By the Authority Vested in Me

February 13, 2022
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Luke 5:17-26[1]

We’re going to take someone to the hospital. There is a famous doctor there who can heal anyone. The problem is, we only have this blanket to help us move them. Do you think you can do it? Now imagine if, when we got there, there was a big line of people waiting to get in. What would you do? How about climbing up on the roof and making a hole so we could lower our friend down through it? Can you imagine the noise and the mess of stuff falling down from the ceiling onto the floor and the people below? That’s what happened in our bible story from Luke.

What was it about those friends that made them do it? They had loyalty. They would do whatever it took to help their friend, even if it was hard, even if they might get into trouble. They also had faith. They believed, they knew in their hearts, that Jesus could heal their friend. And their faith was so strong that they did something so outrageous, so crazy, that people are still talking about it two-thousand years later!

The man who had been paralyzed got up and he walked right out the door. “Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God” (v. 25). Can you imagine being there? Quite a show, right?

Close your eyes for a moment and visualize the scene with me. See the crowd packed into the room, spilling out the doorway. Feel the heat as they press against each other. Smell the hot, dry air and the warm bodies. Listen to the whispers and the scuffling of feet. Hear the voice of Jesus as he speaks to them. Feel the strain of lifting the pallet to the roof, the heavy breathing as they dig through the roof. Hear the crash and see the ceiling cascading down. Look at the anxious but determined face of the paralytic as he is lowered down in front of the crowd. See the scowling scribes, the amazement on the faces of the crowd, and watch them part in stunned silence as the forgiven and healed man walks out of the house with the mat tucked under his arm. You may open your eyes.

Jesus speaks: “I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home” (v. 24). How much time passed as the crowd waited to see what he would do? What did the paralytic feel as he stood up to walk? What was he thinking? What did he say to his family and friends? We don’t get an answer to these questions. All we know is: “Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God” (v. 25).  Amazing! “We have seen strange things today” (v. 26) But if that is all you saw, you missed something rather important.

Why does Jesus tell the paralytic to stand? It is so that the scribes may know that “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins (v. 24). This was a big deal, a challenge and a threat to the authority of the religious and political elite. It might even have been heard as blasphemy, as only God is supposed to have that kind of authority. This was also a challenge to the system that exerted control over the poor.

A professor at Pomona College, Jerry Irish, writes about the relationship between sickness and sin in Galilee at that time. “Apparently, Jesus’ healing ministry challenged the system in Galilee whereby the urban secular and religious powers exploited the rural poor. The sick among the peasantry, often in such a state because of excessive taxation or the expropriation of their land, were said to be so because they had sinned.”[2] They must have done something that got them sick, right? Germ theory was not understood before modern times… how else could they have become sick? They must have broken one of God’s laws.

If your sickness is sin-based, then the cure must be also. There weren’t, however, any clinics or pharmacies around. As Professor Irish explains: “Their only recourse was the temple, where they could remedy their sin, but only by giving up more of their meager resources, thereby increasing their poverty and the likelihood of further sickness.”[3] Even then healthcare was expensive.

So, Jesus comes along and cures the sick. That takes money out of the pockets of the temple priests. Plus, if sickness is divine punishment for sin, and Jesus can forgive sins as well, there goes the corner on the market for sin-forgiveness too. Oh, no. We can’t have that.

“From the scribes’ point of view, the forgiveness of sins is possible by God alone, through appropriate ritual ceremonies administered by authoritative, professionally trained priests, following the instructions in the Torah, in the holy temple.”[4] You can’t have just anybody healing people and forgiving sins willy-nilly. Where’s the accountability? Where’s the respect for authority? Where’s the profit to be made? (Oops, did I say the quiet part out loud?)

By healing and forgiving sins, Jesus reveals that God is not contained in a box. God’s power is not limited to the temple, or the priests, or even to the regular church attendees. Jesus challenges the social and religious structure of that time and place by demonstrating that God is not contained or constrained by human institutions. No longer do people need to go somewhere special or perform some sacred ritual to connect with God. God is here, now, in Jesus, in the paralytic, and in this gathered community.

If Jesus has the authority to forgive sin, then he speaks with the authority of God. He doesn’t say: By the power vested in me by the State of Illinois (or the State of Israel). Instead, he simply says “stand up and take your bed and go to your home” (v. 24). The power and authority of God is revealed in the new life of the paralytic, healed outside of the traditional procedures, forgiven directly by God, who stands up and walks out. And through that act, God challenges us to reexamine our thinking.

Luke asks us, is the paralytic a sinner who has forsaken his God-given duty to work the land, too lazy to work, or is he a reflection of a social system that offers him only poverty for his labor, if it offers him a job at all? If every advertisement promises the good life if you just buy their product, if every TV show has a happy ending, if hard work is not always rewarded with anything other than more hard work, is it a sin to be tired and sick? Can a person be broken down and burned out without being seen as lazy, unproductive, or useless?

The interplay between individual and society is complex. But a society where so many are one illness or one injury away from homelessness is not a healthy society. There are no simple solutions, and we disagree about the difficult solutions. But Jesus challenges us to seek solutions, not only for the individual who suffers, but for the brokenness of our society as well. Jesus walked through Galilee healing and teaching the peasants, and he engaged the powerful and the wise in considering a better way.

God knows who we are. God knows what we’re going through. God knows what we’ve done, who we have hurt, and who we have healed, because God has lived among us as a human being, in the person of Jesus, and God’s Spirit inhabits all of our hearts. God knows us and loves us. The psalmist says, “As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion” (Ps 103:13)“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (Ps 103:10). God offers us forgiveness, healing, and a life set free from all that paralyses us.

What if we repent of our sins? Can we receive the healing and forgiveness of God? Are we lying on the pallet hearing the words “stand up?” And if we do stand up, and walk out that door, as healed and forgiven people, what change do we bring? What people will know the love of God because of us? What broken systems will we put right? How will God’s justice and mercy be seen in who we are and what we do?

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God’s holy name” (Ps. 103:1).  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Jerry Irish, “Theological Perspective on Mark 2:1-12” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 382. Luke 5:17-26 is a parallel story with only slight differences, which I don’t discuss here.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Eunjoo Mary Kim, “Homiletical Perspective on Mark 2:1-12” in Feasting, 383.

Casting Nets

February 6, 2022
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Luke 5:1-11[1]

Simon and the others had caught nothing. After a disappointing night of fishing, they were cleaning their nets. There is a crowd gathering, and the focus of their attention, Jesus, hops in Simon’s boat and asks him to push off so he can speak from out on the water. As his voiced carried across the water to the folk gathered on shore, Simon had a front-row seat.

This was probably not the first travelling preacher Simon had heard. There had been others. Some, like John had called people to repentance. Others tried to gather an army to take on the Romans. This one was different. He wasn’t trying to get people to go somewhere in particular, or do something for him; rather, he spoke about becoming closer to God, cleaning up their hearts and souls, and caring as much for others as they did for themselves. He may have even used the cleaning of the nets as a metaphor for washing away sins and becoming like new again.

What he did next was also different. He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”[2] In practical terms, this was a big ask. First of all, they mostly fished in the shallows, closer to shore. That’s where the fish were more likely to be searching for food, and would be an easier catch. Then, knowing they had worked all night and caught nothing, Jesus asks them to go out to fish again. Then again, Jesus seemed so confident that they would catch something. “If you say so, I will let down the nets.”[3]

Doesn’t it seem as though it’s when were at the end of our rope, we’ve tried and tried without success, that God steps in, Jesus reaches out to us, not knowing whether we’ll even answer. In this moment with Simon, Jesus takes the risk, choosing this fisherman out of all the others, asking him to do what seems impossible. Neither of them could know there would be fish to catch out there, but Jesus asks him to trust, and try anyway.

People like the predictable, the routine. It is scary to take a risk on something new. Yet that is what Jesus is asking, of Simon, and of us, to put out into the deep, unfamiliar waters, to break with our routine and allow the extraordinary to become possible. Keeping to the safe and familiar, to the shallows, keeps us from experiencing the wider, deeper world out there. The most profound and significant experiences of God and life are found in the unknown, the unfamiliar, the moments when we’re asked to stretch beyond what we know to something more.

For Simon, there was something about this man that compelled him to leave the shore, and the shallows, and cast his nets in the deep water. Maybe it was that no one had ever asked him to trust in that way, by someone who risked looking the fool if this didn’t work. If there were no fish out there, Simon would not be surprised, and there would be no loss except for the need to clean the nets again. The worst that could happen is we don’t catch anything, again.

When the nets began to strain with the catch, Simon knew this was no simple preacher. He becomes aware that he is in the presence of the divine. He also recognizes that he is unworthy of such holy recognition, a sinful man who would rightly fear the power of God. What happens next is the real moment of transformation. What happens next is why we all respond to Jesus with trust, gratitude, and hope.

Jesus, the Son of God, mediator of the divine in human form, does not strike down Simon for his sin, his doubt, nor for any of his failings. Instead, Jesus casts a net to bring him in. Jesus casts a net to pull in James and John too, to capture their hearts and invite them into the relationship which will change their lives. “Do not be afraid,” he says, I’m not here to punish sinners, but to change you into saints. I am here to call you to the work of casting nets to catch people.

The thing about the net that Jesus is casting is that it is not the kind of net that turns animals into food. This is not a net that imprisons, but a net that frees. This is a net that pulls people from danger and death into safety, life, and love. “From now on you will be catching people.”[4] Not to make them captive, but to save them and set them free.

Simon and the others have been caught in the net of Jesus. Their lives transformed by this experience, these fishermen become disciples. In a commentary on this passage, Howard Gregory captures the change in Simon. “Having hauled in this huge catch of fish, having been given the opportunity to make a good return, thus reversing the earlier fruitless expedition, Simon now does the strangest thing. He pulls ashore his boat, with the catch, and walks away from it, livelihood and all.”[5]

Many of us recognize this moment of transformation. Something changes, perhaps our circumstances, perhaps something inside, and we make a vocational change. We may be forced out into the open water, or choose to walk away from what is not working for us anymore. For some, like me, it is a call to service in the ministry. Perhaps, like me, you have also made a life change. I used to work at a bank, and I made pretty good money. I walked away, and it cost me. It meant putting God at the center of my life, changing my focus from my self toward others. It has meant hard work, sometimes after a long night when no fish were caught. But following the Master has its rewards.

Not everyone in the crowd on the shore was convinced to follow Jesus. We only know that Simon, James and John went with him that day. But the net that is cast by the Lord is a big net, and we are still being caught in it today. I am grateful for the change it brought about in my life. I am blessed to have made a positive difference in the lives of people I have served. And I pray that you, too, may feel that net holding you close to the One who transforms hearts and sets spirits free.  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Luke 5:4.

[3] Luke 5:5.

[4] Luke 5:10.

[5] Howard K. Gregory, Pastoral Perspective on Luke 5:1-11 in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Vol. 1, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), p 336.