Epiphany 8 | Mark 2:1-12

When I was first ordained a deacon, my bishop told me to go get some experience by doing services in a nursing home. It was great advice. Nursing home folks are the most forgiving of congregations, because it doesn’t matter how badly you screw up, they’re just glad you’re THERE. You could be the world’s worst preacher, and they’re just going to nod and smile and hope that they get a hug or can bend your ear privately for a moment before you go.

For the performer in me, it was also a captive audience. It was an instant congregation! They loved me, and I loved them. I recommend it to anyone just entering the ministry, as there is simply no better place to make your mistakes, pick yourself back up, and learn your chops.

The first nursing home I chaplained at was in Pleasant Hill, in an Alzheimer’s Unit. There are certain challenges to working in with Alzheimer’s patients. One is that they rarely remember who you are from week to week. Another is that they frequently think you are someone else.

I remember one woman, Gladys, always thought I was her son, Jerry. One day I was standing with her and her daughter and son-in-law when she started manipulating something in the air that was only visible to her. “Help me with this, Jerry,” she said to me. I had no idea what it was she was trying to do, and therefore no idea how to help. So I just stood there, looked at Glady’s’ daughter, and shrugged. Finally, Gladys dropped her hands in exhasperation and proclaimed, “Ah, Jerry, you’re not worth a damn anyway.” The situation seemed so absurd that I, her daughter, and her son-in-law all burst out laughing. Once we were going, Gladys joined us, although a little uncertainly.

Once I was ordained a priest, I continued at the Alzheimer’s Unit. It was rewarding work, and I had grown fond of many of the patients. Being a priest, the range of sacramental services I could offer expanded, and I brought them all to my work, there. I began to say mass every Saturday, and I was able to hear confessions when people asked for it.

Only one gentleman did. His name was Al, and he seemed to be absolutely consumed with guilt over something he had done in the far distant past. The first week he asked for it, I heard his confession, and gave him absolution. He was relieved and grateful. And I was pleased to have heard my first confession.

But as is often the case with Alzheimer’s patients, his short term memory was hopelessly impaired. He could remember the crime, but he could not remember being forgiven. And the next week, Al was back, asking me to hear his confession. I listened, and it was almost word for word, as if he had been rehearsing this for a very, very long time. Once again I have him absolution, and he tottered off, relieved.

The next week, he was back again. At first, this disturbed me, and I wondered if we were perhaps abusing the sacrament in some way. But when I spoke to my bishop about it, he told me to relax. God had forgiven Al long ago, but Al had not forgiven Al. It did no harm to remind him of his forgiveness, and if giving him the sacrament offered Al any comfort, then why in the world would I ever withhold it?

I remembered Al as I meditated on our Gospel reading this week. Here Jesus is, preaching to a packed house. And here are these four guys who know that if they can just get their friend close enough to Jesus, that the master would heal him. How to do it, though, with all those people around? Their solution smacks of a sit-com contrivance: why, cut a hole in the roof, of course, and lower him down!

But the outcome is void of any madcap antics. They cut the hole, they lower their friend, and Jesus is amazed at their faith. He also sees that what keeps the man lame isn’t a physical malady, but a psychological or a spiritual one. In order to rid him of his suffering, Jesus tells him that his sins are forgiven.

You can set your clock by the reactions of the religious leaders in the room. “Who does he think he is, assuming he has the power to forgive sins?” Mark, the author of this account, has a theological agenda to push, so he affirms Jesus’ power to do just that.

But I’d like to suggest another interpretation that seems to be much more in line with Jesus’ actual teaching about sin, redemption, and the nature of God. I’d like to suggest that Jesus told the man his sins were forgiven because they already were. I don’t think Jesus waved his magic wand and made the man’s sins disappear. I think he was telling the man what the truth has been all along: God understands how hard it is to be human, and he doesn’t hold anything against you. He never has. God does not blame you for the mistakes you’ve made in your life, for the people you have hurt when you have been reacting out of your own pain. God loves you AS YOU ARE.

People have spun their wild theologies and theories about who Jesus is and what he taught for centuries, but my friends, THIS is the good news. We don’t need anyone to grant us forgiveness. We don’t need a sacrament to wipe our slate clean, we don’t need Jesus to die to slake God’s bloodlust over our sin. We don’t need any hierarchical church doling out grace to those they deem deserving. We don’t need to pray any magical formula to get “saved.” None of that is good news. All of it is, in fact, very bad news. And it’s not what Jesus was about.

This is what he was about—he came to teach us what God is like, to tell us this very simple message: God loves you and accepts you just as you are. You don’t need to do anything to be forgiven. God does not hold anything against you. Your slate is clean. You are free.

The problem is, of course, that we are not free. But it is not God that is sitting up there with a tally of our rights and wrongs. It’s us. We’re the ones keeping track of our virtues and failures, all faithfully stored right up here, in our heads. We are trapped in the prison of our own shame, and it is this that keeps up from living the abundant life that Jesus calls us to.

So why is there the sacrament of confession at all? Why do we, week after week, publicly confess our trespasses and receive the general absolution? Not because we need God to forgive us, but because psychologically, we need to hear that we are forgiven. And we need to hear it often, because our memories are short, because we screw up much more than we want to, because we are insecure and so desperately in need of grace and love, commodities in such short supply in the big bad world, out there. And so we come here to get it, among our friends, where we can be held in love and told again and again that everything is all right, and that, ultimately, “all shall be well.”

We are just like that man in the nursing home, whose sins haunted him day and night, and whose Alzheimer’s robbed him of the comfort of forgiveness and assurance. We all have Alzheimer’s, in a sense. We all forget that God does not judge the way the world does, they way our parents did, the way we judge ourselves. Every week, we need to be reminded. Every week we need to be held by our friends and loved.

This week, when we exchange the peace, let’s go a step further. Instead of simply saying, “peace be with you,” look into your neighbor’s eyes and remind them that all shall be well. Because we all need to be reminded. Because the Good News of Jesus is good news indeed. No one holds anything against you except you. And if you are willing, you can let even that go. Let us pray…

Jesus, you taught us that whatsoever things we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatsoever we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And indeed, we enter our next life burdened only by those things we have not let go of in this. Help us to forgive ourselves, even as we have been forgiven by you, so that when we meet our reward, we will do it with arms empty of earthly baggage. For we ask this in thy name, thou who taught us that our sins are already forgiven. Amen.