Sermon from April 16, 2000
Year 2000 is, God help us all, a presidential election year. It brings out voters (probably fewer in number than is good for a democracy), and it brings out what UVA Professor James Davison Hunter has called the discourse of adversaries (Cultural Wars, 145). Here is an example of adversarial discourse from an evangelical organization. "'The secular humanists, who deny God and traditional moral values, have almost gained total control of our public policies, our schools, even our law-making institutions and courts – in just one or two generations,'" (ibid.).

No doubt that statement has truth in it, and is disturbing, and is designed to make people want to vote into office those who do not follow the agenda of secular humanists. However, I have a troubling suspicion about the credentials of that statement. Since it is a suspicion and not a demonstrated fact, let me clothe it in the form of this question: Does that statement truly identify what is wrong with America and how to make it right?

Two hunches lie behind my suspicion. My first hunch is that the statement implies that making things right with America means electing the right politicians. God is not necessary to the process. My second hunch is that the statement confirms our belief that what is wrong with America is someone else, not us. It is secular humanists or liberal democrats or the ACLU or corrupt people in Hollywood. Making things right in me is not necessary to making things right in my country.

If my hunches are right, then I say that people who think that way cannot identify clearly what is wrong with America or how to make it right. That statement (and there are many like it) grows out of a deficient political philosophy. It also grows out of a deficient theology of the kingdom of God.

The biblical word kingdom is a political word. We would say, "The government of God is near." It carries within it the idea and the practice of power over people's lives. Jesus used that word over and over and in so doing picked up right where John the Baptist had left off. Both men tapped into something deep within the soul of Israel.

After five centuries under the heel of Persia, Greece, the Seleucids, and Rome, Israel believed more strongly than ever that the words of the great prophets were nearing fulfillment. God's kingdom and God's king were coming to vanquish the Romans. Pretenders arose, who said they were the promised Messiah. Their failed attempts at liberation and the occasional gruesome row of crosses that gave the lie to their pretensions only made Jewish hopes of deliverance more fervent.

In this violence-tinged, revolutionary atmosphere Jesus lifted up His voice and said, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near. Could the moment have come when the promise of the prophets came to pass? Could this be the Man who would bring it to pass? Only if we read the Gospel of Mark agains this background of revolutionary fervor and national hope can we appreciate his story of Jesus of Nazreth.

His message was, "The kingdom of God is near." The word in that message that put the fat in the fire was the word near. If someone tells you that God's power to exercise authority over a nation's life is about to show itself in the public arena, the next thought in your mind will be, "Show me! Prove it!" Mark told his story of Jesus in such a way as to demonstrate that the presence of God's kingdom in the daily affairs of Israel. Every episode in Mark's story demonstrates that. Think of how he did that in chapter one.

He asked four fishermen, Andrew, Peter, James, and John to abandon their source of livelihood and attach themselves to Him as His disciples, and they did it. He persuaded and illuminated the consciences of the masses by His teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. He broke the power of irrational evil over a human personality by virtue of His command. By a touch He dismissed a fever from an old lady's body. He got the undivided attention of an entire fishing village. He then declared that what He had done in Capernaum must not be confined to Capernaum. It served a model of what He had a mission to make happen elsewhere.

When God's love and authority govern human life without opposition, they will bring healing, wholeness, purpose and compassion for the downtrodden on a scale that makes television seem tiny. We like that. We want that. Bring it on and the sooner the better. It was the demonstration of God's love and authority in the first episode of chapter two that set people on edge then and sets people on edge now. Look at Mark 2:1-5.

Four men have brought their paralytic friend to Simon Peter's house for Jesus to heal him. When they could not even get through the door, they took him up on the typically flat-roofed house of the ancient Middle East. They dug through Peter's roof, interrupted Jesus' teaching, and let the paralytic down on his pallet right in front of Jesus. Their methods grabbed attention, and everyone knew their purpose. No one then or now could have guessed what Jesus did next.

Verse 5: When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." I said last week that I hardly knew which end of this stick to grab first. His words rattle categories and open up new possibilities on every hand. We began to explore those possibilities last Sunday one by one. We need to go deeper today. Doing that helps us see why this event was a turning point in Jesus' public life.

Verses 6-7 say, Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" We can appreciate their concern by first hearing Jesus' statement about forgiveness from our perspective.

The authority to forgive belongs to the person offended. If you butt in line ahead of me or tell a lie about me, I can forgive you, because I am the offended party. But this paralytic was a stranger to Jesus. He had never done Jesus any harm. To him Jesus said, "Your sins are forgiven." Jesus spoke as though He were the offended party, and it does not sound like Jesus had in mind any one offense. "Your sins – all of them – are forgiven."

No wonder the authorities asked, "Why does this fellow talk like that?" He was claiming an authority that only God has. If you will try an experiment, you can feel the impact of what Jesus did. The next time you witness two people arguing, go up to them in your most charming manner, interrupt them, and say, "You may stop arguing now. I forgive you both." I am comfident that you will find that to be a memorable conversation. What kind of person would make a statement like that?

We can also appreciate the concern of the authorities by hearing Jesus' statement about forgiveness from their first-century perspective. "Your sins are forgiven," said Jesus. "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" said the teachers of the law.

Yes, and not only can God alone forgive sins, but God had made it plain to Israel that the process of His forgiveness reached His people in the temple in Jerusalem. That is what Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, was all about. For Jesus to say in a Capernaum fisherman's house without benefit of temple or priest or blood sacrifice, "Your sins are forgiven," appeared to act in defiance of divine revelation and in contempt of the Jerusalem temple. What was He thinking?

Verse 8 tells us the next thing He was thinking. Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things?" We might hear this and think Jesus was a supernatural mind reader. I do not think so. He was just profoundly aware of what was going on around Him. He could read people. In the language of John 2:25 he knew what was in a man.

He knew exactly the impact His forgiving the paralytic would have on certain people. He could watch their body language and know what they were thinking. In other words, Jesus acted deliberately with the paralytic, which means He chose to act without benefit of temple or priest or blood sacrifice. He spoke with His eyes wide open to the likelihood that it would be seen as an act of defiance of divine revelation and in contempt of the Jerusalem temple.

Now, the question, "What was He thinking?" takes on depth. Deliberate action arises from deliberated thought, but what was Jesus thinking? Was He going to use His extraordinary powers to vanquish the Romans or to harm Israel? Was He going to use them like a fiery prophet to purge the Jerusalem bureaucracy, including the temple bureaucracy, of its corruption and too-cozy relationship with the Romans? A lot of Jews would have liked that. Or did Jesus have some as-yet-unspoken, ulterior motive for what He said to the paralytic? If He had set out to start a revolution, what does forgiving the paralytic say about the kind of revolution He had in mind?

And what does Mark say in answer to these questions? Not much. Mark seems never to raise questions as an excuse for preaching. He almost never lets Jesus preach. The Gospel of Mark is for people, who are cautious, even skeptical, for people who think life is complex, and who do not want easy answers. Mark presented the events of Jesus' life with their conflict and ambiguity and allows us to draw our own conclusions. But he does give us clues, as in verses 9-12.

"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. He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

The logic of this statement goes like this. Anyone could say, "Your sins are forgiven." Who is going to prove otherwise? But if anyone says to a paralytic in front of a crowd, "Get up and walk," everyone is going to know in short order whether it will happen. The healing of the paralytic would give powerful, material evidence of Jesus' authority to forgive sins.

The red-hot center of this powerful statement is these words: "But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins..." It sounds like Jesus was saying, "The authority on earth to forgive sins is no longer invested in the Jerusalem temple with its priesthood and sacrifices; the authority on earth to forgive sins is invested in me. I replace the temple." Does that help us answer the question, "What was Jesus thinking?" Maybe, but I suspect it raises other, more puzzling questions, such as: "What right did He have to say that about Himself?" and "If He had the right to say it, what kind of man was He?" and "If people say He did not have the right to say it, why have millions of people taken Him seriously?" Mark, I think, would be pleased with our further questions.

Remember: Mark is building up a picture of God's love and authority episode by episode. He is vindicating Jesus' claim that the kingdom of God was near. The questions raised by our episode today suggest an even more fundamental question. What is the kingdom of God really like? Is it power to vanquish the Romans or is it something else? Jesus' words in Peter's living room raised that more fundamental question. They forbid us to view Jesus as nothing but a political revolutionary. He may have had in mind a far more basic revolution. Episodes that follow will help us decide.

But for now, we must allow our story to be drawn once again into His much larger story. In so doing we may find ourselves growing smaller, while our significance grows larger. If Jesus' authority to forgive sins is fundamental to the extension of God's love and authority over all human life, then His authority challenges the belief that making things right with America means electing the right politicians.

Neither politics nor economics is the driving force behind social changes in this country. The driving force is the free human associations that liberate human beings to become what their Creator intends for them to be. Basic among those free human associations are religious associations, which alone give humanity the tools with which to deal with the ultimate issues of our existence on the planet. Among those religious associations the Christian Church, even in its many forms, claims to speak to those ultimate issues of our existence on the planet. Among those religious associations the Christian Church, even in its many forms, claims to speak to those ultimate issues with the mind of God. Fundamental among those ultimate issues is the divine forgiveness of human sin, which answers the question, "What is wrong with us, and what can we do about it?"

Are you involved in politics? Thank God and may you prosper there. Just don't forget that politics serves more ultimate human issues. Let us Christians bring this perspective to our political responsibilities, and perhaps we can soften some of the discourse of adversaries that comes from Christian sources, and perhaps we can blunt such discourse that is hurled against Christians. His story takes our story into His by challenging the other belief we sometimes bring to political discussions.

If Jesus' authority to forgive sins is fundamental to the extension of God's love and authority over all human life, then His authority challenges the belief that making things right in me is not necessary to making things right in my country.

Do we really want God to put right what has gone wrong in our country? Do we really think He would do that by taking care of everyone else and leaving us alone? He will not leave us alone. He interferes. He calls us to confession and repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, so that He can forgive us.

We the Church form a community that has come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ has authority on earth to forgive sins, and that He is the Offended Party in all human wrong-doing. Our repentance and God's forgiveness are the materials out of which a highway into human experience is built for our God. Without them we will always resist God's rule over human life.

Are you prepared to merge your story with that of this powerful Christian community and accept its conclusions about Christ and sin and forgiveness and ask Christ to pardon you? You will be participating in the process of putting right what has gone wrong with our world, with our country. You will be taking a bite here and now from that fruit which Christ will some day give for the healing of the nations.