February 23, 2003 - Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
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Mark 2:1-12
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All for One and One for All!

“All for one and one for all!”  I like the sound of that, don’t you?  You probably recognize it as the pledge of Alexandre Dumas’ “Three Musketeers,” and of their hopeful companion D’Artagnan.  Regardless of the scrapes the Musketeers and their young friend managed to get themselves into there was loyalty in their friendship – even when they grew irritated with one another.  “All for one and one for all!” is not only a catchy phrase for a group of French swashbucklers; it works quite well for followers of Jesus Christ too.

The story we see in Mark’s Gospel is one that highlights the loyalty of friends, and gives us a glimpse into an even greater loyalty.  These friends wanted their paralyzed comrade to experience the presence of Jesus.  They had heard what he could do with a touch and so they were determined to offer every possibility for their friend’s healing.

I imagine that they probably took him with no small resistance on his part.  It’s entirely likely that this was not the first crack-brained scheme or hope for a cure that they had held out to him.  He had probably tried every cure and now here was just one more expression of false hope set out before him.  In my mind’s eye I see those friends doing their version of “All for one and one for all” and hoisting this fellow up right in his bed to bring him to the mysterious Rabbi.  Then, imagine their disappointment – and that of the paralytic – when they finally get there and there’s no room even close to the door and they can’t even hope to get close to the Healer.

Ah, but the “all for one” kicks in yet again and they are absolutely undeterred by the circumstance before them.  My grandmother, a wise and holy woman, used to say, “God never closes a door, but he opens a window.   Well, in this case it was a whole lot more than a window – it was a roof!  Can’t get in the door?  Fine, we’ll go right in through the ceiling – and down he went!  No doubt the appearance of a sick man being lowered into a room on a pallet was a source of bewilderment to the crowd and of amusement and appreciation to Jesus.  Mark tells us, “He saw their faith.”

What’s the point?  Well, like the other healing stories we’ve seen these last several weeks, it’s more than the healing itself that is the point.  Mark wants to emphasize that faith is the proper response to Jesus and here we see that response put into flesh and blood reality.  Those friends believed and they believed for their friend and their belief turned into faith when they acted accordingly.  Faith breaks through barriers to bring a person to Jesus – whether those barriers are social, religious, or even physical, it doesn’t matter.  Obstacles are swept away and wholeness, healing, new beginnings are the result.

Commentators on this passage remind us that the interweaving of the conflict over forgiveness with the healing of the paralyzed man not only builds on the traditional relationship between illness and sin, but also points to the role of Christ here.  The story shows Jesus sharing in the Father’s ability to read hearts and know interior dispositions – which also lets us know that this is very likely written from a post-resurrection viewpoint.  Jesus reflects what the Targum of Isaiah, a rabbinic commentary that is somewhat contemporary with Jesus, interprets of Isaiah 53:4, “he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases ... and was wounded for our transgressions.”  It says, “He will beseech concerning our sins, and our iniquities for his sake will be forgiven” and “by his teachings his peace will increase upon us, and in that we attach ourselves to his words our sins will be forgiven.”  (The Gospel of Mark/Sacra Pagina 2, p. 98)  The hoped-for Messiah won’t just suffer for the people but will bring forgiveness of sin and the increase of God’s peace in the human heart.  Mark is pointing to Jesus as the fulfillment of that hope and encouraging us to knock down the barriers that keep us from faith.

The story of the paralyzed man and his friends is, then, an example of God’s ‘yes’ to us; the ‘yes’ that Paul is proclaiming to the Corinthians in his second letter.  God has expressed God’s faith in us by offering us the down payment, the earnest money if you will, of a renewed relationship in Christ and the presence of the Spirit.  God wants to affirm us and restore us to a sense of integrity that is then reflected in our actions.  We may waver, we may back off from our approach to God, but God’s love is unconditional and doesn’t stop in its extension to us.

This past week I was reminded of God’s ‘yes’ in the writings of Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth century hermitess whose writings never cease to thrill me.  When she had her vision of Christ she was reminded that there was “no kind of wrath in God, neither for a short time or for long.”  We may project our wrath, our anger, our negativity, our parental fears onto God, but God doesn’t conform to our projections.  We may say ‘no,’ but God’s answer again and again is “Yes!”  Julian wrote:

For this was shown: that our life is all based and rooted in love, and without love we cannot live.  And therefore to the soul (which by His special grace sees so obviously the exalted marvelous goodness of God, and that we are endlessly one-ed to Him in love) it is the most impossible thing that can be that God would be angry, for wrath and friendship are two opposites.

He who lays waste and destroys our wrath and makes us humble and gentle, it is essential for us to believe that He is always clothed in that same love, humble and gentle – which is opposite to wrath.

I saw full certainly that where our Lord appears, peace comes to pass and wrath has no place.  I saw no kind of wrath in God, neither for a short time nor for long.

(For truly, as I see it, if God were to be angry even a hint, we would never have life nor place nor being.)  As truly as we have our being from the endless Power of God and from the endless Wisdom and from the endless Goodness, just as truly we have our protection in the endless Power of God, in the endless Wisdom and in the endless Goodness.

Although we feel miseries, disputes and strifes in ourselves, yet we are all mercifully enwrapped in the mildness of God and in His humility, in His kindliness and in his gentleness.

I saw full certainly that all our endless friendship, our place, our life, and our being is in God, because that same endless goodness that keeps us that we perish not when we sin, that same endless goodness continually negotiates in us a peace against our wrath and our contrary falling.  [Chapter 49 A Lesson of Love: The Revelations of Julian of Norwich (unabridged) tr. Father John-Julian, OJN, p, 148-9]

God’s endless wisdom and goodness are directed our way.  In God’s affirmation we have our very being and there we discover the One who is for all of us.

When we come into covenant relationship with God and with one another we’re making a commitment to the eternal ‘yes’ and to the “All for one and one for all.”  We take our believing – which is largely a question of intellectual assent – and move it to become faith by the manner in which we act, as we saw with the paralytic’s friends.  Faith may be the “assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not see” as we read in Hebrews 11:1, but it does express itself and become visible through those who are faithful.  Faith shows itself through our words and our actions.  It’s that simple, and it’s that difficult.

I came across a story this week, one based in fact, that I’d like to share with you.

There was a tight-rope walker who walked a cable that was stretched across Niagara Falls.  He very nimbly and safely walked from one side to the other as a crowd of onlookers cheered him on.  He pushed a wheelbarrow across while the onlookers fidgeted nervously below, watching his every move.  The he loaded the wheelbarrow with bricks and did the trick again, while the whole crowd held their breath.  Each time he asked the crowd, “Do you think I can do this?”  And they shouted back, “YES!”  His success each time was greeted with the same kind of enthusiastic affirmation.

He then began to work the crowd and asked them how many believed that, having seen what he could do, he could put a person in the wheelbarrow and take them for a ride back and forth across the cable over the Falls.  He had made believers of them, they had cheered for him, so they answered that of course he could.  “Then,” the man said to the crowd, “who will volunteer to sit in the wheelbarrow while I push?”  And the boisterous crowd became instantly – silent.  No response.  No one was willing to take the risk, despite what they had seen.  The story of the tight-rope walker shows us the difference between belief and faith.  Belief says “Yes, it’s possible.  I believe it to be true.”  Faith takes the possibility, the truth and does something with it.

God has placed faith in us and now expects us to do something with the gifts and talents we have – and have in this faith community in abundance.  To hear the ‘yes’ and know the truth of “all for one and one for all” only makes sense if it also makes us and our world different, better, more like the love that God has for us, as a result.  As usual, there are some hard questions for us to answer.  Are we willing to take the risk of allowing our comfortable believe to turn into risky faith?  Are we willing to extend ourselves in relationship, as God has, so that “all for one and one for all” can become a reality in this faith community?

God has spoken and offered an answer: God is the One for all.  Now it’s up to us to get in the wheelbarrow, as it were, and begin to make a difference.  The answer is up to each of us, but will have an effect on us all.  This much I can tell you, though, if we make our ‘yes’ like God’s ‘yes,’ if we live the “all for one and one for all” in the every day, we’ll make a difference.  We’ll also hear what the paralytic did when he stood up, “We have never seen anything like this.”  So, isn’t it about time we hear it?  “All for one and one for all” it’s simply the way of faith.  So, who’s coming with me in the wheelbarrow?