Jesus and the Paralytic

There’s a well-known story of Jesus speaking at a home in Capernaum, a small village of around 1500 people. Word had spread and a crowd had gathered to fill the space where he was teaching. A group of men came to see Jesus, bringing their friend who lived with a serious disability; he is paralysed and cannot walk. We don’t know if he’s been this way from birth, or if it’s due to accident or illness. We do know that if he lived with this kind of disability in the first century he was highly dependent. He had little means to make money and most disabled people in this economy became beggars. Any way for him to get by in life would rely either on the generosity of strangers or the support of his friends. To make matters more challenging, he was also likely seen by the religious as deserving of his situation; the opinion that his disability was probably the result of sin.

Because of the crowds, the group carrying the man struggle to find a way inside, so they go up on to the roof and begin to dig their way through. Once they make a hole big enough, they lower their friend down to see Jesus. This is a big risk to take, and they have no idea how this is going to be received. They are interrupting a popular charismatic figure in the midst of him teaching, while damaging someone’s property, and breaking and entering. I would imagine everyone – not just the homeowner – are wondering what Jesus is going to say and do. You have religious leaders and teachers sitting there, probably huffing and puffing about how inappropriate all of this is.

And Jesus response is not what anyone expects. He says to the man: “friend, your sins are forgiven.”

Now this causes a lot more huffing and puffing because this is not something Jesus should be allowed to say. Only God can forgive sins, and it is the religious leaders who manage access to this God. If this man wants forgiveness, he should go through the appropriate channels; see a priest, offer a sacrifice, do all the things that are necessary and required. But this is not what happens. Jesus simply says: your sins are forgiven. And then once the religious folk are all in a fluster, he puts an exclamation point on the fact that this was an entirely appropriate thing to do and heals him as well. 

This story is another example of the way that Jesus saw the Kingdom of God coming and present, not through the sacrificial system, the temple, or the religious rules, but through acceptance.. When Jesus talks about having the authority to forgive sins, he doesn’t demonstrate authority by using power over others. For Jesus, divine authority takes shape in hospitality, love and kindness. That is what real authority looks like. And this continues to be a revolutionary idea. Consider your life and the places where you have some level of authority. Perhaps it is at work, or at study, in families or in friendships, and think about how that authority could be shaped not by seeking and using power over others, but through kindness, generosity and acceptance.

We also see in this story a radical kind of grace at work. Religious leaders in the first century often understood sin through the lens of debt. As a sinner you are in debt and need your debts to be released/forgiven. So in this case, especially if they believe the disability has come about as a result of sin, a releasing of debt by Jesus means that not only is the man healed, but he is also no longer beholden to the religious leaders; no longer having to appease them in order to belong. Jesus liberates the man from any debts and the act of healing – as is so often the case with Jesus – is symbolic not just of the physical healing, but of transforming the man’s social experience. This man is released from any indebtedness to God or to religious leaders. He is truly free.

Maybe you feel indebted to others, maybe you feel there are things you’ve done that you can’t make up for, maybe you feel like people hold things against you that you don’t know how to remedy. And so the message of Christ to you is inviting you into an experience of liberation. Jesus doesn’t name the forgiveness for this man to emphasise his undeservedness, but to emphasise the generous and freely given grace and love of God. 

The final reflection, is to ask what could it mean to be like the friends who lowered him through the roof. They were advocates for access for one who was disabled. They were willing to disrupt and damage property for the sake of their friend. This was not polite behaviour. In this story the man’s friends become advocates who acted on his behalf to overcome the exclusionary features of the physical limitations created by their surroundings. They remind me of the disability activists in the 1970s and 80s who chained themselves to buses and buildings to demand equal access. Activism that changed society for those who had been excluded by small-mindedness and ignorance.

And to push this idea further, perhaps the disabled man is indicative of all the ways in which we experience human frailty and limitation. Things that are going on for us that impair our ability – either internally, or externally – to connect meaningfully in community with others as equals. And so, like this man’s friends, we are called to act in our everyday lives on behalf of each other’s limitations and frailties. To make room for each other, particularly when there are obstacles in the way. And maybe that means making a mess and upsetting people and tearing the roof off from time to time. 

The kindness and hospitality of God’s kingdom is not polite and insipid but transformative and disruptive to the status quo.