Readings:
- Isaiah 43.18-19, 21-22, 24b-25
Psalm 41.2-3,4-5,13-14 Response: “Lord, heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” - 2 Corinthians 1.18-22
- Mark 2.1-12
Reflections on the Gospel Reading
This Sunday we get a glimpse of how third generation Christians understood baptism.
On the surface today’s gospel reading is the story of a healing which provoked a controversy with the scribes who were looking on. To catch the deeper meaning we have to attend to the language Mark uses and the social context of the original setting.
Mark describes in graphic detail how four men got around the crowd by digging through the roof and lowering the paralytic on his mat in front of Jesus. He then says that Jesus saw their faith, not just the faith of the paralytic but the faith of the other four as well. Their public expression of loyalty (See Pilch 1996, 37) to Jesus, their openly expressed confidence in his healing power, moved Jesus to heal the paralytic. The four were prototypes of apostolic ministers, faith-filled believers who bring people to Jesus in order that they too might believe.
Probably, the original miracle story that Mark was working with went from the men’s dramatic action of lowering the bed in front of Jesus right on to the cure and the subsequent astonishment of the crowd. (See Taylor 1959, 191; Fuller 2006, 308; and Franke 2003, 2.) However, Mark artfully inserts another story in order to bring out the deeper meaning of Jesus’ healing power. Before curing his paralysis Jesus says, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”
Each word of that sentence was freighted with meaning for the early church. The Greek word teknon can be translated either “child” or “son.” (NRSV 1994) As Eugene LaVerdiere explains:
Teknon , does not refer to the age of a little child. For that Greek has another word, paidion. Teknon refers to the child’s relationship to its parents and others who in different ways gave life to the child. A child outgrows being a paidion, but even as an adult, he or she is still teknon in relation to the parent. In the vocative, teknon may be used as an expression of warmth and loving familiarity. (LaVerdiere 1999, 79)
By addressing the paralytic as his teknon Jesus “is drawing the man into his own familial sphere.” (Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003, 152) Early Christians would not have missed the allusion to entrance into the church.
Next Jesus surprises the modern reader by declaring, “your sins are forgiven.” We would have expected him to say, “arise and walk” immediately. The gospel exposes our cultural bias. Apart from the pain and discomfort involved, we think that the worst thing about illness is the inability to function normally, the inability to achieve things on our own.
People who lived at the time of Jesus saw illness in another light. Their culture emphasized being rather than doing. Reputation or honor was the most important thing in their lives. They were far more concerned about what illness did to people’s relationships with others in their family or village. Since illness was connected with sin in the popular mind, it was a shameful state of being. To restore function without restoring honor would not be real healing in their sight. Hence, the need for God’s forgiveness first.
Note that Jesus does not say, “I forgive you your sins.” but “your sins are forgiven.” He uses the Semitic passive, which implies “your sins are forgiven by God.” In part, this was a circumlocution to avoid saying the divine name. However, the fact remains that “nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus say, ‘I forgive you.’” (Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003, 154)
By calling the paralytic “child” and by declaring that God had forgiven his sins Jesus admits the paralytic into the company of those who believed in Jesus and followed Jesus. In other words, the paralytic is admitted into the nascent church.
Why did this cause such a stir among the scribes? What was blasphemous about Jesus’ declaration that God had forgiven the paralytic’s sins? Perhaps the scribes felt that Jesus had insulted God by claiming for himself the divine prerogative of forgiving sins. (See Donahue & Harrington 2002, 95.)
The scribes did not question God’s ability to forgive sins. However, “sins were to be confessed to the priest and accompanied by a sacrifice.” (Sanders 1992, 41) E. P. Sanders thinks that the most probable reason for the scribes’ objection was that Jesus “said, or was understood to say, that even heinous sinners who followed him were acceptable to God, and that he did not require of them the standard acts of atonement which are provided for in the law.” (Sanders 1992, 43) In other words, Jesus, rather than the law or the temple priesthood, was the broker of God’s forgiveness.
Their implied but not stated criticism challenges Jesus’ honor. He defends himself by posing an open question to them, “Which is easier to say . . . “Your sins are forgiven,’ or . . . ‘Rise, pick up your mat and walk’?” (One should note that the way Mark describes the conflict between Jesus and the Scribes probably reflects disputes between members of the Jesus movement and other Israelites in the mid first century with the result that the depiction of religious authorities, such as the scribes, tends to be rather stylized and even polemic.) (See Donahue & Harrington 2002, 98.)
The scribes were caught on the horns of a dilemma. Either answer could prove embarrassing. “They would not want to call the forgiveness of sins easier (which would be an ‘insult’ to God akin to the blasphemy charged to Jesus), nor would they wish to recognize the wonder-working activity of Jesus as a sign of divine approbation.” (Donahue & Harrington 2002, 96.)
Also, the people Jesus was talking to would have thought it was easier to say “Rise, pick up your mat and walk.” Curing the ailment was one thing; restoring the relationship with God was quite another. Honor was always tested and vindicated in public. It was possible to demonstrate a cure, but it was not possible to demonstrate forgiveness to those who did not believe. (See Pilch 1996, 38; Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003, 154.)
Mark, then, sees Jesus’s power to cure the paralytic as a sign of his greater ability to convey God’s forgiveness. As Reginald Fuller puts it, Mark inserted “the conflict dialog into the miracle story . . . thus making it serve his polemic against an interpretation of Jesus as being merely a wonder-worker. . . Jesus heals the man as a sign of the ultimate messianic miracle–the forgiveness of sins through his death on the cross (Mark 10:45, 14:24).” (Fuller 2006, 308)
The sandwiched stories of the cure of the paralytic and the controversy with the scribes function as a brief instruction on Christian baptism. In baptism Jesus receives us into the group of his followers just as he received the paralytic by calling him “child.” In baptism we enter into the death of Jesus by virtue of which God forgives our sins. That is, we are transferred from solidarity with those who do evil, even if unknowingly, to solidarity with a People committed to the way of Jesus that leads to God. We rise from the waters of baptism just as the paralytic rose from his mat and Jesus rose from the dead. Then we join the chorus of the crowd that glorifies God for what God has done in Jesus.
Early Christians were keenly aware of their countercultural status, their difference from those who worshipped idols with all that involved. Often we are not as aware of the worship of contemporary idols such as power, wealth, violence and sex. When we say in the Creed, “We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins,” we declare that we have been transferred from solidarity with those who embrace greed and violence to solidarity with those committed to Jesus’ way of self-sacrificing love. Our task is to live in accordance with that new solidarity.
In preparing these reflections, in addition to the biblical texts, I consulted the following works:
ABD = Anchor Bible Dictionary 1992 – David Noel Freedman, Editor-in-Chief, The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Six Volumes (New York: Doubleday, 1992)
Brueggemann et al. 1993 – Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, Year B. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), pp. 152-161.
Donahue & Harrington 2002 – John R. Donahue, S.J. and Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., The Gospel of Mark (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 2002), pp. 92-100.
Franke 2003 – Chris Franke in Joan Mitchell, CSJ, ed. Sunday by Sunday; Lectionary-based Reflection for Adults, Vol. 12, No. 22 (February 23, 2003), p. 2.
Fuller & Westberg 2006 – Reginald H. Fuller and Daniel Westberg, Preaching the Lectionary: The Word of God for the Church Today, Third Edition (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2006), pp. 307-309.
LaVerdiere 1990 – Eugene LaVerdier, S.S.S., Luke. New Testament Message, Volume 5. A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1990), pp. 77-81.
Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003 – Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), pp. 152-154.
NRSV = NRSV 1994 – New Revised Standard Version – Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy, Editors, The New Oxford Annotated Bible containing the Old and New Testaments. New Revised Standard Version. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)
Pilch 1996 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday, Cycle B. A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 37-39.
Sanders 1992 – E. P. Sanders, “SIN, SINNERS – NEW TESTAMENT” in ABD, Vol. 6, pp. 40-47.
Taylor 1959 – Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes (London: Macmillan & Co. LTD, 1959), pp. 191-201.