The Gathering Storm
Mark 2:1-12
February 21, 1971

It was another hectic day in the sea-side town of Capernum. Jesus had
returned from a brief trip to the other Galilean villages in the arca. And
once again the crowd gathered outside the house of Simon Peter, where he had
taken up residence, On this occasion, four men had carried a friend who was
paralyzed in the expectation that this amazing new teacher could affect a
cure. But the crowd was large ~ too large for them to push their way through
carrying a stretcher. So they went up on the roof, and after doing considerable
damage, lowered their friend down through the opening into the presence of Jesus.

An interesting, if somewhat irrelevant sidelight, to this event is the
fact that they would have had to tear up the roof to get the job done. Some-
where in my church school experience I got the impression that there was an
opening in that roof. Not so, say the men who know. Palestinian roofs were
constructed cither with tile on a wood frame, or branches and md, And one
scholar suggests that Peter's friend Mark, who preserved this story for posterity,
did so because he knew the anxiety it caused for the homg owner.

In any case the gimmick worked; it caught Jesus attention. He was impressed
with the persistance of the men and their confidence. He said to the paralytic:
"My son, your sins are forgiven" an odd statement to be sure, in that they came
because of paralysis, not sin. Yet, there is no question that in their minds
the two were related. Physical illness, thay believed, was simply the outward
manifestation of a sickness of the heart. And so to forgive a man his sins,
was to banish the cause of his illness. Obviously, if he thought this way +00,
he very well may have experienced an instant and miraculous cure. ‘So far so
good.

But in the house, along with the Capernum people were several scribes, who

immediately would have taken mental note of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth

had just put himself in the place of God by saying something which was the sole

~2—

Prerogative of God and was, therefore, clearly and flagrantly guilty of blasphemy -
which offense was punishable by death according to Leviticus 24:16.

Jesus knew they were there, sensed what they were thinking, joined the
issue, pronounced the man healed ag well as forgiven and the incident was
closed, except for the fact that a rather important question of authority was
left unresolved. There are, you see, several significant issues in this short
story.

Por our purposes this morning I would call your attention to these three.
This rather basic conflict occured very early in Jesus public ministry. In
terms of Mark's Gospel, we are dealing with the second chapter. In torms of
time, Jesus at this point, had just begun. He had called several men to follow
him, made a short trip to a few villages, done some teaching and healing, and
found himself in significant conflict with the Scribes. Second, this conflict
is the first of a series of five related in Mark 2 through 3:6, In addition to
this instance of legal blasphemy he encountered conflict and official opposition
for sitting at table with sinners, not fasting, plucking grain on the Sabbath,
and healing on the Sabbath. It seeem evident that the author, in placing these
incidents in sequence, is trying to ~1l us something; something basic about the
conflict Jesus cman Third, in all of these instances the conflict is
not with the forces of evil, not with immorality, sin and vice; not even with
the governmental authorities; but with the religion, and the pious, puro, self-
righteous, respectable adherents of that religion.

"The Gathering Storm", T have titled this, because that-is what I sonse
the Gospel writer telling us. It is necessary, that is to say, to see the
Gospel story in the cTucible of emerging conflict between Jesus and the estab—
lished religion,

Let's spend a minute thinking about that. The Scribes were based in
Jerusalem. They were the official "teachers" of réligion, and the official

interpreters of the law. The Pharises, in comparison, were the laymen; the

disciples of the Scribes, the devotees to the Scribal interpretation of the law.
The fact that several Scribes were there; that they had traveled from Jerusalem
to Capernum and arrived early enough to get a front row seat inside the house,
sounds very much as if they were there on business: an investigating team,
perhaps, to check out the disturbing rumors coming from Galilea in recent weeks.

The Scribes were astute men, And they sensed immediately the threat to
their own position posed by Jesus. Their authority depended on their vredibility
in the cyes of the people ~ something that had never been challenged before.
Their power depended on the people playing by the rules — the rules they created
and interpreted. Under their careful jurisdiction the historic faith of Isracl
had become a very formal religion of law, intensely legalistic. And thoy had
just seen a man with the arrogant temerity to suggest that a crippled man and
his needs wore far more important than their rules. Very much of that kind of
thinking and thoy wend be out of business,

Now to bring this into the presont tense, the subject of institutions and
their integrity is of great interest today because of all the talk about the’
"establishment". "Establishment", of course — like the Middle Class -, is
a phenomonom to which other people adhere, and its definition depends on who
is doing the talking. For me, the word - by itself -— has very little meaning.
But I wouldsuggest to you my sense of what is being indicated when the estab—
lishment is held up in order to be knocked down. I sense that an institution
of any society becomes an "cstablished" institution when its primary objective
becomes sclf—preservation rather than the goals upon which it was created in
initially.

Consider mythical organization X; formed for the express purpose of feeding
hungry people, a noble and honorable goal. A steering committee is formed,
sub-committees go to work, an organizational style emerges, personnel are hired
to get the job done and hungry people are fed. But shortly a subtle change

occurs within the institution. More and more effort is devoted to the

onde

porpstustion of the institution and less and less to feeding hungry people. At
that point the institution has taken to itself a kind of divine-right—to-exist,
and suggestions that it is no longer viable, or even that it needs changing,
come out sounding like rank heresy, disloyalty and subversion.

It happens, almost mystically, to every institution from the military super
structure the purpose of which is to defend the nation, but which comes peril-
ously close to replacing the Department of State -— and which becomes paranoid
at any suggestion that its goals bear reevaluation, all the way down to the
local P.T.A., which organization it appears to me, spends far more of itself
to raise money to send people to clinics in order to perpetuate itself than it
does in joining the serious and vital questions of public education, curriculum,
and the role of parents in the academic process.

No institution is immune: it's the way institutions are, and the concerned
person faces three options. The least desirable is to tear the institution
down: revolution: which naively assumes that new institutions will be less
inclined to become established. The second option is to ignore the situation:
stay at home and keep one's mouth shut in the equally naive assumption that the
people who run the show kmow best. The third option is to jump in and work
for reform — the most difficult amd risky course of all: and to me, the only
one that makes sense.

It is my conviction that Christians are called to that kind of activity
in the world. We are the people who can remember, out of our own history, what
happoned to our Lord and the established in#titution of religion. We are the
ones reminded that his conflict was not incidental, nor peripheral, but at the
heart of his ministry - and that he was crucified because of it. We are the
ones I belicve ~ of all the people in society - whose job it is to keep
insisting that our institutions function with integrity. John R. Fry, and
others, are suggesting that Christian Faith makes a man a revolutionary

because human institutions are corrupt. I disagree. That's too simple. Too

thes .
naives But Z do think Christian faith makes tis skeptioel in a healthy way -
and involvod in a personal way - in the institutions of ou» sogicty = as "flies
in the ointmont". As tho poople with the courage ahd honesty to ask the tight
questions.

There is a still deeper significance to all of this bécause it sets personal
discipleship to this Jesus Christ in the context of conflict. We're not very
comfortable with that. The Church has often been one-sided about Jestis Christ,
senseing in him a Savior; one with power tosave meh from the repercussions of
their owmm sin. That is true and important and vital to the integrity of tho
Gospel. But there is more to it than that. Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord,
and he places the people he saves in the life of the world, where his Lordship
always has and always will, precipitate, more than a few conflicts.

Honce my difficulty with the easy piety of the church and the evangelistic
approach of a Billy Graham. A man is saved by giving his life to Christ. But
what does that really mean. Well, I would suggest that unless it places a man
under the discipline of Christ's Lordship in the world - as well as under the
assurance of his eternal love, it means absolutely nothing.

In a rocent oral examination before one of the Presbyteries of the Synod
of Indiana, a candidate for ordination was asked to explain his own expericnce
of Josus Christ. Now, these oral examinations are very important and it is
very tempting to say what you think people want to hear. So this particular
candidate told how he had come to know Jesus as his Savior and all the heads
nodded. But then he wont on +o say that about a year later he had had another
conversion experience ~ and this time he had come to know Jesus as his Lord.

I think that is a powerful and honest reflection of the Gospel demarid wpon
the individual. Christ is both Savior and Lord ~ and hig Lordship is the
point at which a lot of Christians want to get off the boat.

Jesus saw his own life in terms of obeyitig the will of God, even to the

point of death. He saw that to do this he would have to empty out himself,

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and live on the basis of an authori ty greater than his own. ~— And that, I
would suggest, is the deepest conflict of all. We don't want that. Wo man
does. No man, in his right mind, wants to live under any authority or discipline
other than his own.

It's a little like dying. And that is precisely the New Testament image
for it. Paul, in his letters, talks about "dying to sin" or "dying to the law" -
which means rejecting the religious law as the basis for living. Dietrick
Bonhoeffer said it memorably when he wrote: “When Christ calls a man, he bids
him come and die." [The Cost of Discipleship, p. 7] He realized that honest
discipleship means the death of something intrinsic to me, and the replacement
of that something with the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

That something is self - or ego — and Christian Faith has always dcfined
sin, ultimately, as living out of, and for the sake of my own ego. Dr. H.

Louis Patrick put it in simple terms: "Our sin lies not in the vetty larcony
of breaking God's laws, our sin comes from the basic treason hidden in the
depths of our being where we deny God's right to rule. Sin is never first of
all an act. I+ is always primarily an attitude that comes from the deepest
parts of our being." [ho Protestant Hour, July, 1970]

And William Lazareth addresses the churchman directly: "People have a
right to know that when we invite them to become fellow disciples we are not
merely offering them an emotional jag or an intellectual exercise, or a sure
key to happiness and success. We are asking them, rather, to permit God to
transform them and their entire existence from self-centeredness to God -
centeredness, from self-worship to the worskip of a crucified and risen Lord."
[p. 38 R. A. Raines, Reshaping the Christian Life ]

- To be transformed from self-centeredness to God - centeredness. That
is the deepest conflict of all. ‘4nd itis never done once and for all.

Rather it is a process of transformation, a process of becoming a Christian,

that takes place in the context of the events and transactions of dfily living;

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a process that is conscious insofar as I will to allow Jesus Christ to be the
authority in my life.

We decide that deep down inside where we really live. We decide one way
or another a hundred times every day. And we need to recall that for Jesus it
was the way of a cross. As Lent approaches we need to remember that carly in
his ministry the storm began to gather; that the conflict implicit in his
Lordship set in motion the process of crucifixion.

As Lent begins let us remember that. Let us look forward, also, and see
that there is resurrection at the end of the road: that the way of the cross
was validated by the Resurrection of the Risen Lord. As we are reminded in

Lent that Jesus Christ is our Savior, let us accept him anew as Lord.

{men °

Our father, grant us the courage to hold our own lives up to the white
heat of your love. Give us grace to admit that we live for ourselves. And
then help us, our father, to open our lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ,
your Son, our Savior.

Amen.