Being a friend and neighbour

A para­ly­tic expe­ri­en­ces heal­ing and for­gi­ve­ness of his sins through Jesus. He comes to this expe­ri­ence becau­se he has fri­ends and neigh­bours who help him. They have a heart for him. They car­ry him to Jesus and do not give up despi­te obs­ta­cles. They firm­ly belie­ve that Jesus will help and thus beco­me a bles­sing for the paralytic.

We want to reflect tog­e­ther this mor­ning on a sto­ry that you pro­ba­b­ly all know very well. It is the sto­ry of the «heal­ing of the para­ly­tic in Caper­na­um». It is found in the Gos­pel of Mark, chap­ter 2. I will read ver­ses 1–12. I want to place the most important sce­ne in this well-known sto­ry at the very begin­ning of my ser­mon. Yes, what is it, the most important sce­ne in this story?

• Is it the moment when the men lower their para­ly­sed fri­end through the roof – right at Jesus» feet? That is wit­hout doubt a spe­cial moment. The­re has hard­ly ever been any­thing like it befo­re. But that is not the decisi­ve sce­ne in the sto­ry. The­re is one that is more important!
• Is it per­haps the moment when the para­ly­tic stands up at Jesus» word – pro­ba­b­ly for the very first time in his life – rolls up his mat, takes it under his arm and walks out in front of the asto­nis­hed crowd that is gathe­red the­re? Inte­res­t­ing, by the way: as a sick man, the­re was no way for this man to get through this crowd – I will come back to this later – as a hea­led man, space is obvious­ly made for him: «And he got up, took his bed and went out imme­dia­te­ly», so says the last ver­se of our text.

The­re is no ques­ti­on: The heal­ing that is hap­pe­ning here is uni­que. It is extra­or­di­na­ry. The peo­p­le who wit­ness it say so: «We’­ve never seen any­thing like it.»(Mark 2:12). But is this the most important sce­ne in the sto­ry? No! The­re is some­thing that is even more important, much more important:

• It is the moment when the Lord Jesus turns to this para­ly­tic and says to him: «My son, your sins are for­gi­ven.» Some­thing grea­ter and more important than this encou­ra­ge­ment to a per­son can­not actual­ly happen.

It is sin, after all, that ruins our lives, that sever­ely dis­turbs our tog­e­ther­ness and sepa­ra­tes us from God and from his eter­nal world. Of cour­se, not ever­yo­ne is awa­re of this. The para­ly­tic in our sto­ry pro­ba­b­ly did­n’t rea­li­se it eit­her. It is quite pos­si­ble that the man did not suf­fer from his sin. Per­haps he had no con­scious­ness of sin, just as many of our con­tem­po­r­a­ri­es no lon­ger have. Sin is no lon­ger an issue today, is it? Tho­se who still take sin serious­ly are laug­hed at, or pitied, not taken serious­ly. Today, sin is igno­red, denied, or then play­ed down, excu­sed, explai­ned, reinter­pre­ted, glos­sed over, etc. But no mat­ter how we deal with sin, its bru­tal effect remains: it ruins our lives. It bur­dens our rela­ti­onships and sepa­ra­tes us fore­ver from God and his eter­nal world, hea­ven. That is why the pro­mi­se of for­gi­ve­ness of sins is the very best thing that can hap­pen to us. It opens the door to the sal­va­ti­on of our lives and rela­ti­onships. It opens for us the door to hea­ven, which remains clo­sed to tho­se who do not have the for­gi­ve­ness of sins. For­gi­ve­ness of sins is the hig­hest good we can recei­ve. It is a wealth that com­ple­te­ly pales the mil­li­ons or even bil­li­ons that the richest of this world may pos­sess. Jesus says: «What good would it do a man if he gai­ned the who­le world and yet dama­ged his soul? Or what can man give to rede­em his soul?»(Matthew 16:26). We can have all the goods of this world. If we do not have for­gi­ve­ness of sins, we will lite­ral­ly be emp­ty-han­ded when the supre­me judge, the holy God, sum­mons us befo­re his thro­ne and calls us to account for our lives. Then all the goods of this world will not be enough to buy us free from the jud­ge­ment that will befall us when we have to stand befo­re God with unf­or­gi­ven guilt. Do you have for­gi­ve­ness of your sins, or do you not have it? This is the all-important ques­ti­on: Do you have for­gi­ve­ness of your sins, or do you not have it?

It is so important that we have this assu­rance of Jesus – now and also when we stand befo­re the jud­ge­ment thro­ne of God: «Your sins are for­gi­ven!» The para­ly­tic in our sto­ry is pro­mi­sed this by Jesus: «My son, your sins are for­gi­ven.» Won­derful. He pro­ba­b­ly does­n’t even under­stand what that means at the moment. He was brought to Jesus to be freed from his para­ly­sis. But the for­gi­ve­ness of his sins is the best thing that could have hap­pen­ed to him. The phy­si­cal heal­ing that he sub­se­quent­ly expe­ri­en­ces is «only» the con­fir­ma­ti­on, the tan­gi­ble pro­of that Jesus» pro­mi­se is not just smo­ke and mir­rors, but truth and rea­li­ty. A gre­at sto­ry. Someone is for­gi­ven of his sins. Now we want to ask tog­e­ther how the para­ly­tic comes to this uni­que expe­ri­ence with Jesus. How does he come to this encoun­ter with Jesus, in which this hig­hest good, for­gi­ve­ness of sins, is gran­ted to him? The ans­wer is clear: he has peo­p­le, fri­ends, neigh­bours who help him to have this encoun­ter with Jesus. That’s what you want too – per­so­nal­ly and as a con­gre­ga­ti­on: to help other peo­p­le to have this sal­vi­fic encoun­ter with Jesus. After all, that is our mis­si­on, our cal­ling. The para­ly­tic in the sto­ry of Mark 2 has peo­p­le who are his fri­ends or neigh­bours and who help him to have this decisi­ve encoun­ter with Jesus. What kind of peo­p­le are they? What cha­rac­te­ri­ses them? That is the ques­ti­on we want to explo­re tog­e­ther. The­re are five «cha­rac­te­ristics» that I obser­ve in the­se fri­ends of the para­ly­sed man and which I would like to brief­ly deve­lop here:

1. They are peo­p­le who have an eye and a heart for the weak
2. They are peo­p­le who wear
3. They are peo­p­le who lead to Jesus
4. They are peo­p­le who do not give up
5. They are peo­p­le who believe.

The­se are the five points that cha­rac­te­ri­se the fri­ends or the neigh­bours in this story:

• They have an eye and a heart for the weak.
• They are rea­dy to bear.
• They have the firm con­vic­tion that the para­ly­tic must come to Jesus.
• They do not give up.
• They belie­ve that Jesus helps.

Befo­re I go into detail about the­se cha­rac­te­ristics, I want to brief­ly point out a state­ment at the begin­ning of this sto­ry that I stumb­led across while rea­ding the text. It says: «And after a few days he went – Jesus – back to Caper­na­um; and it beca­me known that he was in the house». Caper­na­um was con­side­red «his city», the city of Jesus. That is whe­re he had his home. He lived the­re – pro­ba­b­ly in Peter’s house. «Word got out that he was in the house.» «Word spread quick­ly that he was back home», trans­la­ted «hope for all» this pas­sa­ge. And this vil­la­ge talk «Jesus is in the house» cau­sed peo­p­le to gather the­re. That’s why they came in dro­ves: Jesus was in the house! It was not the magni­fi­cent buil­ding that attrac­ted the peo­p­le, not the beau­tiful sur­roun­dings, not the beau­tiful­ly desi­gned mee­ting room with uphols­te­red chairs, stage and light organs, not the impo­sing church tower, not even the invi­ting rin­ging of bells… It was sole­ly the pre­sence of Jesus that brought the peo­p­le here. «It beca­me known that he was in the house. And many were gathe­red tog­e­ther…» Oh, could this also be said over the hou­ses, over the churches and cha­pels in which we Chris­ti­ans gather: «Hey, Jesus is in the house! Jesus is in the house!» Per­haps peo­p­le would be more likely to come. Per­haps they would be less inhi­bi­ted to enter our churches and cha­pels if they knew: Jesus is in the house! As belie­vers we are the body of Christ, are­n’t we? That is what the Apost­le Paul tea­ches. Sin­ce Ascen­si­on and Pen­te­cost, we are his repre­sen­ta­ti­ves in this world. Peo­p­le should see Jesus in us, in our lives, in our tog­e­ther­ness. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, they often see so many things other than him. Dear sis­ters and brot­hers here in the see­tal chi­le: How do peo­p­le talk about the house at Chrisch­o­na­weg 2 in Seon? It would be gre­at if this house beca­me the address whe­re peo­p­le say: Jesus is at home! But now to the cha­rac­te­ristics or qua­li­ties that make up being a fri­end or neigh­bour in this story:

1. being a friend and neighbour means having an eye and a heart for the weak

Of the peo­p­le who bring the para­ly­tic to Jesus in our sto­ry, we don’t real­ly know who they are: Are they fami­ly mem­bers? Are they neigh­bours? Are they per­haps mem­bers of the Sama­ri­tan or Inva­lids» Asso­cia­ti­on? Are they sim­ply peo­p­le from his cir­cle of acquain­tances? We don’t know. But we do know one thing: they have an eye and a heart for this para­ly­sed man. They are not indif­fe­rent to him. They suf­fer with him. His para­ly­sis tou­ch­es their hearts. And they want not­hing more than for him to be hel­ped. The weak and the low­ly do not have a high sta­tus in our socie­ty. That was alre­a­dy the case back then. I recall the well-known sto­ry of Blind Bart­imae­us, which illus­tra­tes this in a dra­ma­tic way: how unkind­ly and heart­less­ly the peo­p­le the­re react when the blind man calls out to Jesus and asks him for mer­cy: «Many dro­ve at him to keep quiet…»(Mark 10:48) «Shut up! the peo­p­le shou­ted angri­ly.» This is how «Hope for All» descri­bes the reac­tion of the peo­p­le the­re. «Shut up!» Do not dis­turb us! Do not stop the Lord Jesus! He has more important things to do than to take care of wret­ched crea­tures like you.

Even Jesus» clo­sest disci­ples react in a simi­lar way when child­ren are brought to Jesus expec­ting him to lay his hands on them and pray for them: «The disci­ples dro­ve at them – the par­ents», we read about them (Matthew 19:13; Mark 10:13 etc.). Child­ren, or even old, weak, sick, dis­ab­led peo­p­le are not­hing for Jesus. The Mes­siah needs young, healt­hy, strong peo­p­le to build his won­derful king­dom. That was the disci­ples» con­vic­tion. But Jesus rebu­ked them: «You are total­ly wrong! No, I do not build my king­dom with the gre­at, not with the influ­en­ti­al and strong, I build my king­dom with peo­p­le who live from my strength and from my grace. Paul also thought that he had to be strong in order to ser­ve Jesus effec­tively. That is why he wan­ted to get rid of his weak­ne­ss and pray­ed pas­sio­na­te­ly for it. And Jesus tells him: «Be satis­fied with my grace, for my power is migh­ty in the weak.» (2 Corin­thi­ans 12:9). «Let the child­ren come to me, and do not hin­der them; for to such belongs the king­dom of God.» This is how Jesus tea­ches his peo­p­le. And how does the sto­ry of blind Bart­imae­us con­ti­nue, whom Jesus» com­pa­n­ions want to silence? Jesus stops and calls him to him (Mark 10:49). He takes care of him and helps him. And he makes it clear: I am the­re for such peo­p­le. «The healt­hy do not need the doc­tor, but the sick…»(Luke 5:31). Dear sis­ters and brot­hers, have we unders­tood and inter­na­li­sed this? Jesus has an eye and a heart for the weak. Do we, who want to fol­low him, have it too? Do we have an eye for the weak, hel­p­less and power­less peo­p­le around us? Do we have a heart for them? Or do we per­haps rather look for the healt­hy and the gre­at and the strong and the rich? Being a fri­end and neigh­bour means having an eye and a heart for the weak.

2. to be a friend and neighbour is to carry

This is what impres­ses me about the peo­p­le who bring the para­ly­tic to Jesus. They are hel­ping. They do not just watch. They don’t just feel sor­ry for him. They are not just expres­sing their sym­pa­thy and com­pas­si­on. They do not try to com­fort him. They do not give him good advice. They don’t tell him: You have to… You should… No! They tack­le him. They take him on their should­ers and car­ry him. And they car­ry him until he is with Jesus. That’s what being a fri­end is all about: Car­ry­ing the weak. Lif­ting ones­elf under his bur­den. Making his need your own need – until it is aver­ted. This is also what Paul tea­ches in his let­ter to the Gala­ti­ans when he wri­tes to them: «Bear one another’s bur­dens, and you will ful­fil the law of Christ».(Gala­ti­ans 6:2). To be a fri­end and neigh­bour means to car­ry. And this can­not be done alo­ne. It takes a com­mu­ni­ty of bea­rers. A sin­gle per­son would be over­whel­med. In our sto­ry we are told that the para­ly­tic is car­ri­ed by four. Do you under­stand? It is not one. Nor is it just two. It is four who car­ry the para­ly­tic. And the text sug­gests that the­re were others: «And some came to him, brin­ging a para­ly­tic bor­ne by four.» The­re are obvious­ly more who bring the para­ly­sed per­son than just the four who are car­ry­ing him. The­re is a com­mu­ni­ty of bea­rers, peo­p­le who can also take turns car­ry­ing him. To be a fri­end is to car­ry. And this car­ry­ing is not done alo­ne, but tog­e­ther with others. An indi­vi­du­al would be over­bur­den­ed and would soo­ner or later col­lap­se under the load he is car­ry­ing. Dear sis­ters and brot­hers here in Seon, you not only have the mis­si­on, but also the strength, the poten­ti­al, to car­ry peo­p­le tog­e­ther who are weak. Do it!

3. being a friend and neighbour means bringing people to Jesus

That seems to me to be a cru­cial point here. Peo­p­le don’t car­ry the para­ly­sed man any­whe­re. They don’t car­ry him to their club­house. They don’t car­ry him to a club mee­ting, to a neigh­bour­hood or fami­ly gathe­ring. They don’t car­ry him to an exci­ting lec­tu­re, or to a con­cert, or to an enter­tain­ment event. Fri­ends do all that, of cour­se. And some­ti­mes it is good and important to take weak peo­p­le to places whe­re they can be dis­trac­ted from their mise­ry. But the peo­p­le here in the sto­ry are not drag­ging the para­ly­tic just any­whe­re. They car­ry him to Jesus becau­se they are deep­ly con­vin­ced that this man needs Jesus abo­ve all others. This con­cern burns in their hearts: this man must come to Jesus. He must meet Jesus. That is why they do not take him any­whe­re but to Jesus. This obser­va­ti­on is so important to me becau­se I know from my own expe­ri­ence as a pre­a­cher of many years how gre­at the tempt­a­ti­on is for us as Chris­ti­an con­gre­ga­ti­ons to be inte­res­ted in other peo­p­le only becau­se we are loo­king for growth for the con­gre­ga­ti­on. We want to grow. We want to beco­me big­ger. And then we invi­te peo­p­le to our church events – not becau­se we want peo­p­le to know Jesus, but becau­se we want the church to grow. And then when they come to the ser­vice, we are alre­a­dy satis­fied. And we don’t even ask whe­ther they expe­ri­ence Jesus, whe­ther they expe­ri­ence for­gi­ve­ness of their sins and recei­ve new life, or not. The main thing is that they are the­re, in the con­gre­ga­ti­on! And this tempt­a­ti­on is espe­ci­al­ly gre­at for small con­gre­ga­ti­ons, for con­gre­ga­ti­ons that have to fight for sur­vi­val. I know what I am tal­king about. The Chrisch­o­na con­gre­ga­ti­on of Egg, whe­re I was sta­tio­ned as a pre­a­cher for the last 9 years of my minis­try, was a very small con­gre­ga­ti­on. The­re this strugg­le for sur­vi­val was very real. And I noti­ced it again and again: Sud­den­ly it’s no lon­ger pri­ma­ri­ly about brin­ging peo­p­le to Jesus, but to win them for one’s own «club», for the con­gre­ga­ti­on… But if that beco­mes the moti­va­ti­on for evan­ge­lism, then it has alre­a­dy fai­led. Becau­se peo­p­le noti­ce that very quick­ly. They noti­ce very quick­ly whe­ther we are con­cer­ned about them­sel­ves, or about us, about our club, about new mem­bers. And that makes them reluc­tant and also sus­pi­cious. This call to win peo­p­le for our­sel­ves, for our Chris­ti­an asso­cia­ti­ons, is also some­thing that sticks to us evan­ge­li­cal churches – some­ti­mes not enti­re­ly wit­hout reason… Being a fri­end and neigh­bour means brin­ging peo­p­le to Jesus – not to the church! To be a fri­end means to rejoice when they expe­ri­ence Jesus, when they come to belie­ve in him and expe­ri­ence hope and new life through faith in Jesus – even if they do not join «our» church. It is remar­kab­le in our sto­ry that Jesus does not say to the para­ly­tic: «Get up, take your bed and join us!» He tells him: «Get up, take your bed and go home!» Being a fri­end and neigh­bour means brin­ging peo­p­le to Jesus.

4. to be a friend and neighbour is not to give up

The peo­p­le in our sto­ry who have it on their hearts to bring the para­ly­tic to Jesus learn that it is not so easy. The­re is a gre­at obs­ta­cle on the way to Jesus. And this obs­ta­cle is actual­ly tra­gic: it is the peo­p­le who are inte­res­ted in Jesus, who want to be espe­ci­al­ly clo­se to him. They stand in the way of the «dis­ab­led trans­port». They do not let the men with the para­ly­sed man through. They do not make room. How obs­truc­ti­ve, how blo­cking for the nee­dy, pious peo­p­le can beco­me when they lose sight and heart for the weak. Then they sud­den­ly stand in the way. They stand in the way of tho­se who should be brought to Jesus becau­se they despera­te­ly need him. That is the sho­cking thing about this sto­ry, which is gre­at in its­elf: the grea­test obs­ta­cle for the peo­p­le with their para­ly­sed fri­end are tho­se who want to be very clo­se to Jesus… May this sto­ry beco­me a mer­ciful mir­ror for us, if it should also be the case that we as pious peo­p­le are more of an obs­ta­cle for others than a gui­de and hel­per to Jesus. The good thing about this sto­ry is that the men car­ry­ing the para­ly­tic do not give up. They could resign and say: «Sor­ry, we tried, but it did­n’t work. We wan­ted with all our hearts for this para­ly­sed man to come to Jesus, but unfort­u­na­te­ly it was not pos­si­ble. They could have given up and car­ri­ed the sick per­son home again. But they don’t. They do not give up. They take an uncon­ven­tio­nal, even com­ple­te­ly cra­zy way to reach their goal: they climb onto the roof of the house and break it open. It is cal­led here: «They made a hole…» (Mark 2:4). They put a hole in the roof! And this was not a tiled roof as we know it today, which could be unco­ver­ed and then sim­ply clo­sed up again. It was pro­ba­b­ly a mud roof, and it was not so easy to get it sea­led again. The­se men risk being char­ged with dama­ge to pro­per­ty. They punc­tu­re the roof of the house whe­re Jesus is and let the para­ly­tic down through this hole in the roof – right at Jesus» feet. Dear sis­ters and brot­hers, how much are we wil­ling to invest and also to risk when it comes to peo­p­le being able to meet Jesus? I have the impres­si­on that we some­ti­mes give up far too quick­ly, that we capi­tu­la­te far too quick­ly when the­re are dif­fi­cul­ties. Being a fri­end does not mean giving up. Being a neigh­bour means sti­cking with it – even when the­re are obs­ta­cles on the way to Jesus.

5. to be a friend and neighbour is to believe for the other.

That is some­thing that always fasci­na­tes me about this well-known sto­ry when I read or hear it. It says: «When Jesus saw their faith - the faith of fri­ends - he said to the para­ly­tic, «My son, your sins are for­gi­ven.» We read not­hing in the who­le sto­ry about the faith of the para­ly­tic. Per­haps he did not belie­ve at all. May­be he was full of doubts. May­be he just let his fri­ends drag him to this Jesus. May­be he thought: «If it’s no use, it’s no use! In any case, Jesus does not see the faith of the para­ly­tic here, but that of his bea­rers. «When Jesus the­r­e­fo­re saw their faith, he said to the para­ly­tic, «My son, your sins are for­gi­ven.» Appar­ent­ly the­re is such a thing as «inter­ces­so­ry faith», a faith that we can have vica­rious­ly for the weak. Per­so­nal­ly, I belie­ve that the­re are situa­tions and life­styl­es in which peo­p­le no lon­ger have the strength and abili­ty to belie­ve. And in such situa­tions, appeals like: You just have to belie­ve! You must not doubt! etc. are of no use at all. On the con­tra­ry, they only increase the mise­ry of the weak. The­re are situa­tions and ways of life whe­re sub­sti­tu­tio­na­ry faith is cal­led for, the inter­ces­so­ry faith of peo­p­le who are strong. And our sto­ry shows that Jesus respects such inter­ces­so­ry faith and bles­ses the weak per­son who is belie­ved for. To be a fri­end and neigh­bour is to belie­ve for the other.

Dear sis­ters and brot­hers here in see­tal chi­le: From the bot­tom of my heart I wish you all to have such fri­ends as descri­bed here in this sto­ry of the para­ly­sed man. But even more, I wish that all of you are or beco­me such fri­ends – a bles­sing for the para­ly­sed, for the sick, for the weak and the nee­dy. I would like to clo­se with a refe­rence to the para­ble of the Good Sama­ri­tan. You know why Jesus tells this para­ble? He tells it becau­se someone – a scri­be – comes to him and asks: «Who is my neigh­bour?» (Luke 10:29). And then Jesus tells the sto­ry of the man who was atta­cked, and the pious peo­p­le, the priest and the Levi­te, pass him by care­less­ly. And then the Sama­ri­tan, this «for­eig­ner», comes and helps the woun­ded man. He looks after his wounds and cares for him. Do you also remem­ber how Jesus con­cludes this para­ble? He does it with the ques­ti­on: «Which of the­se three do you think was next to him who had fal­len among the rob­bers?» (Luke 10:36). The scri­be asks Jesus who his neigh­bour is. And Jesus ans­wers him: «The ques­ti­on is not who is your neigh­bour. The ques­ti­on is to whom you are a neigh­bour. To be a fri­end is to be a neigh­bour. And being a neigh­bour means ser­ving the one who needs help. To be a neigh­bour means to see him, to car­ry him, to bring him to Jesus, to per­se­ve­re for him and to belie­ve for him who can­not, or can­not yet, do this hims­elf. May the Lord Jesus help us all to beco­me such peo­p­le, fri­ends and neigh­bours who are the­re for others and help them to encoun­ter Him.