When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around there that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Jesus’ ministry as a teacher must have filled a tremendous need. When was the last time we saw people climbing over each other on their day off to listen to someone teach?

Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. What is the correct term for this man these days? “Man with crippling condition” is too long, “cripple” is demeaning according to my friends who ride wheelchairs. According to them, to say “paralytic” or “quadriplegic” makes it seem as if that’s all he is.

And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; Roofs then were made of thatch and mud. We no longer are so hungry for teaching that we crowd the teacher out of house and home. Is our eagerness to learn drowned out by the bombardment of modern civilization’s stimuli—noise, images, information? If we still feel like learning after earning a living all day, we do it on our own terms, alone. Adult learners often stay home surfing the internet, or reading books, listening to audio tapes or watching TV.

and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, Jesus sees the faith of the friends—not the man’s faith. What was faithful about the friends? They carried him, climbed to the roof, hoisted him up, dug through, let him down. Was this about their strength, perseverance, their creative problem solving? Faith here is the action of coming to Jesus for healing—and really working at it.

he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Why does Jesus forgive the man’s sin? Because his friends brought him? My friends with disabilities resent the ancient notion that links so closely sin and illness, forgiveness and healing. What child has sinned so badly as to deserve polio? Or to be born with cerebral palsy—was it the parents who sinned or anticipation of the child’s sin? I would suggest that this man knew he had nothing left to lose in coming to Jesus. To be restored to relationship and to community was more important than anything else, and that restoration required removing barriers to those conditions. The chief barrier to community is Sin (with a capital S). In scripture, healing was ever the metaphor for forgiveness. BUT the man does not rise and walk because of the forgiveness; he walks because Jesus heals him. Everyone is in need of repentance.

Now, some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” These religious professionals were the “custodians of forgiveness.”

At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk?’ Talk is cheap, but is Jesus saying that or is he asking about “evidence of the effectiveness of talk”? If talk is cheap, either is easy to “say.” But spreading blanket forgiveness—who could tell if anyone was forgiven? What would be the proof? Commanding him to stand and walk—that would be harder. But by forgiving his sins, Jesus is saying who he is.

“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—“I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” Jesus is pointing to the ancient prophesies that know the Messiah will restore community, will bring the kingdom about by the lame leaping, the blind seeing. Faith precedes healing (literally that of the friends), healing is not the result of faith. The healing demonstrates Jesus’ authority and identity.

And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

[Then, let the children kindergarten and younger go out. Immediately Houston should be discretely going out to get the wheelchair.]

Christopher Reeve is the Poster Boy for people who ride wheelchairs. He is high profile, articulate, credible, and he has access to some of the most powerful and glamorous people in the country Reeve’s memoir of the accident that put him in a chair and on a respirator is entitled Still Me—maintaining the radical notion that just because he’s in a chair doesn’t change who he essentially is. Last week a newspaper article quoted him as saying his accident had cost him the most valuable of personal freedoms, the one of moving yourself around. His message continues to be, “See me for who I am, not just the things you can see.” His foundation is dedicated to the notion that spinal cord injuries do not end a person’s useful life. Nor should those injuries end a person’s hope of walking again. Reeve’s Foundation is dedicated to developing the science and medicine that supports the notion that he will walk again. [Doorbell should start ringing insistently during this paragraph. We’ll send the usher out to let Houston in.]

The Church Lady becomes indignant about “those people.” She will want to make these points: they disrupt our routines, re-arrange our furniture, demand that we change our architecture, and no one likes to look at “them.”

Houston will talk about how hard it is to get over a threshold in a chair, how he feels like he’s sticking out in front of everyone, that even though people stare when he isn’t looking, they don’t seem to look at him when they meet him. He spends his life looking at people’s belt buckles. And if he has to go to the bathroom—wheeling over to our bathroom—he has to hope the door is wide enough.

Eileen will ask for volunteers to be temporarily disabled for the rest of the service, then report about what it’s like to be blind (have a dab of Vaseline on their glasses), deaf or hard of hearing (wear ear plugs), arthritic (wear gloves).

The report will be during the sacramental time.

God’s intention for us is wholeness, and in this healing story, the wholeness to which Jesus invites this man is inclusion in the faith community. The man needed friends to get to Jesus. In Jesus’ time, people with visible disfiguring were not allowed into the full fellowship of faith. These days, we are a little more open-minded about disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) makes discriminations illegal. That doesn’t mean we have done all we can to include everyone around our family table here. Those friends in the gospel of Mark had it right—we both need the help of our friends and we need to help our friends. The Gospel of Jesus Christ turns the world upside down. That means as regards people with disabilities in our community of faith, “we need them more than they need us.” It is ministry with people with disabilities, not ministry to. We need “them” because they remind us to open our doors, they remind us that Jesus came to bring wholeness to all of humanity. As soon as we think we can get there on our own, that we don’t need a broken God to die on our behalf, we’re headed in the wrong direction. “They” remind us of our need for God’s grace to be whole—and that need is not a one shot deal. Our need for grace is a day-in-and-day-out decision to know we are vulnerable, to let God steer, to let God save us, to embrace the transformation God offers in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

We speak of ministry with people with disabilities, and I am living proof of the truth of that. I could tell you stories for hours about how my best teachers were people who have disabilities. Rick and I were in a friendship group with developmentally disabled adults at our home church. Rodney could not live independently, but he knew every airplane made, and which airlines used which ones on which routes. The sheer joy he experienced in sharing that body of knowledge was incredible. Stacy didn’t know all the words to the Lord’s Prayer, but her participatory praying could be heard throughout the sanctuary—and it blessed us more than more eloquent prayers. Robert had lived in a state institution until he was nearly 50, but the sale of his artwork now supports himself and his elderly mother, and has been published on the Lands End catalogue cover.

Part of my pastoral training was at St. Coletta, a residential school. Sharon had tantrums and acted out until I started spending an hour a week with her as part of my chaplaincy. Then, simply because someone loved her enough to be with her, she learned new ways to manage her behavior. Sarah needed someone who could communicate with her in unorthodox ways—songs with motions about God’s creation. Away from Coletta’s, another of my friends gave up a successful teaching career when her M.S. got so bad that she couldn’t leave her house. Because her eyes didn’t work for reading any more, I read to her a book called Waist High In the World, about a woman dealing with the spiritual issues of the gradual loss of her body to M.S. and becoming wheelchair bound. I learned from my friend that spiritual companions are important, that sometimes being a deacon means also being a grace-filled care receiver.

In ancient Israel, the sign of God’s Kingdom coming, the sign that the Messiah had come, was that the eyes of the blind could see, the ears of the deaf opened, the lame leapt like deer, and the speechless sang for joy. These signs are as true today as they were then. Because Jesus himself did what was necessary to include people with disabilities in the faith community, because their inclusion is a sign that the kingdom has come, we need to continue to open the doors of the church. I learned from my friends with disabilities that it really is “ministry with.” I learned from them that it’s true—we need “them” more than “they” need us. Opening Doors. It’s not about whether or not we meet the Americans with Disabilities Act regulations. It really is about the coming of God’s kingdom. At that coming, may Jesus find our doors open.