Mark 2:1-12 “God’s Mission Is The Church’s Mission!”

Perhaps you saw the “Family Counselor” column in the December, 2005 issue of The Lutheran Witness. The question was posed by a church-going Lutheran. “My church used to be full on Sundays, but now when I go I get depressed seeing so few in worship,” or so he or she wrote. “I don’t seem to get any joy there anymore, and I think others feel the same way. When is it time to look for another church home?”

All of us easily recognize the church described by this Witness inquirer. Maybe it’s the church in which we grew up -- full on Sundays during the 50s and 60s, but now on its way to non-calling status. Perhaps it’s one of the churches we used to pastor. I don’t know for sure. But my guess is that all District Presidents and Staff visit more of these churches than they would care to admit. For such churches leave us feeling similarly depressed, not knowing what difference, if any, our ministry can possibly make.

By way of contrast, we have a Scripture lesson to which I want to direct our attention this morning. It’s from Mark 2:1-12, and it tells of Jesus’ return to Capernaum. People in that Galilean city already knew him or had heard about him “You’ve got to hear what this man has to say,” or so they must have told family members and neighbors. “This Jesus will change your life.”

The building to which Jesus went was somebody’s home rather than a church. But it soon took on the look of a church that most of us would not want to leave.

Lot’s of excitement! Joy and expectation on everybody’s face! Not empty pews, but wall-to-wall people! The doorway jammed! And a crowd standing outside trying to hear what Jesus was saying to those inside the place!

Wherever Jesus Christ is present, there we find a community of his people. Faith in him is not merely a “personal” matter or a private relationship between “me and Jesus.” On the contrary, we are baptized into a family of believers, and our relationship with Jesus is sustained and strengthened as we gather together around his word and sacraments.

The first half of our text from Mark 2 singles out four persons in the crowd coming together around Jesus in Capernaum. You’ve heard the expression, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” Well, each of these four was that kind of friend to one who was “in need.” He was paralyzed. But the four of them went out of their way. They took the extra step of putting the paralyzed man on a stretcher in order to bring him to Jesus. After all, “that’s what friends are for.” It’s also what Christians do. Sometimes we have to carry them or drag them. In any event, we do whatever it takes to put unreached people in our lives within the healing reach of Jesus.

“Mission” is our term for this, and it is in fact the chief reason the church exists. Christendom is gone. North America is a mission field in which somewhere between 40 and 50% of the people in any community are unchurched. We are calling upon every congregation, no matter how big or small, old or new, to function as a mission outpost in its community. Hurricane Katrina was a terrible disaster. But at the same time, it has provided an opportunity for a good number of our Southeastern District congregations to function in this way, transmitting the compassion of God in Jesus Christ to people beyond themselves. The ABLAZE movement is helping as well in that it is prompting more of us to become like the four in Mark 2 -- to give the Holy Spirit opportunity to kindle saving faith in hearts of family members and neighbors, who are living without it, by bringing them to Jesus.

This is, of course, “easier said than done.” When the four friends bearing the paralyzed man on a stretcher got to the house where Jesus was staying, they immediately bumped into a problem. The crowd was too thick. All the passageways to Jesus were clogged. If they had thrown up their hands in disappointment, given up, or gone home, nobody would have blamed them. “Close, but no cigar,” as they say. But instead they put their heads together. They said, “Let’s go up to the roof.” Once there, they dug a hole in the roofing, one that was big enough for their paralyzed friend. And they lowered him down to the feet of Jesus.

The closest I ever came to losing my job as a parish pastor was when we changed hymnals at my Virginia congregation. There was an “old guard” led by a retired pastor and a former pastor’s wife who would have helped me pack my bags if I had received a call elsewhere in the midst of that crisis. Then later on, when we went to printing out the liturgy (music included) in the weekly worship folder, a couple of newer members of the congregation blindsided me about this in a Voters Assembly. One of them emotionally asked me how I had the audacity to do this after she had learned how to follow the book and was teaching her children to the same. The silence that fell over the Assembly was broken by somebody in the back row who slowly rose to say, “It’s not for you that they are making this change.”

It was a moment of truth in which that congregation and I began to understand what a paradigm shift truly is. It’s not for us that we are making this change. It’s for the sake of those beyond us who are not yet part of our congregation. The movement from “maintenance” to “mission,” from a “church culture” to a “mission culture” always taxes us in the church. It’s much easier to stay the way we are. But we cannot.

The rest of this text from Mark 2 focuses on Jesus. What he saw as they lowered their friend from the roof was the “faith” these four stretcher-bearers shared. They took the extra steps and went to all the trouble they did because they believed Jesus could help the helpless man. It was not so with others in the crowed below. When Jesus said to the man on the stretcher, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” they questioned this. They in fact accused him of the blasphemous act of playing God.

“Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk?” The question was one Jesus both asked and answered not only then and there, but with the rest of his life here on earth. Jesus could have carved out a life for himself as a spiritual healer. Instead, Jesus recognized that illness is not our chief problem. Our sinfulness is. So Jesus took the extra step. Jesus went up to the roof. Jesus chose the much harder path that led to the cross, so that by dying and then rising from the grave, he might assure us of God’s forgiveness for all of the sins that flow from our sinfulness. God’s mission is what this greater act on Jesus’ part reveals. It’s the reason we can look to l God for any kind of help. It’s why Jesus finally turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, take your mat and go to your home.”

There is a congregation in Baltimore that was once a flagship congregation of the Southeastern District. It’s where a golden-tongued pastor preached to a packed house every Sunday. Respected leaders among us today vicared at this church, which was as mighty as its cathedral-like stone structure. In more recent years, however, the surrounding urban community has changed dramatically, and the church now has considerably fewer than the 1800 members it had 40 years ago. By 2004, the money was running out. The day school had to be closed. Every call to fill the pastoral vacancy was being declined.

Yet this same congregation decided to make outreach more than a matter of talk. They hired an interim consultant to help them dust off their strategic plan and implement it. This summer members went to the trouble of stepping out into their immediate community. They held a “free carwash.” People streamed in. Some wanted to make a donation, but were told to keep their money in their wallets. All were asked if they wanted to take a tour of their beautiful church while they waited. Those who went in were taken by members to the Good Shepherd stained-glass window, where there was opportunity to share their faith in Jesus. And what’s more! On the Sundays that followed, several of these same free-carwash customers returned for worship.

In responding to the person depressed about her or his church and trying to decide if it was time to look for another, The Lutheran Witness’ “Family Counselor” provided a solid pastoral answer reflective of the “church culture” in which so many of our congregations are still living. In a “mission culture,” however, persons in our congregations will want to take the same extra step that the four stretcher-bearers in our text took. They will be ready to die to self so that others might discover the same hope of new life in Jesus Christ that we have. For God’s mission revealed to us by Jesus Christ is in fact the church’s mission. Amen.

Dr. Jon Diefenthaler, President

Southeastern District, LCMS