up and stop making others responsible for your actions! Know with Viktor and Jonah that we alone are responsible for the way we choose to react and respond to the circumstances that challenge us. No one can make you be less than your best self—you have that choice. 4. Look around you. Know that you are connected to people who believe as you do, who love you and pray for you and who are willing to be a community of accountability with you. 5. Take care of yourself. Eat right, exercise regularly, drink moderately, enjoy activities that give you peace, creativity, and pleasure. Even and especially when you feel you don’t have enough time. To paraphrase Jesus in the gospel of Luke: do this, and you will live. Amen.