Which is Easier?  7th Sunday in Epiphany (Proper 2), Year B

Isaiah 43:18-25; Psalm 41; 2 Corinthians 1:18-22; Mark 2:1-12

Because “The Transfiguration” has been dealt with in other years, I will claim the prerogative offered by the Elves and stick with the readings for the 7th Sunday in Epiphany (Proper 2) instead.  The immediately apparent theme, from the Psalm to Isaiah, to Mark, and Paul’s second extant letter to the Corinthians, is “forgiveness of sin.”  Paul’s ecstatic words from his somewhat lengthy prelude to the rest of the letter lend themselves to a sermon title that is sure to get people into the visitor’s parking space on Sunday morning: “God’s Promise is a YEEEESSSS!!” The problem lies in the usual expectation of what “God’s Promise” is.

The Elves have laid out a study of Mark’s Gospel that does take things in sequence, providing there are nine Sundays between Epiphany and the celebration of the Transfiguration.  Except for one digression into John on the second Sunday, and skipping over the temptation of Jesus (1:12-13), the integrity of Mark’s revelation of who Mark’s 1st Century community thought Jesus was is honored.  We will pick up the temptation (along with a repeat of the baptism) on the first Sunday in Lent.  

For now, look at the outline of what Mark has done so far (including the portions we won’t read because our calendar for 2009 does not allow for the extra two Sundays in Epiphany).  

Mark starts with the messenger – the harbinger – the advance man – John, who shouts, “Clear the path, the Lord is coming.”  He is either shouting in the wilderness (the usual interpretation) or he is saying that the pathway should be cleared through the wilderness.  It makes sense that the pathway through the wilderness should be cleared, because Mark’s community was highly likely to be wandering (spiritually, if not physically) in a wilderness of exile from sacked Jerusalem.  Then, within nine verses, Jesus appears and is baptized by John, and voluntarily enters the wilderness, where he is “put to the test by Satan.”  More on that next week.  For now, Jesus has taken up the condition of Mark’s community, which was surely severely tested as they tried to figure out how to keep God’s Covenant in a strange land.  Once Jesus passes the test, he takes up John’s call: “The time is up: God’s imperial rule is closing in.  Change your ways, and put your trust in the good news” (The Five Gospels translation).  

Immediately, he walks along by the Sea of Galilee, and calls the fishermen, Simon, Andrew, and James, to forget about fishing for food and follow him, on the Way, out of the Wilderness, and into God’s Kingdom.  With dizzying speed, Jesus starts casting out demons and healing the worst outcasts of society.  But, Mark says, even though the spirits recognized him, Jesus insisted that his identity be kept secret.

At this point, Mark begins five stories about how Jesus was already getting into trouble with local Jewish authorities.  The dusty cloud of anti-Semitism threatens to obscure the Way if 21st Century preachers, bible study leaders, and listeners are not careful.  The first controversy is the authority of anyone other than God to forgive sins; the second is eating and socializing with sinners and collaborators; the third is fasting (or not fasting) as a spiritual practice; the fourth and fifth are about what is appropriate activity for the Sabbath.  Is it kosher to harvest grain on the Sabbath?  Is it “lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill”?  Here the plot thickens: “]T]he Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.”

This is a block-buster novel.  Somebody has divided it up into convenient short-takes, just the right length for the morning commute.  Today’s portion is, “Who can forgive sins?”

Marks’ story about the paralytic whose friends tore up the roof and lowered him down right in front of Jesus so he could be healed may be the next favorite children’s tale after Jonah and the Whale.  It’s perfect for generating discussions about what houses looked like in Biblical Palestine.  As a literal-minded child, however, I always wondered how the man managed to get out of the crowded house once Jesus told him to “take up his bed and walk.”  I thought his friends would have to pull him back up through the roof.  Another pesky detail is, if his friends were tearing up the roof, wouldn’t that make the people below, inside the house, a little upset with all the clay and dust raining down on them?  And if the people inside went outside to escape the debris, wouldn’t that sort of obviate the need to come through the roof in the first place?

Do we see the problems with literal, factual readings of this story?  What’s really going on here?  

Oblivious Mark goes on.  “When Jesus noticed their trust” – like, hello, the roof is being destroyed – “he says to the paralytic, ‘Child, your sins are forgiven.’” Thereafter, the quarrel with “some of the scholars sitting there” becomes not the miracle of a lame man walking, but who has the authority to forgive sins.  For post-modern, educated, scientifically sophisticated people, this is a non-sequitur.  We long ago stopped assuming that illness is punishment from God for sin.  It doesn’t even work as a metaphor.  Yet here we are, in the first years of the 3rd Millennium of the Common Era, pairing this story with Psalm 41 and Isaiah 43.  The supposed parallels in imagery in Psalm 41with Mark’s Gospel have been long recognized.  The note in the HarperCollins Study Bible refers the reader to Psalm 41:4 “[f]or the correlation of healing with being forgiven” (p. 1920).  Another interesting reference for folks looking for proof-texts is the Psalmist’s fear that his enemies “think. . . . that I will not rise again from where I lie.”  

In the portion of Second Isaiah cherry-picked to go along with Mark’s story, God says “[Even though] you have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings, or honored me with your sacrifices . . . I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”  But what is 2nd Isaiah really talking about?  Once again, we are referred to a prophetic sermon from a powerful leader in the exiled community of ancient Israel.  Backing up from verse 18, where The Elves would have us begin, we find that God “your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel . . . will send to Babylon and break down all the bars, and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned to lamentation.”  The prophet reminds the people that God liberated them from Egypt, and will liberate them from Babylon.  Unfortunately verses 18-21 have been appropriated into the imagery used to describe both the coming of John the Baptist, and Jesus.  “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert . . . to give drink to my chosen people . . . so that they might declare my praise.”  The Elves cut off after verse 25.  If we continue, the history of the Jewish people is once more reviewed: “Your first ancestor sinned, and your interpreters transgressed against me.  Therefore I profaned the princes of the sanctuary, I delivered Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling.”  

The group that found refuge in Antioch after the destruction of the Temple may well have resonated with this imagery, and taken comfort in God’s promise to Isaiah’s exiled community.  Perhaps with Isaiah as background, the writer of Mark proposed to his community that the authority to forgive sins arises from Jesus, the “son of Adam.”  According to the Jesus Seminar scholars, “the early church was in the process of claiming for itself the right to forgive sins, and so would have been inclined to claim that its authorization came directly from Jesus as the messianic figure” (The Five Gospels, p. 44).  So Mark’s story may have been another step in the process of surviving as Jewish people, cut off from Temple worship and the leadership of the “scribes and Pharisees.”  The Jesus Seminar commentator suggests that it is possible that Mark’s narrative comment “so that you may realize that the Son of Adam has authority to forgive sins” might have been attributed to Jesus.  If so, the implication is that the authority to forgive sins is extended to all humans, as “Sons of Adam.”  This is a minority point of view.  However, it does raise the possibility of a radically new understanding of the relationship between God and God’s people, as proclaimed by the prophet.

Let’s pursue this minority view for the sake of argument.  

Christian doctrine, of course, says that “God’s promise” referred to in the Elves’ selection from 2nd Corinthians means “God’s promise of forgiveness of sins.”  We are supposed to piously add in our minds, “through Jesus Christ our Lord who died to save us.”  Paul wrote the words about how every one of God’s promises is a “yes,” but what he is actually talking about is the possibility that the people reading his letter might think he – Paul – has gone back on his word by first promising to visit on his round-trip to Macedonia, then not showing up, and writing yet another letter instead.  Later (1:23-24) Paul writes, “I call on God as witness against me: it was to spare you that I did not come again to Corinth.”  Paul practically strangles himself in his own language apologizing to the Corinthians for not coming, and explaining why.

If the Elves had not mis-read Paul’s lengthy introduction to his second letter to the Corinthians, they might have cherry-picked 2:5-11 (which, by the way, is never read by followers of the RCL).  That portion refers specifically to forgiveness of someone in the community who had caused some kind of major “pain,” not just to Paul, but – because to Paul – everyone.  Paul points out that the community not only has the ability to forgive, but the duty.  Paul says, “you should forgive and console him so that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow . . . I wrote for this reason: to test you and to know whether you are obedient in everything” – including, presumably, forgiveness and reconciliation within the body of Christ.  “Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive.  What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ.”  Just in case anyone still doesn’t think that forgiveness is wise, possible, or required, Paul says, “we do this so that we may not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.”  

In 21st Century, non-mystical language, we reconcile among ourselves in the community of Christ so that we will not be diverted from the path of distributive justice-compassion by the siren song of society’s demand for retribution, payback, getting even.  Forgiveness of sin means reconciliation with God’s Realm of distributive justice-compassion  Reconciliation is required.  Otherwise the community is destroyed and the work is compromised.

“So which is easier?” asks Jesus, “To say ‘your sins are forgiven?’ or ‘take up your bed and walk?’”

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