Going Home to Community

DAILY BYTE

This week we’ve now seen two ways that the story in Mark 2 speaks of the reality of the body of Christ. First, we saw that people listening to Jesus still often keep others from being near him. Second, we saw that the people carrying the paralytic had nothing special about them, other than the fact that they were willing, they joined together, and they persevered with faith, getting their hands dirty.

This brings us to the climax scene for today: when Jesus heals the paralytic. It says, “they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”

Notice that Jesus did not heal the paralytic because of the paralytic’s own faith. He healed him because of the faith of the community that surrounded him. How often do we find ourselves feeling like we’re out of faith and we don’t have the strength or wisdom we need to get through our challenges. It is through those moments that the community prays. That’s why prayer teams and chains and visitors to people who are sick and just plain lonely are not just important ministry programs. They are the essence of what it means to increase the faith of the body of Christ. When we hold the challenges in our life just out of the reach of Christ, it takes the community to lift us down - graciously and humbly - into Christ’s presence.

But, notice also that at first, Jesus doesn’t heal this man in the physical sense. Remember it said: Jesus saw their faith, and he said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven. Only after that does he heal the man’s body, which reminds us that the healing of the body and the healing of the soul are integrally intertwined, and both of them must be surrounded by the community of faith.

When I was in seminary, I participated in a prayer group with about ten other women seminarians, and one night, we decided to have time just to confess things to one another. It was one of the most powerful nights of my life - and I can’t even remember what I confessed. What I recall is the palpable sense of forgiveness in the room. I remember someone in the community that I loved speaking the words out loud: You are forgiven.

My friends took me from where I was, feeling far away from Jesus and lifted me down, grounding me in the deep and timeless truth that my sins are forgiven. And I could not have experienced that without sitting in the midst of the people I loved as they listened to my life. It would not have been the same for me to tell myself that I was forgiven. I needed to hear it through someone else’s voice – someone that for me, that day, was the voice of Jesus.

Now, notice one more thing about the end of this story in Mark. After Jesus heals the paralytic, he stands up in spirit and body to the amazement and joy of the community, but Jesus doesn’t tell him to do a victory dance. Jesus says to go home.

Because Jesus knows that today might be a day of healing, but tomorrow will bring new challenges of its own, and when those challenges come, we will need to remain with the people in God’s community who love us and will be there again to carry us to Jesus.

Who is God’s community to you? How do you participate in God’s community, through God’s strength, carrying, grounding, and healing others?

FOCUS TEXT

Mark 2:5; 10-12 (NRSV)

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’...But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic—‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’

PRAY AS YOU GO

Uniting God, you gave us yourself through the body of your son, Jesus, and through his resurrection, you have made every one of us an integral part of the body here in your world. Ground our feet in your grace. Ground our minds in an understanding of your word. And then, teach us to use our hands and the gifts you have given us to become doers of your word and not hearers only. Forgive us for the times we have failed to allow you to work through us, and empower us in the “impossible possibility” of becoming the loving community you desire us to be. Amen.