A HEALTHY DOSE OF FAITH

Mark 2: 1-12

Did you hear about the farmer who had the brilliant dog? He had a neighbor who was absolutely the most cynical, faithless man you ever saw. The farmer couldn’t get him to see any of life’s blessings or miracles. It wasn’t because he did not try. When it was raining, the farmer said to his neighbor “Boy, look at the rain! God’s sort of washing everything clean.” And his neighbor said “Yeah, but if it keeps up it’s gonna flood.” When the sun was out and the rain stopped, the neighbor said to the farmer “If this keeps up, it’s gonna scorch the crops.” The farmer got tired of being brought down by his neighbor’s cynical comments. One day he was out hunting and he shot a duck; it fell into a pond and quick as a wink, his dog ran across the water, picked up the duck, and ran it back to the shore. The farmer was astounded. He had no idea how his dog didn’t sink, but it gave him an idea. “I’ll break my neighbor of all his attitude! I’ll show him! The next day he brought his neighbor out to the pond, waited for a duck to fly over, and bang, the duck fell into the water. “Watch this!” the farmer said smugly to his neighbor. As before, his dog ran across the water, grabbed the duck, and brought him safely ashore. “So,” the farmer said triumphantly, what do you think of that?” To which his neighbor replied, “He can’t swim, can he?”

Persons with no faith in people, in nature, in a plan, or in God can certainly be hard to be around. How difficult it is to be the President of the United States, not only now, but certainly in the last three decades: the leader of the free world has an idea, and hundreds of people in Congress say why it won’t work. Both parties have done that. Why, it can make a person get discouraged, can’t it? What if a child is told over and over that he is no good at a particular sport, or a particular subject? Soon the child owns his failures. But an astute teacher or coach can light the light of encouragement in that child and change the outcome of his life. Having faith in someone else, like encouragement, goes a long way. A widow may listen to the voices in her head that she should not date again, and certainly not marry. She focuses on her own doubts, or the careless words of acquaintances or the voices of family. She cocoons herself up in her life, having lost faith in there being a mister right for her. But then a caring man says the words that others don’t, exhibits the kindness that she long has missed, and says the words she thought she’d never hear again: “I love you.” Faith believes that such stories are not just fantasy; experience lets me assure you that they are not. One more illustration: Christian singer and songwriter Amy Grant once wrote a song for a girlfriend of hers who became the victim of sexual abuse. Amy was devastated by how the event drained the life, joy, trust, and faith from her friend. She wrote about it in her song called “Ask Me.” In one verse she wrote about the result of her friend’s longsuffering recovery and therapy: “Now she’s looking in the mirror at a lovely woman’s face, no more frightened little girl like she’s gone without a trace, still she leaves the light burning in the hall, it’s hard to sleep at all. She crawls up in her bed acting quiet as a mouse, deep inside she’s listening for a creaking in the house, but no one’s left to harm her, she’s finally safe and sound, there’s a peace that she has found….Ask her how she knows there’s a God up in the Heavens, where did he go in the middle of her shame? Ask her how she knows there’s a God up in the Heavens, she said his mercy is bringer her life again …it’s bringing her life again.”

What a gift it is to have faith restored when it has been shattered; to have it with you again when your heart had given up; to have faith return as a mighty army of heaven’s angels that lift you up when a barrage of voices around you that are negative and caustic want to hold you down?

In our Gospel situation today, Jesus was not at the far end of a stadium, but he might as well have been: he was far enough away in the house in Capernaum with a crowd pushing through and around the doors of the house that there was no way to get through. Have you ever tried to cut in line in front of desperate people? These four men tried a different approach. In a move that could have instigated riot, they made a choice that would certainly cost them a roof repair and possibly resentment from an angry crowd. They lift him, perhaps even using ladders typically near homes in that day to provide access to the flat roof where, on hot nights, people could sleep, or in the day time clothes could be dried. Four determined men lifted the dead weight of a paralyzed man onto that roof. We are told that the roof was more than just thatch because they had to dig through it, thereby leaving quite a hole to repair. What, do you imagine, the crowd was saying or thinking as they did that? Like the other negative voices we heard about earlier, surely those people did not just look on silently. What faith and resilience must it have taken to hold fast to their brazen move, believing with their hearts that Jesus could heal their friend? As in the other illustrations, there must have been resistance from those around them. Yet Jesus, it seems, perceived something that the others hadn’t: Jesus perceived faith. It was great faith in his healing abilities to have four men risk the crowds to get their paralyzed friend an audience with Jesus. The power of their faith in Jesus, which was stronger than repercussions of the negative crowds, became a two-way power:

1) Their actions clearly told Jesus that they believed he could heal; and

2) Jesus’ words gave them the assurance that their friend had been blessed by him. The compassionate eyes; the healing touch; and the reassuring words of the healer (Jesus) gave a man who had not walked the courage and ability to do so.

What great things faith can do.

Certainly there are times when people have prayed for the healing or safety for a loved one and it has not happened. In the Bible, Lazarus actually died though his sisters certainly prayed to God for his recovery. Jesus himself under went anguish, as, perhaps, some of the faithful gave in to the caustic and negative crowds that chanted around him. Even Peter’s faith may have slipped. Faith plants its foot on assurances, but not on guarantees. At the cross of Jesus, even the prayers of his devoted mother Mary could not save Jesus from destiny and death. Sometimes things do not turn out the way we hope. But I believe this: faith and prayer has and still does change the outcome of countless situations. To have a world of people like the cynical neighbor or the angry crowds just turns civilization into bitter brawls and biting banter. Such an environment is the food on which cancer, stomach ulcers, and heart attacks thrive. There is, instead, the choice of four men, who counted the cost, were willing to pay the price, and stepped forward in faith. Their friend got the words he longed to hear: “Your sins are forgiven.” Certainly crowds of people had told him he could not walk because of his sins, as they believed in that day. Nobody had declared that he was forgiven, and the implication made the man believe he was bogged down in sin. It took the freeing words of Jesus to let him rise.

Let me leave you with one true story: When a man named John Paton was translating the Bible for a South Seas island tribe, he discovered that they had no word for faith. One day he watched one of the natives run along the beach, then turn and head straight toward Paton’s hut, enter, and flop in a chair. “It is good,” he said breathlessly, “to put all my weight in this chair.” “That’s it,” thought Paton. And he wrote his definition of faith: “resting ones’ whole weight on God.” Faith goes through the roof, if necessary, to get our Lord’s attention, while others shrink back, or shout, or cower. Through the noise of your crowds, whoever they may be, may you still make your way, to be touched by the hand of the Savior.

Jeffrey A. Sumner February 8, 2009