Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
12 January 2020
Mark 2.1-12; 18-22
I’d like to start this morning
by setting
out clearly a couple of things that I don’t believe,
before
coming on to some things that I think I do believe.
Firstly, I don’t believe that sin causes disability.
Some of you have heard me speak previously about my
wonderful grandfather,
he was a
powerful influence on me when I was growing up,
and
in many, many ways modelled the kind of human being
that
I would aspire to be.
He was also a convinced atheist.
The thing
is, he had been brought up as a Christian Scientist.
I don’t know if you’ve come across the Christian Science
movement,
and as with
many religious groups
these days
it is in something of a decline,
but you can still visit Christian Science reading rooms in
many towns,
and there’s
one not far from here up at King’s Cross.
Christian Science originated in the States in the late 19th
Century,
when Mary
Baker Eddy published the book Science and
Health,
in which she argued that sickness is an illusion
that can be
corrected by prayer alone.
Mary Baker Eddy described Christian Science as a return
to what she
called, ‘primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing’.
And whilst there are some superficial similarities
with the
more mainstream Pentecostal traditions
of praying
for physical healing,
there are also some significant differences.
Christian Scientists believe that reality is purely
spiritual
and that
the material world is an illusion,
which means that, for them, disease and disability are
mental errors
rather than
physical disorders,
and that the sick should be treated not by medicine
but by a
form of prayer that seeks to correct
the beliefs
responsible for the illusion of ill health.
Those of you who know your classical philosophy,
or who have
been watching The Good Place on Netflix,
will recognise echoes here of Platonic Dualism,
which has
dogged Christianity for the last two thousand years,
dividing
our spiritual selves from our physical selves
to
no-one’s real benefit.
What Christian Science boiled down to at a practical level,
for my Grandfather,
was an
argument over a tooth abscess.
He was about 14, and needed to go to a dentist because of
the pain he was in.
His mother
refused, and told him that he must devote himself instead
to
prayer for forgiveness for whatever spiritual sin it was
that
had crept into his life,
and
was causing the painful illusion of toothache.
Well, he
was 14, and we can all guess what thoughts had recently crept into his life
that
he might be concerned were sinful.
Eventually, after six months of physical, sexual, and
spiritual torment,
his father
relented and took him to the dentist to have the tooth removed.
Quite reasonably, I think, my grandfather rejected religion
at this point;
I would
probably have done the same,
and
I am grateful that I was brought up in a less abusive religious tradition.
So, my first point:
I don’t
believe that sin causes sickness and disability.
However, you could be forgiven (so to speak) for thinking
that Jesus did,
on the
basis of our first reading this morning from Mark’s gospel.
I remember learning this story in Sunday School,
colouring
in drawings of the man being lowered down
by
his friends through the roof of the house,
having his
sins forgiven, and then standing up,
taking
up his mat, and walking out.
I remember learning lessons about the power of friendship,
the
importance of forgiveness,
and how the
unfortunate man could never have got to Jesus on his own.
But I don’t remember anyone ever addressing the question
of what was
going on here in terms of the link
between
forgiveness and physical healing.
Which brings me to the second thing I don’t believe:
I don’t
believe that we should set up expectations of physical healing
for those who
come to church or to Jesus.
Another story:
About a year ago, when I was on Sabbatical,
I attended
church with a friend.
It was one of those places where you sing enthusiastically for
40 minutes,
then have a
40 minute ‘sermon’,
and then
sing again for another half an hour
whilst
people pray for those who have come forwards for ministry.
The preacher had been speaking about healing,
and how God
wants to heal everyone of whatever is wrong with them.
The sermon then went what I can only describe as ‘slightly
off-piste’
and said
that God specifically wanted to bring physical wholeness
to
those who had had injuries and operations
that
had left them with metal in their bodies - pins, plates, and so on –
because
these are unnatural and need removing.
The preacher claimed to have been present at a healing
gathering
where he
had seen people experience
the miraculous
removal of metal from their bodies.
The prayer ministry at the end was an invitation
for those
who had such metal to come forwards and receive prayer for its removal.
At one level this is laughable nonsense,
but we
should note that this was a well-attended mainstream church,
with
an educated and intelligent congregation,
some
of whom went up for prayer for healing.
I’m afraid my mind started wondering what would happen
if someone
with an artificial hip or heart valve went up
and it
suddenly vanished!
Anyway, the serious point I want to make
is that
this is abusive religion, because it sets people up for failure.
If, as my grandfather discovered,
you
faithfully yearn and pray for healing that doesn’t happen,
there is a good chance that you will feel very let down
by God and
by God’s people.
So, I don’t believe that we should set up expectations of
physical healing
for those
who come to church or to Jesus.
In the light of which, what are we to make of the paralysed
man,
lowered
through the roof,
who
receives forgiveness for his sins, and healing for his paralysis?
Well, the golden rule for biblical studies is always
consider the context,
and we need
to remember that Jesus lived in a world
where
people didn’t have access to a scientific understanding
of
disease or disability.
They didn’t
understand genetics and the processes of heritability;
and
they didn’t understand about bacterial infections, or virus transmission.
So, in one way, as twenty first century readers of this
ancient story of Jesus,
we’re at a
profound advantage
in terms of
our understanding of the mechanisms of disease and disability.
However, there is an area where I think the first century
Jewish worldview
was way
ahead of us.
I mentioned earlier the influence of Platonic Dualism on
Christianity,
of how it
invites us to divide the physical from the spiritual,
to
see the body as a cradle for the soul,
or
the mind as the master over matter.
Well, here’s the thing - this dualism, this separation,
is alien to
the Hebrew mind-set.
To read Jesus as healing the man’s paralysis
through the
mechanism of forgiving his sins
is to impose a dualistic perspective
on actions
that are not dualistic, but holistic.
Jesus wasn’t enacting a kind of early Christian Science
approach
where the
physical ailment was mechanistically resolved by addressing spiritual sin.
Rather, he looked at the man and saw him as a holistic
being,
mind-body-soul
in unity rather than in division,
and he recognised that the man on the mat, as with all of
us,
had
multi-dimensional needs.
To have simply healed his paralysis with a wave of the hand
would have
been to do only half the job;
this man needed wholeness in every area of his life,
from the
physical to the spiritual to the relational.
And in publicly forgiving him his sins,
Jesus was
acting to restore the man to right relations with society
by healing
not just his body, but his relationships.
I think there is an important key here in the words of the
Lord’s prayer,
where Jesus
instructs his disciples to pray,
‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who
sin against us’.
The Scribes might have accused Jesus of blasphemy
for daring
to offer forgiveness of sins,
but in their anger they missed the point of his doing so,
which was
that forgiveness that starts with God to the individual,
finds its
fulfilment in the forgiveness that restores people
to
right relationship with each other.
This, then, is the context in which the man takes up his bed
and walks;
he has been
healed holistically, rather than physically;
it is
forgiveness and restoration which creates the environment for his enabling.
In terms of what we might take from this
for our own
understanding of forgiveness, healing, and prayer,
there are a
couple of key points I’d like to draw out.
Firstly, I think that Jesus was enacting here
something
akin to what we might today call the social
model of disability.
This is a way of viewing the world developed by disabled
people,
and in a
nutshell says that people are disabled by barriers in society,
not by
their personal impairment or physical difference.[1]
So, for example, a person whose legs don’t work
is disabled
not by their impairment,
but
by the physical barriers in the world
which
prevent them from getting around.
If they have access to a wheelchair, suitable ramps, lifts,
and toilets,
they still
have the impairment of non-functioning legs,
but that
impairment doesn’t disable them.
This means that the healing of the disability
is
something that is the responsibility of the community,
rather than
the individual.
It is social, not personal.
SCOPE, the disability equality charity says,
‘Barriers can be
physical, like buildings not having accessible toilets.
Or they can be caused by people's
attitudes to difference,
like assuming disabled
people can't do certain things.
The social model helps
us recognise barriers that make life harder for disabled people.
Removing these barriers creates
equality and offers disabled people
more independence, choice and
control.’[2]
I’m aware that not all people who live with disability find
the Social Model helpful,
and there
are other ways of framing the dialogue between society and impairment.
However, when I look at the story of Jesus encountering the
paralysed man,
it is I
think very profound that Jesus doesn’t simply resolve the physical impairment,
but rather starts with a holistic approach
which
restores the man to right relationship with God and with others,
to create
the context within which his disability can be addressed.
We need to keep remembering that the world of the
first-century
was very
different to ours,
particularly
on attitudes towards disability and illness.
A paralysed man would have been an outcast in his society,
unable to
work, judged as sinful by others,
prevented
from accessing the temple or the synagogues for worship,
quite
possibly ostracised from his family.
And I think there is something profound that we can learn
from Jesus’
encounter with this man,
which addressed first his relationship to society,
as a
prerequisite to addressing his disability.
I think that if, as a church, we are to talk about healing
in a
meaningful and non-abusive way,
we have to stop fixating on the part of the story
where the
man picks up his mat and walks off.
I’m not going today to get into the big discussion about,
‘yes, but did it happen?’,
because I
don’t think that’s the point of the story.
The point, as Mark tells it very clearly, is not that Jesus
can heal,
but that
Jesus can forgive sins.
This is the crucial aspect that we need to grasp here.
Jesus is bringing into being a new world,
where the
old rules of sin and suffering are torn up.
The scribes, as always in Mark’s gospel,
are locked
into their worldview of mechanistic legalism,
declaring Jesus a blasphemer
for doing
what they say only God should do,
and consequently declaring the man still unforgiven;
while
missing the point entirely that Jesus is bringing a new world order into being,
where
forgiveness and restored relationships
are
now available to everyone,
inaugurating
a new community based on inclusion rather than exclusion.
Last week I argued that Mark’s story of Jesus healing the
man with the skin condition,
was less
about the condition itself,
and more about reversing the
exclusion he suffered
at
the hands of a society that declared his condition ‘unclean’.
Well, this week the story of the man let down through the
roof on his mat
is told by
Mark as another example of this new world,
where
everyone has access to the forgiveness and restoration
that
Jesus is offering.
That which was previously unclean is declared clean,
that which
was previously unforgivable is declared forgiven.
Outsiders become insiders,
and those
who were once the guardians of the border between ‘in’ and ‘out’
find their
power to exclude torn away from them.
One of the implications of this new world
is that it affects
the way we view and understand forgiveness.
Too often churches have focussed on eliciting personal
forgiveness for personal sins,
a bit like
my poor grandfather being told to seek forgiveness for being a teenager.
Dare I say that this is not what Jesus has in mind when he
speaks of forgiveness?
Or at
least, it isn’t the whole story of what he offers
when
he pronounces forgiveness.
Rather, he has in mind the creation of a new community
of right
and restored relationships,
where forgiveness is both given and received by those who
are part of it,
as the
natural outworking of the forgiveness they have received from God;
and this new community is the context for holistic healing to
occur.
It is through the transformation of community and
relationships
that
disability is removed.
Those church traditions which have overly focussed
on personal
morality and individual salvation
frequently miss
this communal aspect.
Simply telling individuals that they must repent of their
personal sins
to be
acceptable to God and God’s people
is a distortion of the forgiveness that should be shaping us
together
into
communities of love, restoration, transformation and wholeness.
But still the scribes, both ancient and modern, don’t get
it,
they can’t
see the benefit of this new world that Jesus is inaugurating,
this
new ‘kingdom’ as Mark calls it,
which is as
different to the old way of doing things
as
day is different from night.
And so they oppose it,
challenging
Jesus and those who follow after him,
whenever we
proclaim the radical, communal, universal,
transformative, healing power of
forgiveness.
Our journey through Mark has already given us glimpses
of the
disruptive nature of who Jesus is, and what he does;
starting with his baptism in the river Jordan
when the
heavens were torn open
and the Spirit descended on him in
the form of a dove,
with a
voice from heaven declaring him to be God’s son.
This language of the ‘ripping apart’ of the heavens
is echoed
in the two little parables
that we heard towards the end of our
reading this morning,
about new
wine in old wineskins, and new cloth on old cloth.
‘No-one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak,
otherwise
the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old,
and a worse
tear is made.’
The word ‘tear’ here is the same word Mark used
to describe
the heavens being torn open at the baptism of Jesus.
And the lesson here, is the same as it was at the baptism,
which is
that Jesus is disruptive of the way things are,
he is doing something new which is
incompatible with what was.
The world of the sceptical scribes,
built on
rules and boundaries,
and on
exclusion and power,
is coming to an end.
Similarly, says Jesus, the new wine of the kingdom of God
will burst any
old wineskin that tries to contain it, tearing it apart.
Religious systems built on definitions of who’s in, and
who’s out;
who’s
clean, and who’s unclean;
who’s
forgiven, and who’s unforgiven,
are incompatible with the radical grace of the Kingdom of
God
that breaks
into the world in the life and ministry of Jesus.
The scribes had lost,
because
their system of mechanistic religion
could no
longer contain God.
But the people rejoiced,
because
here was God coming to them in Jesus to offer forgiveness,
to rebuild
society, to transform relationships,
and to
bring healing and wholeness to those cast aside.
And this is the gospel that we have inherited.
Churches have a depressing tendency towards
institutionalism,
we become
scribes and write things down,
defining God with ever more
constrictive formulations,
and the
Spirit of Jesus is always working to tear that apart,
with acts of inclusion and mercy and
grace and forgiveness.
Last year, as part of our Inclusive Church series,
my old college
friend Glen Graham preached here on disability inclusion,
and Glen, who is blind, said
"We
must include everybody, there is no opt out clause...
because we
are being shaped into the likeness of Christ's body".
We are the body of Christ, and as such we are the community
of Christ,
we are the
new kingdom which he proclaimed as coming into being.
We can, and should, be the place
where this
new society takes shape,
inviting the world to participate in the gospel of Christ
which is
good news for all people.
We are those who
can proclaim forgiveness to one another,
even as we
are forgiven by God and by others.
We are those who
can model healing and wholeness,
where no
impairment or characteristic is exclusionary or unclean.
This is why it matters so much that we, as God’s people in
this place,
take
seriously what it means to see others brought to healing and wholeness,
and it is why we continue to offer our persistent challenge
to a world
still hell-bent on scapegoating and violence.
This why it matters that we take seriously our commitment
to making
our church accessible to all.
Whether this is physical adaptation of the building,
to the way
we structure ourselves communally.
This is why it matters that we work with others from
different faith traditions and none,
to bring
transformation to society
through our
involvement in London Citizens.
If we are to be the people of Christ, our mandate, our
manifesto,
is to tear,
to rip, the fabric of any society or institution
that tries
to contain the and constrain the new kingdom of Christ.
And it is all because we are ourselves declared absolutely forgiven,
we know
what it is to be declared unconditionally clean,
we know
what it is to be part of a community
of healing, restoration, and
wholeness.
x
[1]
https://www.scope.org.uk/about-us/social-model-of-disability/
[2]
https://www.scope.org.uk/about-us/social-model-of-disability/
2 comments:
Isn't it wonderful to be included and to feel included!
A Vicar of St. Marylebone Parish Church healing centre, many years ago describes how one woman was healed by the help she received to live a short and full life, but not cured and subsequently died. Another woman was miraculously cured of a medical problem, but whose life of internal turmoil became worse; he says she was not healed.
Nigel
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