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The Paralysis of the Will

Mark 2: 1-12 : Seventh Sunday, Year B : 19 February 2012

Few saints of the 20th century were as popular and as controversial as Padre Pio. Born into a peasant family in southern Italy in the late 19th century he grew up to become a Capuchin Friar and a priest, despite his persistent ill health and lack of educational qualifications. What drew many, including the writer Graham Greene, to the Friary of San Giovanni Rotondo was the charismatic phenomena that surrounded his ministry there.

He bore the wounds of the stigmata - people claimed that time slowed down as he celebrated Mass - a fellow Friar said he had seen him levitating - there were instances of him being bi-located, but most remarkable of all was the way he read the hearts of those who came to him for confession. Penitents often found that he already knew what they had come to confess, that he had an uncanny prior knowledge of their private lives, and that his advice struck to the heart of their personal dilemmas. This gift of supernatural insight into the hearts and minds of those who come for confession or spiritual counsel has been recognised as a hallmark also of the ministries of the Cure D ’ Ars in 19th century France, of St Seraphim of Sarov in 19th century Russia, and of Sister Briege McKenna in her retreats for priests in our own day.

It is this ability to provide an instant and accurate spiritual diagnosis that stands out in the extraordinary story of the paralytic lowered through the roof. What is more it is backed up by an assertion of authority to forgive sins that only God can claim. And when the religious experts present inwardly question this authority, Jesus can both read their minds to know their oppositional attitudes, and can then provide a striking demonstration of the power of forgiveness to translate itself into mobilising command and total healing.

Before, I called this the story of the paralytic lowered through the roof, but it could equally be called the story of outrageous house wrecking and roof vandalisation. Sure, New Testament scholars tell us that roofs then were flimsier affairs composed of a framework of branches or planks overlaid with natural materials, but even so what was done here would have radically inconvenienced the homeowner. And the way some translations put it this house could well have been owned by Jesus - we know he did own a house in Capernaum, which incidentally contradicts the claim of some sentimental preachers that Jesus came from the lowest of the low. As the son of a skilled tradesman, who shared that skill, and who had achieved the remarkable feat by New Zealand standards of being a homeowner by the age of 30, Jesus was middle class by the standards of the day. Which of course gives him all the more reason to be upset and angry by the fact that he will be spending the next few nights exposed to the elements. If I had a Vicarage full of parishioners, and late coming gatecrashers lifted the Marseilles tiles to lower a friend through, my first words might not be, "Son, you are forgiven."

What stands out in this part of the story is what one translation calls the bold faith of the friends. Their resourcefulness and initiative appeals to Jesus, as these qualities so often do in other gospel incidents. They have made the mat on which they carry their paralysed friend significant. It carries the paralytic over the surrounding roads. It transports him up off the ground to roof height. He descends down on it into the room as though on a helicopter. He picks up the mat and walks out of the room with it.

As they create this magic carpet effect to go up and over and then down and through the massing crowd in the house they are doing something that is of considerable interest and usefulness to us as we think about what goes on when we pray in intercession for others. They are doing for their friend what he could not do for himself, they are carrying him in to the presence of Jesus, trusting that he will know what is required to be done for him, and that he will not fail to do it. To pray in intercession for someone else is to carry them in to the presence of God in like manner, and to leave them there with an open ended trust that is prepared to let God be the judge of what is best for them in what will then happen for them.

A possible problem for us in this story is the automatic connection it makes between sin and sickness, so that the forgiveness of sins becomes the gateway to health of mind and body. It is a connection that was widely assumed in former times in the Church. If you have ever read the Office for the Visitation of the Sick in the Book of Common Prayer you will see it spelt out. As the priest reads out this pastoral Office he is inviting the parishioner to confess their sin to God as the probable cause of their illness, so as to clear the way for their later healing at God ’ s hands. That is a connection we can be reluctant to make in the light of modern medical knowledge and practise.

So what is the connection between sin and paralysis that can make sense for us?

St Augustine knew the answer. "The will is fettered - our human will is fettered." Why this matters is that the will is the seat of our decision-making. Yet often it is the prisoner of restraints imposed by the seductive power of various forms of alluring temptations, or of the drab depressing effects of sins clung to for too long. No matter how many self help books I read, no matter how many self realization classes I attend, no matter how hard I try to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, it is well nigh impossible to break out of the trap of my own self limiting pathologies. The contours of my vulnerabilities are like desert dunes, which I cannot walk away from unaided. I have no power of myself to help myself in so many situations, to quote the words of the old Prayer book.

The paralysed man then is an image of us. We are often unable to do what we want to do. The springs of action are denied us. We are frozen and bound in our attempts to make the changes that are so obvious. There is this great gulf between our intentions and our moral capacity. We want to receive the freedom to move, but how?

When Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven" he is striking to the heart of our moral paralysis. Whatever it takes to carry out a thorough moral inventory in the presence of Christ the healer, we should do it - whatever brings us to the place of receiving God ’ s absolution, we should seize it.

A heart that is free. Augustine called it the goal of the Christian life. It is what happens when God puts his hand on our head, absolves us, and tells us that we are forgiven. We can get up and go now because we named in his presence all those self-imposed, self restraining manacles.

The collects in the Book of Common Prayer are often a reflection of this Augustinian sense of powerful forgiving, healing grace. I am going to end with the collect for the second Sunday in Lent:

Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord.