Roof Breaking Faith

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All synoptic gospels tell the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man who made his way through the roof to get to Jesus (Matthew 9, Mark 2, Luke 5). Four unnamed friends convinced the paralytic man that they were determined to take him to Jesus. Imagine how their hearts must have sunk when they saw that the house Jesus stayed was packed with people. Lots of people in town had come there with their sick people and there is no way to get into house, not to mention a man on a stretcher. The men decided to climb up on the roof, break it open, and lower the paralytic down. You can only imagine the reaction of the people in the room below when the pieces and debris started falling on them.

Many Christians are oblivious to the damage they cause and the barriers they build. They refuse to think or admit the traffic jam they cause at the doorway blocking others to come to church. Many churches are very supportive to each other and work together shoulder to shoulder and interlocked so tightly that nobody can break in and become part of it. Our tight knit boundaries of tradition or structure make it too exhausting for outsiders trying to break in to get to Jesus. People are being brought to Jesus through unconventional ways now. The new generation that comes to church often consider themselves as seekers rather than believers. Many are paralyzed and need help emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Christians may need to pause at times and ask themselves how they can help people on 'stretchers and chairs' to get to Jesus without having to climb and damage the roof.

A painting based on this miracle shows a man walking away from the house with a bedding on his back while the four friends were still on the roof patching and repairing the damage to the house. The friends did an excellent job in getting the sick man to Jesus and at the same time caused some damage to the house which is hard to explain on a homeowner's insurance claim. They knew that there will be those who are more interested in the damage of the roof than the healing of the paralyzed man. They were determined not only to get the sick man help but were also to repair the damages that they had caused.

We organize many events, and all of them need volunteers to help. Our church is very good in doing these events successfully. A lot of times, we see many volunteers in the beginning of the event but cannot get a lot of them to stay for the cleanup. Christian discipleship is not just to be there, but also to become an active participant.

1. They were determined to overcome barriers. They decided to find another way to get in when the door was blocke. We may get deterred by many barriers. There are internal barriers we will face. The sick man had an internal barrier. His barrier was being not able to move or walk. Frustration, lack of faith, lack of vision, lack of unity, no love are internal barriers. Internal barriers can be any of a number of things. I am too old, I can’t do that. I am too busy. I don’t have time. I can’t preach, I can’t sing, I can’t lead a group. These are all excuses that stop us from reaching the goal that God has in store for us. The ministry of the church is to help others to overcome their barriers to get to Jesus.

Then there are external barriers. These may come in the forms of People, walls, roofs, custom, religion, criticism are external barriers.Here the barrier was that people were crowding around Jesus. Most of us in the church are oblivious to the possibility that we might stand in the doorway blocking the access of others who want and need to get to Jesus; who want to get inside the house that is the church, so that they, too, can make their way to God. And yet, often without even thinking of what we are doing, we do stand in the way. Sometimes it’s because we are shoulder to shoulder, so close and friendly and all supportive and interlocked and blessed by the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love that nobody can break through, we’re so tight with each other

When I was younger, children used to play a game, where you make a circle and grasp hands and try to keep the person out who wants to come in the circle, until finally they just give up when it becomes too exhausting trying to break in. We like the closeness of the conformity and the feeling of oneness. Are we open to add in some friends who are not as well raised, or as similar looking or even with a different faith? We might be welcoming in the front, but not would not open the way for them to have a deeper life into church. We tend to help people in circles, circles that we are comfortable with, circles we have a vested interest for some reason, or circles we can relate with easily. But God’s love is all inclusive. We draw circles around us and decide who to let in and who should be our friend and who is not.

Carlyle Marney, a prominent American pastor and theologian of the 20th century called such friends the “balcony people”. They are helpers who bless others in time of need and believe in miracles more than the needy. They go before us to serve as lights to our path and guides to our way. When we cannot get to help ourselves or have nothing to give back in return, they are the ones who are ready to carry us. True friendship is learning not to impose your convictions, or have your own way, or provide your own answers. Sincere friends are those who do everything they can to lead others to the Source of help and who goes beyond barriers and love without expecting anything. Let us thank God for all those who choose to help others in the journey of life.

2. Their faith in Jesus was extraordinary. They would do anything to bring the paralytic to the place where Jesus is. These friends in the story are amazing. They are determined to get the paralytic help no matter what the cost was. And it is their faith that becomes the object of this story. What is actually the miracle here? healing..yes. The greater miracle is the faith of the four faithful friends who climbed roof. This is a story of of true collaboration purely on faith. United in faith, God's children can do extraordinary things. In John 17:20-23 Jesus prayed that all believers might be one, just as He was one with His Father. “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."

Jesus was not angry, he was willing to work with the faith of the people on the roof. The four friends had faith in Jesus unlike a lot of others who were criticizing Jesus. But the friends had a faith stronger that their criticism. Jesus said in Mark 6:14 "you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move."

Paul says in Phil 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ,” They had a faith that was not defeated by the people around them and the critics. They were not intimidated by others

The Pharisees and Lawyers saw themselves as the conscience of the nation. They were determined to maintain standards . They started criticizing Jesus for healing a sick man. When Jesus challenged the religious experts by asking: "Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven.' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?" Jesus asks “what is easy?” It is like asking “what is easy? flying to the moon or climbing the everest? Both are achievable, but both are not easy.

They had a faith that was persistent. They did not blame the crowd, or Jesus or anything else. Many people Blame God, Blame each other, Blame the crowd for not letting them through, or some even would Blame the paralytic for his misfortune. They found another way through the roof?. Jesus emphasized the importance of persistent prayer in his parable about the widow and the unjust Judge, (Luke 18:1-8). ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’” And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? " When you pray do not cease to P.U.S.H (Pray Until Something Happens). It is not pushing God, but we are to pray without ceasing. But God is the one to make things happen.

3. The love of the friends toward this sick man was sacrificial. They were friends indeed. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Someone who is paralyzed is not necessarily a winsome friend in return, someone who, at surface level, is not able to give back much. Our friendships may be tainted with self interests. What is my benefit if I help someone?

Nobody wants the disabled or the weak. A group of friends went deer hunting and paired off in two’s for the day. That night one of the hunters returned alone, staggering under the weight of a 200 pound deer. The other hunters asked, “Where’s Bob?” The lone man said, “Oh, he had a stroke of some kind, he’s a couple of miles back up the trail.” The other hunters were shocked and asked why he left Bob laying there to carry the deer instead. “It was a tough call,” the hunter said, “but I figured no one was going to steal Bob.” Even though it may be a just a story, it is true that no one wants disabled and the elderly and the weak.

To be a friend to someone who is dependent on basic support is to take on a serious responsibility. After all, this paralytic, depending on the severity of his physical challenges might not have been able to bathe, dress, get to the toilet, or even feed himself. To become the friend of a person who has physical limitations is to enter into an intimate covenant relationship in which help is often assumed and necessary.

When I went to the swimming pool last week, I saw an amazing act for two women, They brought a paralyzed young lady, looks like paralyzed neck down. Both of them carried the lady like a baby and doing exercises for her therapy I believe, It was not a few minutes, it was over 45 minutes that they spent there in the pool helping their friend. True friendship is learning not to impose your own truth, your own way, your own answers on another person’s challenges in life, but allowing your friend enough room to learn his/her own answers in his/her own time.

Paralysis comes in many forms. Not just in the physical. There is also spiritual paralysis, and emotional, and psychological. We freeze-up with fear sometimes, or with anxiety about tomorrow, or with self-pity or grief or blame, a sense of helplessness that gets a grip on us and seizes our ability to move forward in life. Fortunate are those who have friends who can point in the direction of help, or even bear us up on their shoulders in difficult times; friends so ready to help us when we are ready to ask for help that they will even break through the roof and lower us to the place and to the One who can bring us healing.

Carlyle Marney, wise sage of the church, was the first to coin the phrase “balcony people”, those saints who look on from afar and inspire and bless us and wish us well. Sometimes it is those balcony people who believe more in us than we believe in ourselves. They are the ones who know our name and whose example inspires our faith. They go before us to serve as lights to our path and guides to our way. And sometimes when we cannot get to help ourselves, they are the ones ready to carry us.

The best of friends speak the truth to us and tell us not what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. Someone so invested in who we are, and yet so un-invested as well that they offer us a perspective no other can give.

We are meant to be friends like that in the church. Friends who are ready when the time is right to do everything we can to bring others to the place where help is available and even our faith can be used by God to bring healing. The friends in the story are, after all, the heroes of the piece. It is their faith that Jesus notices and that effects the healing of the paralytic.

Jesus chose twelve disciples to walk with him the dusty trails and desert sands of a time long ago and a land far away. Some of the twelve proved better friends to him than others. But in John’s gospel as they sat at table the night of Jesus’ arrest, he said to all of them, “I have not called you servants, but friends.” 2 And ever since, we have been invited to serve him as friends as well, like those friends who bore the paralytic to the house that day that Jesus was at home; friends who would not stop at anything to make sure their companion found the healing he needed.

We all need a friend or two like that in our lives, four would be an abundance. And I wonder if the old adage about friends is never truer in this respect than in any other; that in order to have a friend, we must first be one. Friends, let us love one another as Christ has loved us, because by this everyone will know that we are his disciples.

Mark tells us that when Jesus saw their faith, meaning the faith of the friends, he healed the paralytic. There is a healing waiting to happen when you and I are ready to be that friend.

Blessings