“With a Little Help from My Friends”
St. Mark 2:1-12
The
Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
February
19, 2006
Leonia
United Methodist Church
In
the Name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer
There was an interesting article in People magazine recently. It
was about a young man, eighteen-year-old Kevin Hines, who, in September of 2000,
decided to give up his fight with depression by jumping off San Francisco’s
Golden Gate Bridge.
As he paced and cried along the bridge sidewalk, Kevin looked for someone
who would talk him out of his crazy decision. If even one person expressed
concern for him, then Kevin was prepared to back down. But not one passerby gave
Kevin a second glance, with one exception--a tourist asked him to take her
picture. Not one person, including the tourist, cared enough to try to intervene
to keep Kevin from killing himself.
Finally, Kevin Hines climbed up on the guard rail and threw himself 220
feet into the waters below. Miraculously, he survived his jump, although he
suffered serious injuries. While recovering from his injuries, Hines received
some encouraging advice from a visiting priest. He said to Kevin, “You are a
miracle. Now go out and save lives.” According to People magazine,
Kevin Hines has gone back to school and is working to put the priest’s words
into action in his life and in the lives of others.
The story had a happy ending. Thank God! But it is sobering to read that
Kevin would not have jumped if only one person had reached out to him.
What would have happened if we had been on the bridge that day? Would we
have intervened to try to save Kevin, or would we have simply passed him by?
Word got out in Capernaum that Jesus was in the village. We know what
happened next. We’ve seen it happen before. Crowds started lining up outside
his door. So many people gathered that there was no room left for anyone else to
squeeze in. When Jesus saw the great crowd, he did what he was sent to do--he
began preaching to them. But, as always, he was interrupted.
Four men have come to see him. They are carrying a man on a stretcher.
The man is paralyzed. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the
crowd, the four men make an opening in the roof above Jesus, and then they lower
the stretcher with the man on it. Notice what the Gospel of St. Mark says next,
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are
forgiven.’”
Some teachers of the law are present and they are shocked that Jesus
presumed to forgive sins. Jesus knows what they are thinking and he says to
them, “Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’
or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But that you may know that the
Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . .” He said to the
paralytic, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” The man got up,
took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. What a powerful story.
There are several places in the Gospels where Jesus indicates that a
person’s faith played a role in the healing process. But this story is
different. In this story, it is the faith of the man’s friends that is cited.
“When Jesus saw their faith . . .” This man found healing because his
friends had faith. That’s fascinating. We can understand when our own faith
can affect our healing, but the faith of others, can it make a difference?
The answer is, yes. What you and I believe has an impact on others.
Does it matter when people first become parents that they are people
of faith? Of course it does. People who have a healthy, wholesome faith in a
loving God who gives purpose to their lives make better parents.
Now notice I said a healthy, wholesome faith. Not every parent has a
healthy, wholesome faith. Let’s face it, there are some people with a twisted,
mean-spirited faith. They believe in a vindictive God who rewards and punishes
in a helter-skelter manner. And they themselves are generally petty and
vindictive. Such people make terrible parents and they produce children in their
mode. But a person who has a healthy sense of identity as a child of a gracious
and loving God will transmit that faith to their children, and their children
will have a healthy, wholesome faith, too. What you and I believe will have an
impact on our families.
Raising a family is a challenge. One new father said that he had read
that, when your baby is teething, you lose one night’s sleep for every tooth.
“Well by that reckoning,” he says, “my baby girl would now have about 150
teeth.”
Wait until that baby daughter becomes a teenager, then the sleepless
nights will really begin. Raising children is a challenge.
A tired homemaker opened the front door of her home to find a
representative of a children’s home. The kindly gentleman said, “I’m
collecting donations for the new children’s home we’re building. I hope
you’ll give what you can.”
“Absolutely,” said the beleaguered woman. “I’ll give you two boys
and two girls, or one of each.”
Raising children is a challenge. The best parents reflect the love of
Jesus.
J. Ellsworth Kalas tells about a friend of his, a Lutheran by faith, who
taught in a middle school and operated a small summer business.
One of his sons once asked him, “Dad, what is your goal in life?”
His friend answered, “To put the hands of my family into the hand of
God.”
What kind of parent do we think he was? Our faith will have an impact on
our families.
Pastor John Ortberg once wrote something important I would like to read.
He writes, “I look in on my children as they sleep at night, [and] I think of
the kind of father I want to be. I want to create moments of magic, I want them
to remember laughing until the tears flow . . . I want to have slow, sweet talks
with them as they’re getting ready to close their eyes. I want to chase
fireflies with them, teach them to play tennis, have food fights, and hold them
and pray for them in a way that makes them feel cherished.
“I look in on them,” he continues, “and I remember how the day
really went. I remember how they were trapped in a fight over [a game] and I
walked out of the room because I didn’t want to spend the energy needed to
teach them how to resolve conflict. I remember how my daughter spilled cherry
punch at dinner and I yelled at her as if she’d revealed some deep character
flaw; I yelled at her even though I spill things all the time and no one yells
at me; I yelled at her--to tell the truth--because I’m big and she’s little
and I can get away with it. I remember how at nights I didn’t have slow, sweet
talks, but merely rushed the children off to bed so I could have more time to
myself.”
Most of us have been there, haven’t we? It’s time to turn our
children over to Jesus and to pray that he will make us the kind of parents we
ought to be. Our faith will have an impact on our family.
It will also have an impact on our friends. Would these four men
have brought this man to Jesus if they were different kind of people? They
surely had other things to do, but they cared about their friend and they
believed that Jesus could heal him.
Dick Innes in his Internet column, Daily Encounter, tells about
friendship among the North American Indians. Native Americans had no written
language before they met the white man. Their language, however, was far from
primitive. Many of the Indians had as many words in their vocabulary as their
English and French exploiters. Some of their words were much more picturesque,
too. For example, “friend” to the Indians was
“one-who-carries-my-sorrows-on-his-back.”
Says Dick Innes, “Everybody needs at least one trusted
‘Indian-type’ friend with whom he or she can share his or her deepest
sorrows and painful feelings. We all need a helping hand and a listening ear
when we’re going through difficult times. How do we find such a friend? First,
by praying and asking God to help us to be an ‘Indian-type’ friend. And then
by asking God to help us find such a friend.
Heather Floyd, a member of the contemporary Christian music group Point of Grace, found such a friend. It was a guy from her church.
One day before lunch, her friend Mike invited her to go off campus and have
lunch with him. Not thinking much about it, Heather said, “Sure.” They had a
really nice time together at one of Heather’s favorite places. About a year
later she learned why he invited her to lunch that day. He had overheard
some her friends of talking. They were planning to push Heather out of their
group. They’d decided to go out to lunch--and leave her behind. When Mike
heard this, he found Heather and talked her into going to lunch with him so she
wouldn’t find out what her friends had planned.
“I know it was a little thing,” says Heather Floyd, “but what he
did was so kind and unselfish. He really cared about my feelings. It just showed
me what it means to be a real friend.” What we believe can have an impact on
our families and our friends.
What we believe can also have an impact on complete strangers. I
have been assuming the four men in this story were friends of the paralyzed man
on the stretcher. Maybe they were complete strangers. Maybe they came to hear
Jesus preach and they saw this man on the street stretched out on his mat
begging for alms and they said to one another, “Hey, the Master can help this
man. Why don’t we take him with us and see if we can get him some help?”
Then Jesus’ words about their faith take on even more significance. They cared
about a stranger and they brought him to Jesus.
Is that possible? Certainly such things have happened before. And we
don’t have to go to religious journals to find them. Secular magazines have
begun to notice that faith can make a difference in people’s lives.
For example, Family Circle carried a story recently about Dr.
Joseph E. Murray who performed the first successful human organ transplant
operation on December 23, 1954. Dr. Murray devoted himself to unlocking the
secrets of successful organ transplantation after serving as an Army surgeon in
World War II. In addition to perfecting organ transplantation techniques, Dr.
Murray has also spent part of his career performing plastic surgery on those
with facial deformities. He has traveled around the world, offering his services
as a plastic surgeon in some of the poorest nations. In 1990, Dr. Murray was
recognized for his work and awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine.
An observant Catholic, Dr. Murray begins each morning with the prayer
that “all my acts are consistent with being the creature of a loving
Creator.” According to Family Circle, Joseph Murray’s faith impacts
complete strangers.
Even Time magazine is beginning to recognize the difference faith
can make. They published a remarkable story recently about a young man named
Peter Howell.
Every week, the young men of Sigma Nu fraternity house at Indiana
University expect a visit from Peter Howell. Howell is a fellow student and
president of Greek InterVarsity, a Christian group on campus. For the past two
years, he has paid every guy in his dormitory a weekly visit and invited him to
a Bible study. Most guys turn him down. Howell could easily become discouraged.
Why does he keep trying to share his faith with guys who don’t seem to care?
Because sometimes it makes a difference. As one of Howell’s frat brothers told
Time, “In the biggest meathead frat, he is himself. He’s 100%. And no
matter what day I say no, he’ll always come back.
“One day, when I’m ready,” says this frat brother, “I’ll
remember Peter.” What you and I believe can impact even complete strangers.
Let’s suppose we were walking across a tall bridge and we saw a young
man pacing back and forth and crying. If we were a person of faith might it not
cause us to reach out to that young man and thereby possibly prevent a tragedy?
Left to our own motivations, we might not see any reason to leave our comfort
zone and reach out to a stranger, but as people of faith, might we not feel the
Christ pushing us to forget about ourselves and care about someone else?
Four men brought a paralyzed man on a mat to Jesus. When they couldn’t
find any other way to get to Jesus, they made a hole in the roof and lowered the
man into Jesus’ presence. “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the
paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” Later Jesus would tell the
paralyzed man to take up his mat and walk, which he did. The power of faith! Not
simply the power of faith on us, but the power of our faith on others. Such
faith can change the world.
S
H A L O M
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“Time Out!"
St. Mark 1:29-39
The Fifth Sunday after the
Epiphany
February 5, 2006
Leonia
United Methodist Church
In
the Name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer
Sue Buchanan shares a good story about her father, a pastor
in a small Southern town. This pastor wanted to help his granddaughter, Dana,
deal with a particular fear. In this small town, a siren blew at noon every day.
It was probably installed generations ago in order to let factory workers know
it was time to go home for lunch. When little Dana visited her Grandpa, the
siren scared her silly. So Grandpa suggested that, since this was a noontime
siren, whenever Dana heard it, she should stand up and yell, “Go home and get
your lunch!”
Sure enough, Grandpa’s suggestion worked. Whenever little
Dana heard the siren, she began yelling, “Go home and get your lunch!” and
she didn’t even think about being scared.
Well, one Sunday morning, Grandpa got really worked up over
his sermon subject. He was preaching up a storm when the noon siren suddenly
sounded. Little Dana took this as her cue. She stood up, turned to the
congregation, and yelled, “Go home and get your lunch!” and all the people
promptly gathered up their things and left.
I hope that little story doesn’t give any of you ideas.
At the height of his ministry Jesus was continually
surrounded by crowds of people. They pressed around him everywhere he went.
Probably there were times he wanted to yell at them, “Go home and get your
lunch!”
We think of the day he fed the five thousand. But, as we
noted last week, this was a constant problem. People wanted to see him, be near
him, touch him, particularly those who had a serious need.
In today’s story, Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law
of a fever. By the way, do we think of Simon Peter being married? Obviously he
was. Wonder how his wife felt about his leaving everything and following Jesus?
Maybe she was an understanding woman. I wonder, though, if it was a source of
conflict. Sometimes we may think we don’t have time to serve the Christ. Too
many family responsibilities! God has heard that excuse before.
Anyway, Simon Peter had a mother-in-law, and that evening
after sunset, after Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, St. Mark tells us, the
people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town
gathered at the door.
The next morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left
the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed. Simon and his
companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed:
“Everyone is looking for you!”
Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else--to the nearby
villages--so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”
It was evident that, from time to time, Jesus needed a time
out. He needed to get away by himself. Anyone here ever feel like that? It goes
with modern life, doesn’t it? Jesus needed a time out and so often he would
rise early and go off to a solitary place. “Everyone is looking for you!”
his disciples would report. But that time out was essential to the effectiveness
of Jesus’ ministry.
We need to learn to take “time out” as well. Our lives
become so frantic. So chaotic! With all there is to do, we can lose our soul if
we are not careful. Taking time out is as much a part of Christian living as
taking up the cross of Christian service. And for the same reasons, Jesus needed
time out.
Jesus needed time alone to pray.
That’s remarkable when we consider what we know about Jesus. Son of God. Only
begotten of the Father. Yet he needed time for prayer. Jesus knew from
first-hand experience what a powerful force prayer can be in human life.
There is a story that comes out of World War II.
After the Battle of the Bulge, a German officer was
describing the capture of an American unit early in the fighting. This unit had
in its possession a box which contained a cake. What was remarkable about the
cake is that it had been sent to an American soldier from Boston and it was
still fresh. This German officer described his feelings when he realized that
the Americans had the resources to fly over cakes from home even in the midst of
a global war. He said that he knew then, that they would never defeat an enemy
that had such resources for the waging of the battle.
We have a resource that can help us in life’s daily
battles, if only we will make room for it. It is time alone with God. It is
one-on-One communication with the Creator and Sustainer of life.
We human creatures are so very strange. We will believe
almost anything except what millions of people have rested their lives on over
the past two thousand years. That the God of the universe is available through
prayer.
Perhaps we are familiar with the so-called SETI project–the
Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. From the late 1960s until 1993 NASA
funded this effort to one degree or another. Since 1993 the effort has been
supported by the private non-profit SETI Institute and the grassroots SETI
League.
For 45 years, spending hundreds of millions of dollars, we
have been sending messages into the universe with the purpose of discovering
whether there is any other intelligent life out there. .And there has not been
one response. Not one. Perhaps our recent launch of a rocket on a nine year
journey to Pluto will yield a response.
Yet we can kneel down anywhere on earth and communicate with
the One who created this universe and everything that is in it. Why in the world
do we not make use of this amazing resource?
Anyone who makes a difference in the world needs time for
prayer. Hudson Taylor was a missionary to China whose life has touched millions.
Traveling in northern China, by cart and wheelbarrow, sleeping in the very
poorest of inns at night, it was not easy for him to make time for prayer and
Bible study, but he knew that it was vital. Those who traveled with him testify
that after others had quieted down at night for sleep, they would hear a match
struck and see the flicker of candlelight. This told them that Hudson Taylor was
pouring over his little Bible. It was his custom to spend from two to four a.m.
in prayer. A biographer wrote that Hudson Taylor considered finding time to
spend with God the hardest part of his work as a missionary.
It is so easy to neglect that which is most important to our
lives. Jesus needed time for prayer.
And Jesus needed time to focus on his primary mission.
We can sympathize with the Master’s dilemma. So many people whom he met needed
a doctor. Think how many people are on our prayer list, and yet people in
Jesus’ time were not nearly as fortunate as we. They lived in pre-scientific
times. A simple infection could bring an agonizing death. Epidemics could wipe
out entire villages. Many of the diseases that vexed people in Jesus’ time are
unheard of today.
We are so fortunate to live in a time when doctors can do so
much for us. I could not even imagine a world without the advantages of modern
medicine. Imagine passing kidney stones without the knowledge of pain killers
and muscle relaxants. Of course, doctors are human beings, too. And not all of
them have the interest of the patient at heart.
Reuters News Service carried a story sometime back about a
Massachusetts doctor, a graduate of Harvard Medical School no less, who has had
his medical license suspended for leaving a patient on the operating table
midway through spinal surgery. It seems this doctor, an orthopedic surgeon,
needed to deposit a check at his local bank. So he left the patient with an open
incision in his back just lying there on the table. After a 35-minute trip to
the bank, the doctor returned to the operating room and finished the surgery a
few hours later.
Not every doctor has the welfare of his patient at heart.
Jesus did. His heart went out to all the sick and hurting people who came to him
for help. But healing people’s physical bodies was not Jesus’ primary
mission. We need to understand this. If healing people were Jesus’ main
purpose for coming into the world, he could have set up a clinic in downtown
Jerusalem. It would have been flooded with needy people day and night. But it
would never have been possible for him to see them all.
Jesus’ plan was much bigger. It is important that we
understand this, too. His plan was to touch the lives of a few men and women
who, on the Day of Pentecost, would be transformed into a mighty spiritual army,
the Church of Jesus the Christ. And over the centuries, this spiritual army
would build tens of thousands of hospitals and schools and all manner of
charitable institutions all over the world. And millions of people would be
touched by the ministry of the humble Galilean through his Church. His followers
would heal many millions more individuals than he could possibly touch in a
lifetime.
This was Jesus’ plan from the beginning. That’s why he
needed time out from his healing ministry. He needed to spend time with his
Father and he needed to refocus his ministry. Jesus said to those disciples who
came to find him, “Let us go somewhere else--to the nearby villages--so I can
preach there also. That is why I have come.” And that is why he came
primarily. Not to heal bodies, but to inspire hearts. He came that he might
preach the kingdom of God.
And thus Jesus needed time out--to spend time with the
Father, and to refocus on his primary mission. I wonder if many of us don’t
need a time out as well. Are we spending the time we need in prayer? Does
our life need to be refocused?
We live in a fast-changing and complex world. If we are not
careful, we will find ourselves majoring in minors, ignoring the really crucial
needs in our lives. But how do we do it? How do we find the time for this
essential practice of taking time out to connect with God and to reflect on our
lives? Here’s a suggestion.
Some remember the name Catherine Marshall. Catherine Marshall
is the widow of Peter Marshall, noted pastor and former chaplain of the U.S.
Senate, about whom she wrote a best-selling book, A Man Called Peter. She
also wrote many other fine books including the novel Christy, which was
made into a movie.
In 1959 Catherine Marshall was newly remarried and
trying to raise three stepchildren. With much to pray about, she and husband Len
LeSourd, nonetheless, couldn’t find time to pray.
So they began what they called The Coffeepot Experiment, in
which an automatically timed percolator would aromatically wake them every
morning at six. Feeling sleepily peaceful, they gave themselves fully to God in
prayer. His peace then stayed with them all day.
The best time for prayer, Catherine concluded, isn’t found.
It’s made!
Did we catch that? We will never find time for prayer and
reflection, we have to make time. The Coffeepot Experiment sounds like a great
idea.
Missionary evangelist and best-selling author E. Stanley
Jones put it like this: “In the pure, strong hours of the morning when the
soul of the day is at its best, lean upon the window sill of the Lord and look
into his face, and get orders for the day. Then go out into the world with a
sense of [God’s] hand upon your shoulder . . .”
If Jesus needed to spend time in prayer, how much more do we
need to spend time in prayer? If he needed to call time out in order to refocus
his ministry, how much more do we need to reflect upon our lives and reorder our
priorities? But Catherine Marshall is right. We will never find the time; we
will have to make the time. [Now I realize that
it’s just about that time in our service for someone to stand up and yell,
“Go home and get your lunch!” but don’t forget the central message of
today’s service.] Take time to pray. There is
an invaluable resource available to us all. Let God help us determine those
things that are most important in our lives.
S
H A L O M