The 1st United
7th Sunday after
the Epiphany
Scripture
Hebrew Scriptures – Isaiah 43: 18-25[1]
18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19 I am about to do a new
thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and
rivers in the desert. 20 The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give
water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21 the people
whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. 22 Yet you did not call upon me,
O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel! 23 You have not brought me your sheep for
burnt offerings, or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, or
wearied you with frankincense. 24 You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied
me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied
me with your iniquities. 25 I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I
will not remember your sins.
Gospel – Mark 2: 1-12[2]
1When he returned to
We
Have Never Seen Anything Like This!
Once upon a time several members of a Hasidic[3]
congregation had become hopelessly lost in a very dense forest. Stumbling along, trying to find their way, their
fear suddenly turned to joy when they unexpectedly came upon their rabbi who
was also wandering through the woods.
They pleaded with him, "Rebbi, we are lost! Please show us the way out of the
forest!" To which the rabbi
replied, "I don't know the way out either.
But I do know which paths lead nowhere.
I'll show you the ways that won't work; then maybe, together, we'll be
able to discover the ones that do."[4]
Now there's a pastor worth following!
Isaiah's voice rings out at us today, saying, "Open
your eyes! Look at what God's doing all
around you! Don't focus so much on what
you believe God has done in the past that you blind yourselves to what God is
doing right now!"
Ironically enough, this message is as significant today as
it was in ancient history. Most of us
have been taught to respect our elders and to honor the past. There's something almost biological about
revering old people and the traditional ways of doing things. One of the Ten Commandments, of course,
literally insists that we respect our mothers and fathers. But here comes word through a prophet telling
us to forget it! What's up with
that? I was just headed out the door to
visit friends who were celebrating (as best they can under the circumstances of
the triple-A's of arthritis, amnesia and arteriosclerosis!) their fiftieth wedding
anniversary. I wanted to be able to say
that I was looking forward to an evening strolling "down memory lane"
and celebrating the richness of their lives together, remembering "the
former things," and considering with some care "the things of
old." This so-called prophet of God
can't possibly mean that I should forget these old friends – even if we all
already know which stories they're going to repeat and how many times!
No, this passage from Isaiah can't possibly mean anything
so impatient or so unkind toward the elderly among us! But the words are right there: "I am about to do a new thing! Don't you see it?" And somehow it's more important than the old
– not that the old is no longer important, no longer to be considered
worthwhile, but there's something coming that's got to be, well, bigger and
better.
Here in this part of the Book of Isaiah a thoroughly broken
people are returning from exile and need to be reminded of their failure but,
even more importantly, they need to receive and accept forgiveness for their
losses. This is one way of understanding
the essence of salvation: we're always
given a chance to start over, to make a new beginning. But it may mean dropping a whole lot of
baggage that we're still carrying around with us from the past.
For
some of us the "new thing" quite literally is a new way of
"doing church," something you can read all about and discuss at
length in the small groups that will begin meeting next month here at our
church. It's been called the
"emerging paradigm" by Marcus Borg in his book The Heart of Christianity.[5] The earlier paradigm sees Christianity as
grounded in divine authority: the Bible
comes directly from God and tells us "how God sees things." In this paradigm the Bible is meant to be
interpreted quite literally and must be the ultimate authority for both our
faith and how we live out our lives. To
be Christian in this paradigm means to believe that all of the statements of
the creeds of the church are factually true.
What's more "the really important question is: Where will you spend eternity?"[6] That's our reward, so there's got to be
something that separates "those who do get to go to heaven from those who
don't."[7] This is the paradigm that says "Jesus is
the only way," everybody else goes straight to hell. Simply put, you've got to believe in all of
this now for the sake of salvation that's to come later.
The
emerging paradigm, the "new thing," however, says that "the
Bible is the historical product of two ancient communities."[8] It was neither written to us or for us, but
for those ancient communities that produced it.
This paradigm sees the Bible metaphorically. "It is not very much concerned with the
historical factuality of the Bible's stories, but much more with their
meanings."[9] Christianity isn't about getting to heaven;
it's about a life in relationship to God that leads to a transformed life in
the here-and-now.[10]
Christianity
must not be about punishing people for their mistakes. It should be about a new relationship that
makes all things possible – that makes the extraordinary ordinary. It's a hole in the roof of the church offering
a means of access for those who've been walled off from a loving, healing God. Making a hole in the roof is the essence of
hospitality, friendship and community.
It means making a way in where there was none before. It means punching a hole through layer after
layer of ecclesiastical superstructure so that everybody can receive what's
really holy and worthwhile.
Our
story from the Gospel According to Mark places us at a scene in which the crowd
is so packed in around Jesus that the sick – who are usually brought to him to
receive a blessing – can't get anywhere near to him nor he to them. It's this paralyzed man's best friends who
make access to Jesus possible. They go
out of their way to get him in. His
moment of healing takes place, so the story goes, not because he was the one
who believed, but to reward the faith of his friends; and it's not until he
accepts the fact that he's forgiven, that he discovers his paralysis has left
him and he's able to "stand on his own two feet."
There's
a power issue here. The Pharisees are
upset because they feel that Jesus shouldn't have the power to forgive
sins. To put it in today's perspective
it's like the religious hierarchy proclaiming, in outrage, "Who does he
think he is? If just anybody were to
have the authority to forgive sins, then who would need a priest?" Only God (who of course mediates this power
through the church) has this authority.
And yet here's Jesus, without the proper sanctions from the religious
elite, saying (in effect alongside of Isaiah), "I am about to do a new
thing. Don't you see it?" He is saying something new about the power of
human relationships – that friendship and forgiveness are far more powerful
than any religious institution or its self-appointed power structure.
Who
knows what caused this man's paralysis, but for whatever reason he felt cut off
from God, an object only worthy of pity to most people who might pass by him on
the street. But this man had
friends. And they saw someone who was
more than just a cripple.
One
way that we might be helped to understand this text is to use a drawing. Psychologists call it the Johari Window,[11] and
it's used to help us understand how we see ourselves compared to how others see
us. Imagine yourself as a window with
four panes. The first windowpane is
clear to everybody – it's how you see yourself and how others see you as
well. The second windowpane is how
others see you, but you don't see it in yourself – you're, in effect,
"blind" to that part of who you are.
The third windowpane is what you do know about yourself, but you hide it
from others – nobody knows this about you but you alone. The fourth, and last, windowpane is truly the
most mysterious, because you don't see it and no one else does either – it's a
part of your personality "known only to God" theologians might
say. This is the way that it looks:
|
|
Known to Self |
Not Known to Self |
|
Known to Others |
|
|
|
Not Known to Others |
|
|
Sadly, like the paralytic in our story, a lot of us
construct a window of ourselves that simply isn't true. We practice a kind of functional
atheism: we act as if God isn't part of
the picture of our lives at all when, like it or not, God is part of the
picture, doing a new thing – in us as well in all of creation around us. Using this model of the Johari Window, at
best we only live in two of those windows, and are blind to or ignorant of the
other two. A fully integrated personality
will at least be aware of all four. And
yet, all too often, either we overly-romanticize our lives or we refuse the
beauty, the love, and the forgiveness that is always there – but usually only
noticed by somebody like Jesus.
So I like to imagine that Jesus knew about all four of
these windowpanes of our personality and that, somehow (Okay, call it a
"God thing!"), he could see into them all in ways that others could
not. He could see that this man was
"crippled" from lack of acceptance and forgiveness. His friends were able to give him part of
what he needed. Jesus gave him the rest.
I like to think that part of what the movement of the
Spirit is doing in our lives is clearing up our vision through those other
three windowpanes, so that where we've been transparent only in one, and where
we've been blind, hidden, and unknown in the others, we become more fully
known, and so freed of all that has paralyzed our lives into inaction. If we would begin to pay close attention we
would see that God is doing "a new thing" in our lives, continually
inviting us into becoming the persons that we were meant to be. This kind of window into our lives is much
the way that I interpret these words of Paul's in his first letter to the
church at
For now
we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know
fully, even as I have been fully known.[12]
There was something written a number of years ago about
Katherine White, the past editor of the New
Yorker's magazine: "It's funny"
[someone said][13]…as an
editor, she was maternal, and as a mother, she was editorial."[14] Author Nancy Franklin didn't miss the
conundrum of this comment when she, herself, wrote:
Men tend
to see their lives, regardless of the balance of the various parts, as a
unified whole, but the prevailing metaphor for women… has failure built into
it: we are said to "juggle"
the various parts of our lives, and the only possible outcome if we concentrate
on one ball in particular is that we drop the others. But this is not how Katherine White saw her
life – partly because she could afford not to, by hiring people to juggle for
her, but mainly because she just didn't think that way. When I started looking at her life as she
looked at it – and as she lived it – it suddenly seemed all [in one] piece.[15]
I think that Jesus was that
kind of editor; he saw in every person that he met the potential for them to become
a truly whole person – to see a life that included the Holy and the New. We don't need to juggle our way into that
sense of wholeness, God is already there.
"We have never seen anything like this!" Jesus'
disparaging opponents exclaimed. Of
course they didn't. The windows through
which they gazed at their world were too narrowly focused while the rest was
simply a blur. If we don't want to be
like them, we need to make sure that our vision of the world – with all of its
struggles, paralysis, and yet innate possibilities – includes seeing "what
God is up to" in and through us.
And I bet you it's something new!
* * *