BCP- Mark 2:1-12

he was speaking the word to them
he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
"Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy!
to say/to say
he said to the paralytic-- "I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home."
they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

Like gunshot it rang out. "He was speaking the word to them." There they all were enraptured and as Peter so aptly described earlier in the week, scrambling to get in. To catch any readers up, I am in a homiletics class. This is a seminarian type of thing to do. We go to class to learn how to become a homilitician. This is a fancy way of saying we become preachers. As part of class, there was a claim that was presented. The claim was "preaching constitutes church". Constitute can mean a few things but the meaning that stuck with me was that to "constitute" is to "create". Does then preaching "create" church (church being understood to be the people) ? I said yes and when I read Mark again (this is the third time this week) I saw (for the first time)the references to speaking. Jesus was speaking the word to them. He says to paralytic "stand up". He asks which is it easier "to say" your sins are forgiven or take up your mat and walk? (As I reflect on this I wonder if this question is a challenge to the doubting scribes? It seems as if they are getting all caught up in the words he is using. Maybe Jesus is toying with them a little bit. Maybe the words themselves mean very little. It is his speaking itself which heals the paralytic.)

The reason this is resonating within me was that the case I presented for preaching constituting or creating church is that preaching creates much like God Creates. I argued that the biblical model of preaching was in God's "speaking" creation into being. Here in this Gospel passage Jesus reflects and even duplicates Genesis. His speaking heals the man. His speaking gathers people. His speaking amazes. Preaching then becomes....Sacrament. As Jesus "spoke" the word to people, we preach, which can open persons to experience the kingdom.It is a physical act done by finite beings that "effect what it signifies". (This of course makes me glad that the articles of religion contains article xxvi because it takes the pressure off)

BCP - How am I led (Psalm)

Short day...

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go; *
I will guide you with my eye.

Do not be like horse or mule, which have no understanding*
who must be fitted with bit and bridle,
or else they will not stay near you."

Bit and bridle or instruction and eye? Seems as though from day to day I shift back and forth from trusting God to guide by eye to requiring God to drag me along by bit and bride. Today I feel good, today I feel like I can trust God. I hope tomorrow is the same way.

BCP- This is when it gets interesting

Isaiah 43:18-25
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I never perceive it. That is what makes it so interesting. I never ever perceive it. At 14 I'm in trouble- I have a religious experience which shifts my foundations. At 16 I read a book which leads to my going to Covenant House to serve. I want to stop smoking and ten years later I'm still involved in the 12 steps. I want to hike the Appalachian Trail and I end up on a boat back in Ft. Lauderdale. I'm lonely and want a date and eight years later I have a beautiful wife and three children. I go on a business trip in Missouri and I come back with a vocation. The day I return to Ft. Lauderdale from Missouri, I talk to my wife about my calling. We leave the house and go to the beach. On a whim we stop by Covenant House and happen to run into Sr. Eva who no longer works there and she becomes my spiritual director to help me discern my calling is true. You just can't script this stuff.

I do not perceive it. I do not perceive it.

It's not that God every once in a while makes things new. God is constantly making things new. How can we perceive it? It's seems far fetched. The new is a river in the desert!

This I think is why I'm coming to think Crisis (you name your favorite one) is not all that bad. One does not strive to create crisis. One should not shy away from crisis. Crisis just is. The reality is that God working things out is always profound. It's always happening. It is happening now. God is presently doing something with the church that we can not see. He is also doing something outside the church. God is not passive. Making things new is what Christ is about. God makes a way out of no way. Its not the crisis that we should focus on but the solution which we have yet to perceive.

BCP/RCL - Son, your sins are forgiven

'"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'? 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."'

Against my own advice I have decided that I will indeed read for Homiletics 3. In so doing I have been introduced to a theologian, who at least based on his Homiletical Theology will enter my top 5 all-time theologian list, Karl Barth.

Barth writes in his book, Homiletics (trans 1991) regarding preaching on sin, "Sin must be spoken about only as the sin which is taken away by the Lamb of God. Christian preaching deals with sin as forgiven sin." In all reality this is the Good News, this is why we have a Gospel, this is why we preach. From the time of Jesus onward to this moment it is easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven" than it is to say words of miraculous healing, "stand up and take your mat and walk." For Christ came, while we were still sinners, to save us from temptation. Jesus died doing just that so that we might say, "Son, your sins are forgiven." And yet, our sin continues day by day. Christ came to forgive the sins of humanity, and Christ will come again to perfect the reconciliation of humanity and God. Again Barth, "This once-for-all event is at one and the same time both the whence of believers and their wither." We preach sin as sin forgiven knowing that on this old earth we will never fully understand the unimaginable grace of God. We know sin as sin forgiven only with the understanding of sin eradicated when Jesus returns to fulfill Emmanuel, to return us to that place where there is no yes or no, but only the "yes" of God walking with us side-by-side on the other side.

I will continue to preach sin as sin forgiven, with the understanding that sin is still sin, until such time as Christ returns to perfect my fallen body, mind, and spirit to sin as sin no more.

BCP & RCL - Mark 2:1-12 we have never seen anything like this!

on Mark 2:1-12....

What an incredible scene at the home of Jesus in Capernaum! He arrives home, and as the scenes always move so quickly in Mark, his home is surrounded, and the people keep coming, and coming, and coming, and some creative (deranged?) individuals decide to lower this paralytic down into the home through the roof. And, Jesus heals the paralytic. But, clearly this was a strange gathering as there were even scribes there who had entered along with the crowd (the crowd who would later cry out 'hail' on Palm Sunday and later 'crucify him'? - but I am sliding into Lent...sorry).

These scribes question Jesus' authority to cast out sins, for sins were wrapped up in the purity codes of the time. The greek words for unclean and clean were tied up in the purity rituals of the temple (I preached on this a few weeks ago, sorry), and Jesus was doing something outside of the economy, power structure, and the imagination of these scribes, and perhaps the crowd as well. He casts out the sin, he puts away the sin, and he then raised up the man to health, and the man takes up his mat and walks.

The work of Jesus in Mark seems hidden so much of the time, but here, Jesus is almost in the mode of John's Jesus, in control, knowing what he will do, revealing who he is, for what purpose, and by what authority he does these things ... Jesus revealed himself to the crowd that had piled into his house, who had lowered themself into the house ... they had seen him do these things and " they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

No they hadn't, and neither have we ... we proclaim Jesus as savior and redeemer and sanctifier, our guide and our destination.

BCP - So Very Thirsty

"I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people..."

I am thirsty. Literally, my mouth is parched and I really would like something to drink. Figuratively my soul languishes in the arid wilderness of the new semester. The image of water is so prevalent in the Bible. God gives water as a gift (from a rock) and as a curse (see Noah). God removes water as a gift (parting the Red Sea) and as a curse (see the move to Egypt). Here in Isaiah (which I have by no means exegeted) the prophet reminds us that God brings forth water when we least expect it. God makes rivers in the desert. God gives water in the wilderness. God wants his chosen people to drink so that they might declare his praise.

How hard it is to praise God while thirsty. Literally, my lips are parched and my voice suffers as I attempt to lift up loud shouts to him in Psalms. Figuratively my soul is dry and cannot pour forth blessing it has not itself ingested. As I get up from this desk to get myself a drink of water I am thankful that God makes rivers in the desert and gives water in the wilderness so that I might drink and declare his praise, literally and figuratively. Amen.

BCP- Mark 2:1-12

I do not have anything erudite to say. This is probably wise as my estimation of my intelligence may be way off track anyway. It's early so I am writing in silence but I must admit that the Gospel propelled me further into silence. The stunning took place considering the charge that the scribes place upon Jesus. As God, Jesus ability to forgive sin is not blasphemy so it only appears to be blasphemy as Jesus stands before them as a man. What struck me is that Jesus grants his followers the ability to forgive sins through him. He sends his disciples out to heal and exorcise demons. There is a depth here that needs to be mined. I imagine however that if the scribes are going to be concerned with Jesus forgiving sins they will be a little more concerned with Jesus' followers doing it also.

BCP - The Cosmic Pile-on

"Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel!...

But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with you iniquities."

I remember going to youth group at the CMA church in town with a buddy of mine. One night they tried to pop a quiz on us by asking who was the person we thought to be the closest to God. Or, in other words, who did we think sinned the least. People had the usual responses; the pastor, Mother Theresa, the youth director, etc. The point being, of course, that while these people did walk closely with God through Jesus Christ, they too sinned, just like we did. The pastor had a habit of driving too fast. The youth leader had little patience. Mother Theresa, well we didn't come up with much, but I'm sure she got pissed from time to time. Anyway, the point was that even those who walk closely with God, forget about his great mercy from time to time.

Fast-foward to today. I'm in my second year in seminary, learning to shepherd God's people in his direction, and still today I do not call upon the Lord in all I do. There are days when I become weary of this thing called faith. I pile my sins upon God daily (if not hourly). Each angry thought, unkind action, or curse word adds more weight to Jesus' back upon the cross. And yet, the great I Am blots out my transgressions and does not remember my sins. He does so for his own sake, for he loves me so much that it pains him every time I turn my back. What an awesome thing he does to stay in relationship with little old me. What an awesome thing he does to stay in relationship with all who come before him humbly, asking to be turned back, to see his face!