A Little Help From My Friends

1 Corinthians 1:2... “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their's and our's:”

“simul iustus et peccatoris” is to say that while we remain sinful in ourselves we are, in Christ, totally righteous.

In themselves, the Corinthians were anything but sanctified saints: they were quarreling and creating factions around various Christian leaders; they were taking one another to court; sexual immorality was rampant; the bodily resurrection was being denied; worship was chaotic. But writing to these people in the face of this sin, Paul addresses them as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.”. The possibility of this kind of speech is anchored in a distinction between who the Corinthians are in themselves and who they are in Christ. This confident and creative “calling”—this naming of a person in terms of who they are in Christ—is the catalyst for change. To call a person by their “new name” is to summon them away from faith in themselves–away from the sin and death that defines the old age–and to summon them to faith in Christ, to the salvation and status that defines the new creation and the Christian as one whose identity is “hid with God in Christ.”

The question on the job application read, “Have you ever been arrested?” The applicant printed the word “No” in the space. The next question was a follow-up to the first; it asked, “Why?” So this honest applicant wrote, “I guess it’s because I never got caught.” Probably an accurate diagnosis for many of us! We live with the knowledge that we sin; and we often assume we’re getting away with it. In reality, we’ve just never been caught - or have we?

Just as God knew the problems within the Corinthian church, God knows our sin, every last sin. He set the mark for forgiveness in the Old Testament so high that no one could hurdle it. It was not only set high so that we would fail but to show us that forgiveness was unobtainable in our own strength. We needed a Savior, we needed an eternal sacrifice, we needed the power of His grace though Jesus for the complete forgiveness of all our sin.

We need that same grace to overcome every obstacle in our lives today and, just as it was available when we surrendered our lives to Jesus it is available for every need right now.

Have you ever been alone, angry, suffering, God-forsaken, unemployed, depressed?

The above words would more than likely describe the despair for the person who is paralyzed in Mark 2:1-12. We do not know the origin of his paralysis. Was it an injury at work or a war? A birth defect? A withering of atrophied limbs after a stroke? An accident during a Saturday chariot ride with friends? We do not know, and don't need to know.
It makes little difference, because the truth is he cannot walk, and he cannot work in this agrarian economy. There are no desk jobs in first century Palestine, no “light duty” positions, only jobs for able-bodied farm hands and skilled craftsmen. There is no Social Security, no workman's compensation insurance, no disability coverage, no sick days. To make matters worse, the prevailing rule of thought of the day is that when bad things happen to people, it is a sign that God is mad at them. So, it isn't a much of a stretch to consider that he probably even thinks God is against him.

Maybe he's mad at God, and the rest of the upright world as well? How uncaring they stride by his 3 by 6 mat. How tall they all seem, towering above him, looking down on him, pitying him. How he must resent hearing the complaints of those who whine about sore leg muscles from excess playing or working.
And, over the years of his ailment, what else has become shriveled and paralyzed within his spirit? How his soul must have taken on the atrophy of his legs! Now he is not only paralyzed in limbs, but also in spirit. He is angry, blaming, and resentful. He does not appear to be a likely candidate for healing from Jesus.
Yet this Gospel story tells of his healing, nonetheless. For this man had one thing and one thing only, he had one hopeful word in his dictionary of despair. He had "friends." So, what does this story teach us? What are the life lessons contained here?
First, God always finds a way to reach out to us, no matter how unreachable we think we are. No matter how much we hide, or how much we refuse, how much we say we “just want to be left alone.” God never stops reaching.
This man is a human porcupine. He is hard to notice, but if you did notice him, he is hard to love. And even if you loved him, he is hard to heal. He does not reach out to Jesus. He does not beg to be healed. This man has long since given up on healing, and maybe he has given up on God.
He does not ask his friends to take him to Jesus; he does not thank them for taking him to Jesus. He does not even ask Jesus for healing when the friends lower him through the roof to lie in front of Jesus while he was teaching in the house. He is a hard man to love, there's no question about it. But thankfully, God's goodness and grace are not dispensed according to our deserving. It never has been, for any of us. So this man's depression, his anger or his paralysis does not offend or defeat God's love and mercy.
Maybe you can identify with this man. Maybe you feel like life has passed you by, or given you the short end of the good things of life. Maybe you suffer physically, or emotionally, or spiritually. You feel paralyzed by guilt, or sin, or some ailment. You feel alienated from God, or your loved ones.
Here is the good news: the man in this story is not beyond the reach of God's grace. You don't even have to reach out to God, for God is already reaching out to you. God may have to resort to creative and surprising ways to reach you with his love, but he will do it. He did it with the man in this Gospel.
He will do it for you.
Secondly, we may be called in life to be one of the "friends" who carry one of the corners of someone's mat. The test is clear. The friends carry the paralytic to the house where Jesus was staying, perhaps ignoring the insulting protests from their paralyzed friend. They persisted in their task to bring their friend before Jesus, despite social pressure and the physical limitation of the crowd. They distroy a stranger's roof to lower their friend to the floor where Jesus was teaching, risking at the very least a set of disapproving stares.
These friends are tenacious. They have patience, strength, stubbornness and one other quality -- they have faith. It is the faith that Jesus sees when he heals the paralytic. Not the faith of the paralytic himself, but the faith of four tired friends peering down through a 3 by 6 hole in a stranger's roof.
Who have been those friends to you through the years? Who has carried a corner of your mat when you needed help? Maybe someone gave you a job when your resume was a blank sheet of paper. Or maybe someone taught you Christian faith when you weren't even paying close attention. Or carried you on the strength of their prayers, or ethics or gifts through some particularly difficult period in your life. Do you remember them, those friends who manned a corner of your mat?
At the same time, we are all called to help others carry their mat. The healing is not ours to do, only the caring and the encouraging. When the dust of history and the dust of torn roofs settles at the feet of God, will there be anyone who, when asked who carried the corner of their mat, names you?