What Are Friends For?
Rev. Jeanine Alexander, August 13, 2017
“What Are Friends For?
Luke 5:17-26
Today we are talking about the importance of friendships. According to the social media site, FACEBOOK I have 1063 friends. I used to have 1064 so someone must have “defriended” me. Bummer!
But even with that rejection, I love facebook. I love sending birthday wishes to FB friends and receiving birthday wishes from them. It’s great how you can throw out a prayer request and get lots of people praying and offering encouragement. I like seeing what my friends are up to and what they are thinking about. There is a sense of community there. Friendships take many forms and are so important in our life journey.
Let’s pray together as we prepare to talk about friendships
Anyone remember “Candid Camera?”
Can you remember the name of the host? [Allen Funt].
Can you remember the catchphrase of the show? [“Smile, You’re on Candid Camera”].
There was a segment of Candid Camera where they conducted the “tickle” test. The subjects in a research lab were told that they were a part of a study to see if it is possible for a person to tickle him/herself. It was hilarious watching the people try all sorts of methods of tickling themselves – all with no success. You see, it takes two to tickle. It’s practically impossible to tickle yourself. (give it a try)
Tickling is not the only thing that is hard, if not impossible, to do by yourself. I used to always say these words at the beginning of worship services— “Look to those near you for the presence of Christ … and know that they are looking to you for that same presence.”
There is a meaningful message in this statement. It is difficult to experience Christ all by ourselves. Other people in our life enable, and enhance, our experience of Christ’s presence. Christ is present, alive and active in the world here and now – through your presence and mine.
Whenever we look beneath someone’s face to their deepest needs to be known and healed – and reach out to them … we become Christ presence for them. And whenever we let others see our deepest needs, and allow them to reach out to us … we see the Christ in them.
In this morning’s Scripture story Jesus is in a house. There are crowds of people gathered. They all want to see and hear Jesus. Some men, knowing Jesus is healing people, come to the house carrying their paralyzed friend on a stretcher. They are unable to get him to Jesus because the crowd is too large and too tightly packed.
Since there is no way to get through the crowd the men make for the roof. There they determine Jesus’ location in the house and begin tearing away at the roof. They open a hole sufficient in size to lower the stretcher through and place their friend directly in front of Jesus.
Jesus, seeing the commitment of the man’s friends … appreciating how much they are willing to do for their friend … impressed with their faith – reaches over, unties the strips of cloth that hold the paralyzed man securely on the cot and says, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
Don’t you wonder why the first thing that he said to the crippled man was “Friend, your sins are forgiven?” What was so crucial about the forgiveness of sins when what this man needed was to be physically healed.
To understand this passage, we must remember that in ancient Israel, one’s sin and one’s suffering were usually connected.
There is in the Old Testament, beginning with the story of Adam and Eve, a close relationship between sin and illness. We read in Scripture that it was because of Adam’s sin of eating the forbidden fruit that all physical evils, including illness, entered the world. Disease and injury became viewed as a consequence and punishment of human sin. Different biblical characters were said to be stricken with leprosy when they were disobedient to God. We remember the boils that came as a plague upon the Egyptians when they refused to set the people of Israel free from slavery.
It was because of this belief that physical afflictions were associated with human sin that Jesus found it necessary to say to this paralyzed man, “your sins are forgiven.” If Jesus had not assured this man that his sins were forgiven, then he might not have believed that he could be healed … because he had been incorrectly taught that his paralysis was the result of his wrongdoing.
One of the great correctives that Jesus brought to our faith tradition is the truth that people are not punished by God with illness.
- It is true that our sins can make us sick – as people can become emotionally upset when they act in selfish, greedy and harmful ways.
- We can literally become sick when we refuse to forgive and hold on to bitter resentments.
But Jesus taught that God doesn’t punish us with illness – that our God is a God who loves us … who wants us to live healthy and whole lives. Our God is a God who forgives and desires that we be healed.
Back to our story – the religious leaders make a huge fuss over the words Jesus chose to use – insisting that he was blaspheming by claiming to forgive someone’s sins when only God can forgive sin. In their concern over the words Jesus used — they missed the important message Jesus spoke: “Your sins are forgiven, MY FRIEND.”
This man needs to be healed … he is seeking help … and Jesus reaches out to him. Jesus’ critics ignore the plight of the paralyzed man — and instead try to split hairs in a theological debate. Do we ever do that?
Do we ever act like Jesus’ critics – getting so caught up in our own agenda … in rules … in feelings of competition … in being critical … in our sense of what is right and fair – that we miss the possibilities for offering friendship and healing — that we miss seeing the good that is happening?
Jesus doesn’t play his critics game. He simply calls the paralyzed man friend – and then tells him man to pick up his bed and walk home. And the man jumps up – dancing, shouting and singing praises to the God who healed him.
Think about it. Jesus called this paralyzed man … this total stranger his friend. And he healed him in part because of the faith of his friends.
Doesn’t this tells us a lot about Jesus’ values and attitudes toward friendship? Jesus was so genuinely impressed by the devotion of the friendship displayed that he immediately felt a kinship with them and their friend?
The paralyzed man’s friends weren’t going to let anything get in the way of loving and helping their friend. They didn’t let the crowds dissuade them … they didn’t let people’s perceptions of them, or their friend, discourage them … they didn’t let their lack of understanding why their friend couldn’t walk keep them from seeking hope and healing for him. Nothing was getting in the way of their friendship.
In society today, could it be that we let too many things get in the way of being friends with and loving and caring for each other — political stances … our prejudices … our preconceived notions about what is right, wrong, natural, unnatural … our lack of understanding?
Have you seen the TV show, “Home Improvement?” There’s this great episode where Tim was telling an elderly widower that he doesn’t understand his wife. That no matter how hard he tries, he can’t understand her. The widower told this story:
“I never understood my wife either and I was married to her for 46 years. Every day for 46 years she put these porcelain cats that she love on the window sill. Every day for 46 years I took them down and put them in the drawer.”
Tim asked him, “where are they now?” and the man answered: “On the window sill.” Then he added – “You don’t have to understand a person, you just have to love her.”
You don’t have to understand, you just have to love. There is tremendous wisdom in that simple sentence. May that wisdom guide us as you seek to love each other … and our community and our world.
It isn’t possible for all of us to always understand each other. We see life through different sets of eyes … we have different emotional makeups … we’ve had different life experiences.
Real love is expressed in understanding and respecting these differences even when they don’t make sense to us —- being able to extend a hand of friendship with those whom we don’t understand or agree with.
We don’t have to understand each other to offer this kind of friendship, nor do we have to agree with each other on politics and the like – we do have to be genuinely seeking hope, healing and inclusion for all people. That’s what Jesus’ kind of friendship looks like.
This has been quite a week in our nation and world. Our hearts hurt following the violence in Charlottesville and the escalation of tensions between the US and N. Korea.
As individuals, and as a church, we are called to offer friendship to one another and to the world by standing against racism of any kind … and against violence.
We may have different perspectives on the best means to make this happen – how government should respond … even how we should address this as a church.
But we do have something crucial in common – the Biblical direction in Micah 6:8 to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.”
If any response, attitude or plan is lacking justice or mercy or humility — it falls short of the friendship Christ calls us to.
We also have our United Methodist baptism and membership vows – “to resist evil and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”
We are called to reach out to each other in friendship – desiring, demanding that all people be fully included in God’s love and grace … and that we find a way for healing and hope to be offered to all.
Are we committed to God’s kind of friendship with each other … our community … our world? Of course we are – we are the place in the city that proclaims that we offer hope and healing – beginning here on the skyline!!!!
Today at 2pm. There will be a gathering at St. Mark’s AME church where there will be a panel with our mayor, the deputy chief, human rights officer and and others from the city about what has been happening this weekend in Charlottesville and how we might respond as a church and community. I invite you to join me there as part of FUMC/Coppertop presence.
What are friends for? If the story about Jesus and the paralyzed man, and the man’s resourceful and dedicated friends, is to be any kind of example to us, the answer seems to be: Friends are to get us to Christ. Friends are to get us as close to the power of God’s healing and hope-filled presence as possible.
Friends are to carry us with all of our load of hurt … all of our weakness … all of our inability to get to Jesus on our own. Friends are to help us get to Jesus.
You and I have the incredible privilege and awesome responsibility of sharing with each other, and with our world, the very presence of Christ. We can carry each other to Jesus for healing.
Friends, look around the room right now. You are looking into the faces of those God has placed in your life. Whether you know them or not … agree or disagree with them … feel a strong connection or little connection at all – God has brought us together for a purpose.
We are to bring Christ to each other … and to invite others to bring Christ to us … and together to shine the presence of Christ into our city and world!
May we do just that! Amen!