Isaiah 43:18-19, 21-22, 24b-25 2^nd      Corinthians 1:18-22      Mark 2:1-12

A divine attribute consistently overlooked in both the Old and New Testament texts is the gracious simplicity with which God forgives. In modern American terms, God “lets off the hook” all sorts of important characters in the stories of Jewish and Christian people of faith. The blatant guilt is simply overlooked by the God of justice and love on the part of heroic characters like Moses (who beat a man to death with his fists and then hid the body; see Ex 2:11-15), King Solomon (who killed relatives and associates to secure his throne; see 1^st Kgs 2:12-36), and the Prophet Elijah (who executed 450 prophets of Baal 1^st Kgs 18:16-40). In the Gospel of John (8:2-11) Jesus let go the woman caught in adultery with the simple admonition to “avoid this sin” after he stared down all those self-righteous men who had publically humiliated her and sought her further execution, but who were completely unconcerned about the guilt of her male partner! Today’s Isaiah text makes this point, and Jesus seems to take delight in both forgiving and then healing the paralyzed man.

Religious institutions including our own Church are not always well-known for mercy, compassion, or humor towards individual sinners. Indeed, the Church has done more than any government in history in caring for the poor, the needy, and the sick and dying. But, when an individual of some prominence commits some offense which brings embarrassment or scandal upon the ecclesiastical leadership, then mercy and justice often get confused and are meted out in ways not very consistent with the Gospel Wisdom. In today’s first reading, Isaiah pointed out that God’s generous mercy was “something new!” This Isaiah was an anonymous author whom we call 2^nd Isaiah. He preached immediately after the Babylonian Captivity. The Babylonian Captivity’s half-century of enslavement had made the Jews confront the issue of “Why had God allowed the Gentile Babylonians to conquer us, destroy the Jerusalem Temple, and destroy our way of life?” They concluded that they themselves had for generations increasingly failed to keep the justice and fidelity commanded by the Torah. Now, at the end of their imprisonment they found the new-found liberty difficult to accept. Indeed, many of them postponed (and some never availed themselves of) the opportunity to return to their ancestral Holy Land, their Land of Promise. 2^nd Isaiah delivered just about the best news any people could possibly hear: you are free to go home! And, indeed, their freedom came with the Persian Imperial version of an economic stimulus package from Emperor Cyrus the Great. But, somehow, the message fell on relatively deaf hears! Why? Perhaps there was (and still is!) a human impediment to hearing the best of Good News.

In the Gospel story today, Jesus forgave the paralyzed man based on the confident expectation of his four friends who went to the outrageous length of digging through a house roof and lowering their friend down through the hole! There was both risk and humor here which we must not overlook! Such dedication is crazy in modern terms! Yet, the Gospel narrative makes it appear rather ordinary and even unremarkable. Worshipers at our Sunday Assembly will listen to this proclamation (many reading along in their worship aids out of habit or distrust of the herald’s reading ability) and give little thought to the strangeness of the event. I daresay that few today hope in Jesus’ Gospel of healing and forgiveness with the faith demonstrated by the paralytic’s friends. So many of us Church members hardly exert any extra effort at living the Gospel, and many fail to even drag themselves to Sunday worship except for Christmas and Easter and other such important social occasions! But, this narrative is as remarkable as Jesus walking on the water or turning water into wine or dismissing the adulterous woman with an exhortation to avoid the sin for which she had publically humiliated. Have you ever hoped so deeply as to be moved to an outrageous demonstration of faith like digging a hole through a thatched roof and lowering a sick friend down by ropes to someone who might (!) render him or her whole?? How extraordinary!! Who among us would, like Zacchaeus the tax collector even climb a tree to see someone like Jesus in a crowd?!?! We are culturally too self-conscious of how we appear to others to risk such personal ridicule. But, I hope you have, and I suspect that many believers truly have been extraordinary in parallel ways, e.g., through tremendous faithfulness, generosity, dependability, forgiveness, and the like.

Some in Jesus’ audience, however, were having none of his generous and easy forgiveness. The narrative even had Jesus reading their self-righteous thoughts so outraged was he by their lack of generosity. Throughout the Gospel narratives, Jesus healed, forgave, exhorted, and consoled with ease. He even wept. But, his irritation was displayed when people who had themselves been blessed so selfishly withheld and resented blessings bestowed on another by someone else. Jesus’ generosity had cost them nothing, but they resented it! This self-righteousness selfishness (actually a kind of arrogant meanness) has not died out in life in general or in our Church in particular. We must each be vigilant to work against just such behavior. Jesus took great delight in subverting the self-righteous Scribes at Capernaum who had thought unkindly and resentfully about the unfortunate man who’s insertion interrupted their audience with Jesus. He let them know that their lack of generosity was known to him, and he publically healed the man in an extraordinary manner precisely to confound them. Jesus had a tremendous sense of humor to go along with his great mercy!!

Church leadership and membership stand to learn much from Jesus’ Gospel narrative generosity and graciousness. His forgiveness and healing were in the great tradition described by 2^nd Isaiah. This tradition must become ever more evident and ordinary in our modern Church life!! Healing and forgiveness are superior to law and rules, even superior to values and doctrine. The Grace of forgiveness is easily obscured by ordinary daily Church controversies. Without such generosity, we will have to conclude that thoughtful and joyful Gospel faith has dried up in our lives, and it will have been replaced with merely superstitious religion, thoughtless religious practice and rote words.

The short reading from 2^nd Corinthians finds St. Paul addressing protesting his sincerity and directness in his advice to the Christians in Corinth. He advocates a clarity and forthrightness which he believed to be self-evident to his audience. His philosophical frame of reference for how reality was perceived and engaged fit well the Greco-Mediterranean approach of his day. He accepted what passed for conventional wisdom, i.e., the “everybody knows,” approach to life. That is somewhat inappropriate for us in the 21^st Christian Century. His sense was that God’s Holy Spirit “anointed” and “sealed” and was “depositing” ideas of insight and conviction within each Christian, produced a clear and correct sense of everything. Today, our perception of life is often anything but clear; our ideas are very often uncertain “best guesses” of how to approach reality. But, Paul and we can agree that the very presence and activity of God’s Spirit is faithfully in and among us when we engage life as fully and as wisely as we are able. The Spirit will be sufficient and appropriate for holy life-styles, whether we succeed clearly or obliquely, whether we experience partial successes or even apparent failures. Paul’s confidence was that God never abandons his people. We who have embraced the Gospel and been initiated into the Gospel community are God’s people to whom God is faithful. So, also, let us be in our lives and our Gospel hope!

The Season of Lent begins on Wednesday, on the day we call Ash Wednesday. In order to appreciate Lent as a season of retreat and transformation, we need to approach it somewhat deliberately and with pre-planning. To merely awaken on Wednesday morning and realize, “Today is the first day of Lent!” will make us late in accepting the season as a time of constructive growth, change, self-control, and prayer. The ashes imposed upon the foreheads of mature Christians on Wednesday are merely dirt, the same sort of material which we sweep out of the home and place in a dustbin. But, the reception of ashes is more properly a sign to be worn for the day, a badge of reminder if you will, to others we meet and to ourselves when we glance into a mirror, that we embrace the Gospel command to “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” The word “repent” for Christians comes from the Greek word metanoia which literally means “Change your mind.” We are challenged to change our normal mind set, to re-think or to think again, as a way of life. The simple ability and willingness to become ever-reflective, to give thought daily to what one does and how one does it, is a great and necessary beginning to personal and on-going repentance.

May your Lent be most thoughtful and most blessed!