Daily Lesson for January 15, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 2 verses 3 through 7:

3 And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. 4 And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. 5 And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Yesterday I read that some church in Colorado called off a woman's funeral just minutes before it was to take place. My initial reaction was to shake my head in absolute wonderment at the insensitivity of religious people. We all know most Christian churches do not allow gays to be married; but not buried also?

On the other hand, as a pastor I can actually say I have been put into plenty of awkward positions at funerals and they usually involve poor communication between the church, the family, and the funeral home.  The undertaker has become the "funeral director" and it creates a lot of confusion about whose in charge -- especially when the pastor still sees fit to direct the funeral. That was the case in Colorado apparently where there was some dispute over the propriety of a video to be shown at the funeral. My guess is the funeral home did the video but didn't ok it with the church. When right before the service, somebody from the church finally saw the video somebody said, "Ah, Houston we have a problem."

The whole story makes me sad.  It makes me wonder if the young lady who died had any association with the church or the pastor. It arouses all kinds of complicated feelings I have about funeral directors and what is appropriate or inappropriate at a funeral.  And, it makes me wonder if the deceased did not have a relationship with the church, which is obviously pretty conservative, and suddenly minutes before the service the pastor sees the video might whether he (I am assuming it was a he) might not have felt like his own job could have been at risk in going forward. There are people protesting the church but I confess I feel for it and the pastor.

Yet then again, I read today's lesson. It is about a person who was kept out of what was essentially a church because they were paralyzed.  And in those days, people just assumed one was paralyzed because one was a sinner. (Today a lot of people still assume people are gay because they are sinners.)  And here come four men, carrying their friend in like pallbearers a might carry a casket.  Only, they do it through the roof, lowering him down from the ceiling.  Talk about impropriety, disruption, and things not necessarily going as planned. 

And Jesus does the very opposite of what they did in Colorado. Jesus sees their faith and he takes a risk and not hearing even a word from the paralytic he looks down and says, "Your sins are forgiven you."

And that's about when the religious folks started plotting against him. 

To me, it takes a lot of faith for a gay person -- dead or alive -- to come to church. And in some cases it takes a lot of faith to welcome them because there are still a lot of religious folks who are against it. 

But I have just one question, can we really imagine Jesus telling the the pallbearers to stop?  Can we not much more imagine him seeing their faith and saying the words we all need to hear, "Your sins are forgiven."

It would cost Jesus everything to say that -- to speak words of grace and welcome in what was otherwise a house of judgment and exclusion.  And everyone of us should pause and thank him that no matter the cost, he decided to speak it anyway.