The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Durrell Watkins at the
Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, February 22, 2009.
My great-aunt Gladys had never flown before; so when she decided to take a
trip to the Grand Canyon she invited me to fly with her. On the plane, because
she was a little nervous, she took out her rosary and silently prayed as we
lifted off.
A couple of mischievous guys behind us thought they’d have some fun with my
aunt. One said, “I sure hope there are no Catholics in Arizona. On my last
trip to Ireland, the place was lousy with Catholics; I’ll never go back.”
The other guy said, “Mexico is just as bad. I was just there and you can’t
take a step without tripping over a Catholic; I’ll never go back.”
Finally, my aunt turned around and with a gentle smile, she said ever so
sweetly, “Why don’t you both go to hell; there are no Catholics there.”
Careful with that joke, it’s an antique. Of course I don’t believe in a
place called Hell. Though plenty of people have had hellish experiences, and
the gospels show Jesus trying to liberate people from their personal hells. We
see that very sort of thing today.
At the end of chapter 1 in Mark, a man with a skin disease comes to Jesus
and begs him for help. Jesus reaches out his hand and touches the untouchable
man, and Mark says, “Immediately… the man was cured.”
Jesus doesn’t want a lot of press, so he asks the guy not to make a big deal
of this spontaneous remission.
But the guy tells everyone he meets…sometimes the news is just too good to
keep to yourself.
And Jesus gets a reputation as a healer and crowds start to follow him
wherever he goes.
That leads us to chapter 2, where Jesus returns to Capernaum and crowds
continue to gather. On this occasion, Jesus is sharing the word of
encouragement, as is his way, to a packed house. The house is so full, no one
else can enter.
Then some people come along, bringing to Jesus a paralyzed man; and when they
can’t get to Jesus because of the crowd, they remove the roof above him…
OK, so Jesus is popular. When Deepak Chopra gives a lecture, he packs the
house, too. There are always people who need a little help, and when they hear
that someone can make them feel better, give them hope, inspire them,
encourage them… they want some of that.
Whenever someone is selling hope, there will always be a market for it. My
medicine cupboard is full of bottled dreams… potions and tinctures and snake
oil that promise I can sleep off the pounds, wash away the grey, annihilate
wrinkles and fine lines in only a few days, brighten my smile, remove all
pain, help me get a good night’s rest, make me smell like spring rain, pills
to grow hair and crèmes to remove it, I think I even have a lotion that is
meant to make me taller. The world always needs hope, and when someone is
offering it, there’s bound to be a crowd showing up to get it.
Of course the house is packed. Now some unscrupulous charlatans take
advantage of people’s pain and offer promises they can’t possibly fulfill,
toss out answers that are far too easy for the complex problems of life. But
there are also the sincere heroes and helpers and healers who are doing
everything they can to give genuine hope to as many people as possible. Jesus
was the genuine article… you can’t keep that a secret, and the crowds keep
growing.
Some people have brought a friend to see Jesus who seems to be paralyzed.
They can’t get in, so they hoist this guy up to the roof, tear a whole in the
roof and lower him down. Security! Do they plan to pay for that damage? They
have a grand idea, but have you noticed that people with the heroic gestures
and the grand ideas are very seldom the ones who stick around to clean up the
mess!?! Yes, these guys have faith, but I also hope they have the number of a
good contractor because, hello, there is now a hole in the ceiling!
But, of course, the bible is written in the language of myth and metaphor,
story and allegory, image and idiom, prose and poetry. The point of the story,
and remember, I insist that Mark is something of a playwright… he’s giving us
truth on every page, but we must never limit truth to mere facts… the bible
isn’t journalism, its literature (sacred literature to be sure, but so much
more than dry details and trivial tidbits).
The point is someone is stuck. He needs friends to help him. He needs
community to help him get unstuck, mobile again, moving in the flow of life
again. He has friends who are willing to help him, and they bring him to an
even larger community where people are being taught to believe in themselves
and to summon hope from deep within. They find a way to enter such an
empowering, healing community… that’s the message of the roof top entrance
today.
Once they make their dramatic entrance, Jesus tells the guy on the mate
that his sins are forgiven, so we might imagine that mistakes, fears, clinging
to the past, negative attitudes, pessimistic thinking…somehow the habit of
missing the mark has immobilized this person.
I’ve been there; have you?
Rehashing something that happened 20 years ago?
Walking around feeling sorry for myself, and then angry that no one notices,
or when they do, feeling embarrassed as they offer pity?
Jesus has a word for that kind of self-imposed no win situation… he calls it
sin, missing the mark, seeing life in a distorted way and not living as fully
as is actually possible.
Whatever has immobilized the man on the mat, Jesus says, “let it go.
Release the past to the past. It’s over. Be here, now! Embrace the
possibilities that exist now. Get up and start moving, start living your life
again. Stop letting yesterday paralyze you today.”
When I tested HIV positive, I called a friend of mine who is a minister. I
gave her the news over the phone… I think I wanted her to help me play the
martyr, the victim… she was too smart for that. I’ve been living with the virus
for 18 years, and medicine and optimism and luck… who knows what all has
contributed to my longevity; but I remember her initial response. She said,
“Oh, honey; that’s just information.”
She didn’t promise me a cure. She didn’t promise me a miracle. She was
doing funerals every week just as we all were in those days. But she knew that
whether I lived 7 more weeks or 70 more years, the quality of that time was
largely dependent on my own attitude. She wasn’t going to enable me to waste
time being stuck. If I had a short time, then I had no time to waste. If
longevity was possible, then there was no point sabotaging it with undo
negativity. The initial shock, fear, regret… all that was normal. But
eventually, I needed the voice of hope telling me to release what I could so
that I could take up my mat and walk.
Your sins are forgiven.
Jesus’ critics say, “Who does he think he is, forgiving sins!” Well, actually,
what he did was pronounce the forgiveness of sins. That’s what priests do;
priests affirm God’s forgiveness. Jesus is daring to do what priests do; he is
owning his own authority. He can affirm someone. He can minister to someone.
He can encourage someone. The ministry of encouragement isn’t a privilege of
the priestly class; it’s the mission of every compassionate person.
And so Jesus says, “whatever is holding you down, holding you back… it’s
over. It’s just information. Give yourself a break. Start over. Take up your
mat and walk.” Jesus isn’t glorifying himself; he’s comforting the one who is
hurting. He’s trying to release the person from his mental anguish, his
personal hell, so he will be free to move into wholeness, hope, and happiness.
He wants the guy to be unstuck, so he can experience joy no matter what the
circumstances of life may offer.
You are not your past. You are not your mistakes.
You are not your diagnosis. You are not your bank account.
You are not the loss, the betrayal, the failure you experienced.
You are not the judgments others have made about you.
You are not even the judgments you’ve made about yourself.
Let all that go… that’s what it means to say, “your sins are forgiven.” And
once you get that, then the next step is possible… get up, start over, give joy
another chance. Take up your mat and walk.”
We all get knocked down sometimes. But we can also get on our feet again.
Maybe we can’t do it by ourselves; but then again, we don’t have to. This is
our gospel story today, and this is the good news. Amen.