God's Kingdom Announced: The Reign of God

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”

--Mark 2:1-22 (NRSV)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I have a question for all of you. How many of you, when you read a book, before you start, go to the last chapter of the book and read the ending? Come on now, be honest. Let’s see a show of hands.

My sister was like you. It used to make me so crazy! I mean, really, how can you read the ending and then go back and read the book from the beginning. You know how it comes out, then. You miss the suspense, the entire denouement of the book. You know how the major plot line and the minor plot lines will end. What fun is there in this!

I harassed her over and over about this. And, yet, she continued to do it.

It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I had a serious change of heart. So, in seminary, the average pages assigned for reading per class - at least where I attended seminary - was 5,000. Five thousand pages of theological reading. Sometimes, we would have a professor who would cut us a little break. But, usually, by the end of each quarter, I would have read nearly 15,000 pages of theology.

It wasn’t until my last year of seminary that I learned about the Pareto Principle of reading. This method comes from what is called the Pareto Analysis, which comes out of the field of statistics, that tells us that by doing 20% of the work you can achieve 80% of the benefit of doing an entire job. You like this idea, don’t you? I did, too!

So, this transfers to reading with the assumption that only 20% of a book is actually worth reading. And what the Pareto method of reading tells you to do is to skim the book to find out the author’s method to figure out where they put their thesis sentences, whether at the beginning or at the end of a paragraph. Because this is, generally, the model they will use for the entire book. So the practice is to skim the book, but focus on either the beginning or ending of the chapters and of the entire book, depending upon the author’s method. 

Learning this method of reading literally cut my reading time by 75% in my last year of seminary. If only I’d known this at the beginning of seminary, rather than the end… :/

So, what’s the whole point of this conversation? Today, in our reading from Mark, we move into
learning about Jesus and Jesus’ ministry, and what the reign of God - the kingdom of God - looks like...because, after all our entire theme for this year has been “Living Out the Kingdom of God.” So, it’s necessary for us to know what this kingdom looks like so that we can actually live it out. In today’s reading, we have three scenes or stories, three pericopes, that seem to have no real relationship to each other. We, first have the story of the healing of the man who is paralyzed and the response of the scribes to Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath. The second scene takes us to dinner. At Levi’s house. Levi, who is a tax collector. Who is extremely wealthy. Who is hated by the Jewish people. Viewed as an outcast. As a sinner. And then we have the third scene - again with the scribes of the Pharisees, the theologians - who challenge Jesus’ eating with “sinners” and that he isn’t fasting like they and John the Baptist’s disciples are. And to whom Jesus responds with three little, micro parables, that don’t seem to really make much sense. Three little parables about a wedding banquet. About a piece of clothing. And about wineskins.

But, my friends, it’s at the end of this story, where we find our beginning. Just as in seminary!

In the first micro parable, Jesus invites the scribes into a thought experiment about fasting at a wedding. Now, We have to remember that Jesus’ listeners didn’t know the end of the story, as we do. They don’t see how this could be interpreted as a foreshadowing of Jesus’ later arrest. Our mini-parable opens on a wedding banquet. And the celebrating and feasting that is happening. Jesus asks the scribes this question: can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is present? The answer has to be “no.” Why would you fast when the bridegroom - central to the feast - is present. But, then, suddenly the bridegroom is abducted. It is then that the fasting begins. 

The second small parable is about a coat. We don’t really patch clothing much anymore, so it might be a little hard to understand this parable. But, when you’re patching an old garment, you never want to use a patch made of material that hasn’t been pre-shrunk. Because the first time you wash it, it will shrink. And it will pull the rest of the material towards it, making it pucker and not lay flat. Making the patch especially noticeable.

The third parable is similar. But, this time it’s about wineskins. I don’t have much experience with wineskins. But, it makes sense to me that, if you were making wine, you would not want to put your new wine into an old wineskin. Because, the old wineskin has already been used and stretched to its capacity thanks to the fermentation process. If you put new wine into an old wineskin, as the new wine begins to ferment it will stretch the old wineskin, which has already been stretched. And the result will be that the old wineskin will burst.

What these micro-parables teach us is that what is at stake in the dispute between Jesus and scribes is clearly the relationship between old and new. About the past and the future. About time-honored ways and uncharted territory.

But, do you notice that, particularly, the parables about the coat and the wineskin do not make value judgments. That old is better than new. Or vice versa. These mini-lessons do not suggest that old things are bad and new things are good, or that old things are good and new things are bad. No, in fact, if you look closely, the old coat is to be repaired so it can be used. The old wineskin is to be preserved. Even, in the parable about the wedding and fasting, the practice of fasting is not rejected out of hand, but is reserved for a later time and purpose.

These are not texts that tell us to abandon traditions or older expressions of faith out - that those things of faith that we inherit are not necessarily bad things. Likewise, those things that are new are also not to be rejected out of hand. New thinking, new theology comes out of the old. Both are to be looked at. As one Lutheran theologian says, they are to be tested against scripture and against Jesus’ teaching. Those that do not fit are to be discarded, new and old.

All of this takes us back to the opening scene and the forgiveness and healing by Jesus of the man who is paralyzed. Did you hear the first thing that Jesus did for the man who had so cleverly been brought before Jesus for healing? Did you hear that the first thing Jesus did was to forgive this man?

Over many years in the church, we have, perhaps erroneously, distilled the gospel down to one little nugget. That God loves you. But, this story pushes us to take it further. To both hold onto the old, but embrace the new. Yes, God loves you.  But, God forgives you. Because it is forgiveness that brings transformation. Forgiveness that brings healing and wholeness. Forgiveness that brings life and that, then, allows us to bask in that amazing love that God has for all of us, both as individuals and as a community. 

If you doubt the power of forgiveness or, using this week’s Pub Theology topic, if you are skeptical of the transformational power of forgiveness, I invite you to watch this video clip, a film clip of Brandt Jean, brother of Botham Jean, who was so tragically killed by Dallas police officer Amber Guyger in 2018. This is from her sentencing hearing last October. 

There is nothing you can do or that you have done that will separate you from the love of God in Christ. God loves you. God forgives you. Amen.

Preached January 29, 2020, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Epiphany 2
Readings: Mark 2:1-22; Isaiah 42:6-9, Psalm 103:6-14