Brothers and Sisters

Sermon for 22nd February 2009 (Isaiah 43: 18-25; Mark 2: 1-12)

A phone-order operator for a mail-order catalogue was having a very busy day. The switchboard was jammed with calls, and most people were having to be put on hold. When she took one person off hold, she heard the person muttering mild curses into the phone. The operator laughed good-naturedly and said, "What may I help you with today?" The sheepish voice on the other line said, "I'm sorry. I want to place an order." "Alright," the operator said, "Now, I need your name first. "Oh, dear," she said, "how embarrassing. My name is Sister Patience."

In church we often see others as “brothers and sisters in Christ” even if they not from a religious order like Sister Patience. Sometimes it’s the right words but with no real practical meaning. How can we claim to be brothers and sisters when we can’t even relate to one another as friends?

An asylum seeker attended a local church for years without anyone making a move to get to know him, preferring their cosy cliques over coffee. So one day he wore his baseball cap to church. As soon as he took his lonely seat at the back of the church the usher came and said, “Brother, we don’t wear caps in church here.” “Thanks,” he replies but kept his cap on. Going up later for communion, another man pulled him aside, saying gently “My brother, wearing of caps is forbidden in our church.” “Thanks,” but the cap stays put. After the service the Vicar at the door greets him and then courteously adds, “But, my dear brother, wearing of caps in church is not allowed.” “I know,” says the man, “but I have been coming to this church for three years now and no one has ever noticed me before.”

Everyone called him ‘brother’, but he was dying of loneliness in a crowd of “brothers and sisters.” He might well have felt for the paralysed man in today’s gospel story who was at least as much ignored or despised; the events took place in Peter’s house in Capernaum. From early church history and archaeology we know that this later became one of the first Christian house churches- you can stand in it’s ruins today. So the early Christian readers of Mark’s Gospel would have known Peter’s house as a church and so assumed a church setting and the crowd as a ‘congregation’ all wanting a blessing of some kind from Jesus. Concerned for their own personal needs they were insensitive to someone who needed so much more, the paralytic; they could also have shared in the prejudice of that time that saw the sick as cursed by God. So the man was forgotten in their rush and struggle to get the attention of Jesus. He was forgotten in their rush and struggle to get the attention of Jesus. Perhaps as they left they might pass by him and drop a coin and say, “God bless you, brother.” For many of course, he would have not been a ‘brother’ at all. The sick were often seen as cursed by God- outside God’s family, just as asylum seekers are often seen as outside our society, even in churches!

The twist in the story comes when four men from this ‘congregation’ give him priority over their needs because they saw that his needs were greater. Meanwhile the ‘congregation’ just blocked their entry. But where there is a will there is a way, even if it meant un-roofing the church. And that is just what they did. “When Jesus saw their faith…” – his ‘friends’ faith, not that of the paralysed man – he healed the man, soul and body. So who were ‘brothers’ to this man?

Our words must be matched by our actions where there is a need. What we do matters more than what we say. When we buy fairly-traded goods, we act as ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’ to people we will never meet; when we reduce our carbon footprints, we act as siblings to those who are already suffering, and will do so more in the future, through increased droughts, or floods, bushfires or rising sea levels. We become ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’, to those we respond to in the love of Christ. And sometimes the support we give is out of all proportion with what we think we do. The four ‘friends’ who became brothers just gave him a lift. The same can happen now: Let me finish with a story:

A poor teenage football player was amazed to see a skinny little private school kid staggering home under a great pile of books. As had happened many times before he was suddenly picked on by some of the local youngsters. The books meant he could not escape. The footballer for once intervened despite resenting the boys assumed privilege in life. Afterwards as they chatted the footballer was surprised to find the other was quite an easy person to be with; they became friends and stayed so through their teenage years - even as one studied law at college and the other joined a professional football team. At his graduation the lawyer invited the footballer to share in his big day; at his valedictory speech the now successful young lawyer thanked all those who helped him get where he was that day – his parents, lecturers, teachers and friends. He then told the audience about the day he had met the footballer. They grew silent as he described how on that day he had been planning his suicide that very day The reason that he had so many books was that he had cleared out his locker that day so that his mother would not have to do so after his death.