Someone commented to me
recently that it seems like every year, we just hear the same Gospels over and
over again. How boring! Well, it’s true that each year on the second
Sunday of Lent, we read a Gospel account about the healing of a paralytic. But is it boring to hear the same and the
same every year? Each time I read a
section of the Bible, even if it’s one I have read many times, I try to read it
with a heart that is open to find new and different meaning in it. That’s why we read the Bible repetitively,
because each new visit to a passage reveals new layers of beauty and
meaning. As I read this passage earlier
in the week, it touched me in a powerful way, because the message I got from it
is something I have been thinking about a lot.
I offer it with a heart that is very concerned for the future of our
parish and of our world, and I pray that you will receive it with a heart that
is open to perhaps some new ways of thinking.
Our American society, our Greek culture and other influences in our
lives pressure us to act in certain ways, to adopt certain roles and to believe
certain things, that have left many of us feeling not only confused in our
lives, but feeling sad and empty, as if something is missing. Many of us, even though we may not show it
outwardly, feel just as paralyzed as the man in this morning’s Gospel—paralyzed
by anger, fear, disappointment, confusion, or sadness. That’s because our world has taken certain
beautiful things and has twisted around their meaning.
In
this morning’s Gospel passage, we see a paralyzed man who desperately needed to
see Jesus, and his four friends who were so dedicated in helping their friend
achieve his goal. However, when they
reached the house where Jesus was, they could not get in to see Him. There were
so many people in that place that they couldn’t even get near the door, let
alone get in it. How disappointed they must have felt! I guess you might say that
these five men had two options—They could have just gone home, figured I guess
it’s just not in the cards for this man to be healed. That’s what many of us do when we are
confronted with life’s disappointments.
We just accept it and go along with what’s expected. We don’t think of other options. These men thought differently. They went around the conventional wisdom
which says, “Go home and try another day, or it’s just not in the cards for
you,” and they did something unconventional—they went up on the roof of the
house and cut a hole in it and lowered the man down through the roof to see
Jesus. Can you imagine the reaction of
the crowd as they watched these men climb to the roof of the house---crazy
people, what are they doing, who are they to be cutting a hole in the
roof? I’m sure these five men didn’t
poll the crowd as to what they should do.
After all, the crowd wasn’t paralyzed, their friend was. Jesus had the ability to heal their friend,
and so the focus of the four men carrying the bed was, forget the crowd and do
the right thing.
The
five men in the Gospel lesson had their lives changed by Jesus only because
they had faith, focus, and weren’t slaves to the opinions of others. At some
point in our lives we will each feel like the paralytic. Our ever-changing world, with its social and
cultural dynamics often paralyzes us because we feel so much pressure to
conform to the expectations of others.
If
I took a poll of everyone in church this morning about what are some things you
want out of life, and you answered honestly, I would hear answers like good
health, material wealth, family, happiness, status. And then if I asked how are you going to get
these things, the answers would probably include job, marriage, being parents,
and having friends. Let’s examine how
conventional wisdom looks at some of these things versus the way God intended
them to be.
Let’s
examine good health. God tells us that
our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
They are to be treated as such and not abused by overeating, excessive
drinking or drugs. We used to be taught
that good health was dependent on three things—diet, exercise and low
stress. In the recent past and present,
we are being told that the keys to good health are dependent on wearing an
abdominizer, that can take inches off our midsection merely by wearing it, or
taking a tablespoon of some powder I hear about on the radio each evening to
burn off calories while we sleep. It
seems, however, that what used to be conventional wisdom is still correct. Good diet, good exercise and reducing stress are
the keys to good health—the quick fixes that society tries to sell us cannot
make up in itself for the other things.
A pill can never take the place of a good night’s sleep and diet pills
do not give us the license to overeat excessively.
Material
wealth—conventional wisdom and contemporary society tell us that the more
material wealth you have, the better off you will live. Not necessarily true. Because while money can buy nice possessions,
it cannot in itself make life good, or make us happy, or build up our
self-esteem. People tend to measure the
success of others according to material worth, rather than self-worth. There are plenty of people that have nice
things and hate themselves. While there
are others who have little in material terms, yet have great joy in the little
they have. Actually, these are people
whom we think have little. They think
they have a lot. Conventional wisdom
tells us that material worth will increase self-worth, and that’s just simply
not the case. Self-worth is built
through loving relationships, honest work and integrity. While life is enhanced by material gain, this
too is not THE determining factor in life’s success or failure.
Marriage—Growing
up as a child in my family and in the Greek community, we were conditioned to
look for the following characteristics in our future spouse—be from the same
cultural group, have at least as good if not better economic and social status,
for the man to find a woman who could raise children and keep a clean house,
and for the woman to find a man who could make good money. For those of you who are married, you know
that what makes the marriage a success or failure is neither culture, status,
or money or even children. It’s not the
traditional roles that culture or society seems to think we have to have once
we’re married. It’s sacrifice for one another.
God intended for marriage to be based on mutuality—when we speak in
terms of “we,” instead of “I.” What
makes a strong marriage is when both spouses work constantly for the benefit of
the other, when life is shared, goals are similar, compromises don’t compromise
the relationship and communication is always open and honest and
respectful. It’s not when there are
roles that are defined and separate, but when there is a life whose focus is on
being lived together.
Happiness—The
most misunderstood goal of life. How
many people live each day of their lives pursuing happiness, only to be
frustrated when they find it is impossible to achieve. Conventional wisdom tells us to be happy,
when what we really need to be looking for in life is fulfillment. Rather than focusing on what is the popular
model of car to drive, an emphasis that bases a decision on the opinions of
others, to instead focus rather on pride in ownership—of an honest job,
yielding an honest dollar that goes into the purchase of a car or home. This puts the basis of our feelings on
personal pride, personal fulfillment.
Because no opinion of someone else is as important as the opinion of the
person I see when I look in the mirror.
Because even when everyone tells me I’m great, the person in the mirror
always reminds me of my shortcomings.
And if I based every decision on what others might think or who might be
offended, I wouldn’t have become a priest, I wouldn’t have moved to
Security—Conventional
wisdom tells us to put away as much possible for future security, for a rainy
day, what have you. And the great irony
is that there is no real security except with God. We see from the hurricanes of previous years
and from the tornadoes of the other day, that our homes, our families, our
possessions can be taken away from us at any time. There’s nothing that guarantees that any of
us will be here next Christmas, next Easter, or even next week. That’s why it is important to always be
secure in our faith. One powerful lesson
I learn each time I’m called upon to help out at the end of someone’s life, is
that when a person is about to die, status and security don’t really amount to
a whole lot. As I reflect on those
occasions, in hospitals and homes, I often think “It’s all about that person
and God right now.” There is no house,
no job, no car, no money, no grandkids, no children, no spouse. Right now their status is child of God about
to meet God face to face. And how we
each live our lives and what we believe will determine what that final and
eternal status will be. Conventional
wisdom is definitely wrong in the status and security department—for while we
keep ignoring death and finding ways to delay it, it is a common destiny for
each of us. At some point, no matter if
you’re married or single, have children or not, are rich or poor, we will each
stand alone, just you and God.
Which
brings me to my final category—church.
We’ve been conditioned to look at church as something that presides over
our life’s milestones—births, baptisms, weddings, deaths and memorial services.
That’s why church so many people come out of the woodwork at Christmas and
Easter and stay away the rest of the time.
Some only dare approach to receive Holy Communion a few times a
year. Some think the priest is only to
be called when someone is dying. And parish
assembly meetings are twice a year ordeals where people fight and bicker—that’s
why sadly so few attended our meeting last week. Church is not about any of these things. The church is meant to be at the center of
our lives for their entirety, not just at the big milestones. Church is the structure that continually
focuses us on spiritual health, spiritual wealth (which Jesus calls treasure in
heaven), mutuality in marriage and in all of our relationships, which
continually offers us opportunity for fulfillment and which continually encourages
us to work on our eternal status. While
Easter marks the passing of another year, it is supposed to be the central
feast in a year of preparation, not just another marker on the calendar. It’s the culmination of a year of feasts and
fasts, and a spiritual journey we call Lent which calls us to keep our focus
more on God. Holy Communion is not
something reserved for a precious few times a year, but is offered in this
church at least once if not two or three times a week for our benefit—for our
help, for our spiritual sustinence, as an act of our faith, and as a sign that
we are God’s people. It is a foretaste
of heaven. The priest is not someone to
be called upon only when there is an emergency—but someone who is a shepherd,
leading the flock in both the good times and the bad, going after the sheep who
are gone astray, helping the sheep who are lost find their way back again. The Church is supposed to bring a sense of
order into our lives Because if we have no order, then we have chaos.
We’ve
got to make some fundamental changes in our lives and in our church community
or we’ll find ourselves like the Paralytic, on the outside looking in. If we don’t put our focus on Christ, we may
very well find ourselves on the outside of heaven looking in. If we don’t put a little more effort into our
church, not only will our Orthodox faith not stand up against our secular
world, our
Conventional
wisdom says that to admit weakness makes one weak, when the truly strong person
is the one who works to improve upon his weaknesses. Conventional wisdom tells us that
independence is the crowning virtue, whereas the true Christian knows that
faith, which by definition is dependence on God, is the crowning virtue. Conventional wisdom tells us that our
children must look to marry a person who fits a cultural, social and economic
type, whereas what we need to stress with them is to look for mutuality,
honesty goodness, and integrity as the most important qualities. Conventional wisdom tells us that the more
busy we make ourselves, the more successful we’ll be. The more activities are children are into,
the better they will be prepared for the adult world. That’s why we’re now seeing young people with
hypertension, whose lives are so all over the place that they have no
grounding, who are taught to question everything to the point they believe
nothing, who are told to try everything, to the point that the line of morality
has become totally blurred. Conventional
wisdom tells us that prayer is for the weak, whereas God teaches us that I can
do all things with Christ who strengthens me.
And some of the most powerful experiences I have had as a priest, and
some of the people I have the most respect for, are the ones who have come to
confession and seek to make it right with God.
This is not an act of weakness, but one of courage and spiritual
strength.
If the paralytic and his friends had followed the conventional wisdom, had they taken a poll before deciding whether to go up to the roof, had they been concerned about doing anything but the right thing—getting this man to Jesus—they would have all returned home disappointed. Because they said, “we’re going to get to Jesus no matter what,” a man who was paralyzed rose, took up his bed and walked home. If we each took the same attitude—I’ve got to get to Jesus no matter what each Sunday and each day, we might not feel so paralyzed in our lives. Conventional wisdom says don’t give long sermons. And occasionally, I have to defy that, because this is something that I feel passionately about—we can’t do things necessarily the way we’ve always done them. We can’t do things necessarily by how other people think we should do them. Rather we must continually see our status as first and foremost a child of God, we must see to find our fulfillment in the things that please God our Father—faith, honesty, integrity—and rather than only be concerned about the value that others put on us, to learn to have self-worth and to help others to do the same. I turned 30 two weeks ago, and if I know anything, it’s that I still have a lot to learn; that if I stand still, life will pass me by; and the most important lesson I have learned in life, I learn and re-learn each time I’m privileged to be with someone at the end of life—when it’s all said and done, it’s all going to be about me and God, you and God and that’s a theme that had better become a part of my daily life. Amen.