We’re talking about what it means to follow Jesus.  We’re talking about what it looks like to walk in the way of Jesus.  To walk in the way of Jesus is to walk in the light of forgiveness.

This is the good news on which we focus today as we read this story from the 2^nd chapter of Mark’s Gospel.  Forgiveness is God’s business.  Good news!  Or is it?  Scribes in our story take offence at Jesus’ words, “You are forgiven.”  What can be so offensive about the concept of forgiveness?  On one hand, we might think that we aren’t in need of any kind of divine mercy.  I’m basically a good person.  I’m good to my family and friends and even strangers.  I rinse out my recycling, etc., etc. To this, I would answer two things.  i) Look at the state of humanity now (or anytime) and tell me that we are not in need of help when it comes to being forgiven and extending forgiveness.  ii) Let us take a good look at the state of our hearts.  The things that we have done that we ought not to have done.  The things we have left undone that we ought to have done (as the old Anglican prayer of confession goes). On the other hand, we have “Only God can forgive sins.”  Humanity has a tendency to put itself in the place of God, deciding who is worthy of forgiveness and who is not.

We look at this story, and we realize we can put up barriers between ourselves and God’s forgiveness – whether it comes to accepting it or offering it.  Because guilt and shame can be paralyzing.  Because we might hold differing positions on who has the authority to forgive wrongdoing.  Is it solely the person against whom the offence was committed?  Is there any wrongdoing that is beyond forgiveness?  Is there any kind of wrong that we can do from which we can never come back/never be made whole once again?

Because we’re also talking about wholeness today.  Healing.  Being made well.  Being made able to walk.  We find in our story today that forgiveness and wholeness are inextricably linked.  These four men bring their friend to Jesus for healing, and they find more than healing.  Forgiveness and wholeness.  They go together.  Do sin and illness go together?  Not in a causal sense, no.  Not in the sense that you can look at suffering and draw a causal line to that suffering from sin.  Christians have been known to say things like “You’re not being healed because of a lack of faith.”  That is wrong.  Christians have been known to say, “This suffering/this calamity must be the result of some sin on your part.”  That is wrong.  This is not to say that doing wrong doesn’t bring consequences that might be damaging to one’s health or the health of one’s relationships – I don’t have to paint a picture here.

Healing happens in this story, but it’s about more than a healing.  Faith is happening in this story, but it’s about more than faith.  This is a story that some of us have heard from the time we were children.  We liked it when we were children, thinking of people climbing up on roofs and digging holes through mud and thatch and so on.  Jesus has been on a preaching and healing tour.  The four disciples that we heard about last week are still with him.  Simon and Andrew.  James and John.  It’s come to the point where he can’t even go about openly in towns, so great is his popularity.  That won’t last, of course, and in our story, we hear the first stirrings of opposition to Jesus.  The scandal of Jesus.  The scandal of the cross.  The scandal of forgiveness.   What is the big deal, though?  The big deal, the good news here, is what is at the heart of the story.  At the heart of the story is forgiveness.  God is on the loose in the world.  Forgiveness is on the loose.  Wholeness is on the loose.  Not through any prescribed set of actions or words.  Not through paying one’s debt to society or evening up a score.  Not even through dependence on the forgiveness of others, and how difficult it is for humanity to forgive.   

We need forgiveness.  Unless we don’t.  I remember a character on a tv show talking to a stranger about his need for forgiveness.  “Do you think we can ever really be forgiven?” he asked.  He had left his wife and children to pursue a relationship with his secretary.  The guilt and shame had left him feeling like he was “getting kicked in the head every day.”  The stranger tells him he doesn’t believe in forgiveness.  It’s just synapses in the brain that do not alter the fact that what has happened has happened.  He concludes that the only solution is to stay away from people.  “You can’t believe that,” he’s told. We can’t believe that.  The kingdom of God is not a solo project.  Jesus knew that we would mess things up even in the church, to the point where he left his followers instructions on how to go about dealing with things when we hurt each other.   Paul knew that we would mess things up.  He writes to the Ephesian church – “and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”  (Eph 4:32)  

We’re turning to Jesus.  We’re keeping our eyes on Jesus.  Into our situation and all our questions steps Jesus.  Well, actually, Jesus is sitting because he’s teaching in a house.  He’s in Capernaum, which is his home base at this point.  It might be that this is Peter’s house.  It might even be Jesus’ house, we’re not told, and we’re not surprised as Mark is not a details guy.  Whatever the case, Jesus has an interest in this house.  He has a stake in this house, even if it’s only as a place in which he can stay and/or teach.

In the middle of the teaching, the first house committee in the New Testament goes to work.  You have to admire the faith of these men who wish to bring their friend to Jesus.  We have to consider the role that our faith might play in someone else being forgiven and made whole.  Their friend needs help.  They believe that Jesus is the one to provide it.  They will go to any length or height.  These houses had flat thatched roofs.  Under the thatch would be a layer of soil, then some clay tiles laid over the roof beams.  In the middle of his talk, pieces of dirt and clay start falling from above.  Daylight appears.  We heard about the heavens being torn apart two weeks ago. A new situation.  Here we have much the same thing.  The roof is torn apart.  Tear the roof off the sucker.  We want the forgiveness.  Let the sunshine in. The man is lowered down to where Jesus is.  Jesus does not speak words of condemnation.  He does not say “Look what you just did to the roof?!”  or “I’m in the middle of my sermon here!” Instead, Jesus, seeing their faith, says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  On the surface or at first glance, the crowd might have thought Jesus was talking about the destruction of the roof.  There is something much deeper going on here, and the crowd is quick to realize.  “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  The “Son” thing here is not a term of belittlement or condescension; it’s a term of endearment.  Let us hear those words directed to ourselves.  “Daughter, your sins are forgiven.  Dear daughter, your sins are forgiven.”  “Dear son, your sins are forgiven.”

How wonderful.

Or maybe it’s not so wonderful.  Maybe some are questioning in their hearts.  In our scene, scribes are thinking, “Only God can do that!”  In our scene, this man Jesus, who is God, is doing that, and at some time, Jesus will bear the weight of humanity’s guilt and shame on the cross and die forgiving.  Of course, that won’t be the end of his story, as we will see.

Forgiveness is hard.  Forgiveness is costly.  Forgiveness may be offensive.  It may offend our pride; our desire for revenge; our desire for retribution; our desire for reparation; our desire for abject apology; our sense of fairness, even as we might want to set our own parameters around when forgiveness should be extended.  There was a time in my life that I thought it was a perfectly good Christian response to withhold forgiveness from someone who had committed a wrong against myself or (even worse) against people that I loved.  I thought that it was a good and Christian response to withhold forgiveness and treat them with complete and utter indifference (of course, I wasn’t indifferent at all, far from it) until such times as they apologized.  Reading with new eyes (or new eyes of the heart), the story of the Waiting Father changed this for me one day.  Reading about the father, whose son had taken his inheritance, declaring in effect that he wished his father were dead, and squandering the money in a far-off country.  Reading of how the son had a whole speech prepared about how sorry he was.  Reading of how the son didn’t even get to say his speech as the father saw him coming from afar, was filled with compassion, and ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.  “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  Realizing that day that I was the one who had been in a far country, living apart from my Father’s mercy; living apart from my Father’s forgiveness, which is always on offer in the form of His outstretched merciful hand.  Jesus is teaching here in the house of forgiveness, and the roof is torn off as forgiveness reigns in the kingdom of God.

The Son of Man is here.  The Son of Man has the authority to forgive sin.  Sometimes a son of man is not just a son of man.  “Son of Man” is one of Jesus’ favourite self-designations.  He calls himself “the son of man.”  The expression meant “human being” or “guy” more colloquially.  The man is here.  The guy is here.  Jesus as fully human.  The guy is here.  God is here.  Jesus as fully God.  The Son of Man is a figure described in Daniel 7: 13-14

  13 As I watched in the night visions,

I saw one like a human being[a]    coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One[b]    and was presented before him. 14 To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.

This is the one who is here.  This is the one who will come to bring his kingdom in fullness – to renew and restore all things.  As someone has said, Jesus’ “… use of this phrase means something like, ‘God is going to send someone who will transform the world and put an end to oppression, and I am that someone.’”

To take up the Son of Man’s invitation to follow him is to take part in his forgiving, whole-making work.  Where do we need to be active participants in the forgiveness of God in our lives, in our relationships, in our church?  Where is God calling us to accept mercy and extend mercy?  What will forgiveness and reconciliation mean in the nations of our world that are at war? Does this seem like an impossibility? Do we think the days of God working miraculous signs and wonders are over?  We remember stories like that of the Rev. Dale Lang, who found forgiveness for the young man who killed his son in Taber, Alberta.  Rev. Lang made the connection between forgiveness and healing or wholeness like this. “The problem will be if you can’t reach that place of forgiveness, then you’re going to get stuck in that place of anger and bitterness,” said Lang.

“Forgiveness is not saying it’s okay or acceptable; it’s saying that I’m choosing to let go of this for my own health and to move on in life.”

Where forgiveness comes, healing and wholeness come.  We are freed from the paralyzing weight of guilt and shame; freed from the hatred or desire for revenge that eats us up from the inside.  The power of hearing that you are loved and forgiven.  The power of forgiving.

For the follower of Christ, we’re forgiven to be forgiving.  When we forgive, the kingdom of God is made known.  I’m going to close with some thoughts from NT Wright on what this means in our lives and in the communities in which we live: “We have to find ways of bringing healing and forgiveness to our communities. It can be done… but it is enormously costly. People will oppose it. But the new life that comes, as a result, is enough vindication, enough proof that the living God is at work.

Forgiveness can also, of course, change individuals. It can, as in this case, go down to the hidden roots of the personality, gently healing old, long-buried hurts. Often, people think healing and forgiveness are impossible. They find God distant or uncaring. But true faith won’t be satisfied with that. This story is a picture of prayer. Don’t stay on the edge of the crowd. Dig through God’s roof and find yourself in his presence. You will get more than you bargained for… Once you’ve met the living, forgiving God in Jesus, you’ll find yourself on your feet, going out into the world in the power of God’s love.”

May each and every follower of Christ find themselves this way. Keenly aware daily of the truth that we live in the forgiveness and grace of Jesus, and that we are forgiven to be forgiving.  May this be true for all of us. Amen