What paralyzes us? Stops us cold? Prevents us from acting freely as we would really prefer to act?
In Jesus’ time infirmity, sickness, disability – any form of neediness was generally taken as a clear sign that a person was not in God’s good graces. (This way of thinking persists to today.) There must be sin, not keeping the law, some uncleanness at work. Labeled, “sinner” (and labels attached by society have tremendous power and can become embodied) there is now shame for one’s self, one’s family, one’s tribe. Labels can be sinisterly effective. When internalized we become what we are told we are: Outcast, Object of pity, Worthless, Dis-graced. Our health declines. Or we become paralyzed, unable to move, no longer able to function on our own. To whom or to what do we give authority to paralyze or dis-able us?
A person who was paralyzed is carried to Jesus by four men who refused to be put off by the crowd packing the space where Jesus was teaching. They lift the person on the stretcher up onto the roof and make a hole large enough to lower the person and stretcher down directly in front of Jesus. Imagine bits of debris dropping on the people below. Seeing their faith, the gospels report, Jesus responds. The paralyzed person is brought by his or her community into Jesus’ presence, undaunted by the challenges this entails. How often are we unable to come to God to ask for what we need on our own? In how many ways does our family or community carry us when our individual faith is weakened or paralyzed?
Those who bear the paralyzed person believe that Jesus can help, the he has power from God to heal. They also believe in the goodness of the person on the stretcher. Somehow they have experienced this goodness. Despite the labels applied, this person is “worthy” of being healed and liberated. They care.
But Jesus does not begin by lifting the person who was paralyzed to walk. He addresses what lies beneath the surface – that which aggravates the paralysis – affirming and assuring the one who lies before him: “There is nothing in you or about you that prevents God from seeing you as anything other than beloved – your sins are forgiven – both a command and a fact. There is truth here for all of us.
Knowing, believing, feeling that this is true the person is able to respond to Jesus’ second command, “Stand up, pick up the stretcher that no longer defines you and go home with those and to those who believe in you. Luke 5:17-26