A sermon on carrying and being carried

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The following is Lori’s sermon on July 8. She was asked to print this sermon for those who weren’t able to be there because she addresses the gift from the Watson Estate.

The sermon is based upon Mark 2:1-12 which is the story of Jesus healing the paralytic man that was lowered through the roof to Jesus.

This gospel story of the paralytic man being carried to Jesus was one of my favorite stories since I was a child. How well I remember in Sunday School making a little house with a removable roof and making a little mat with a man lying on it that I could put in the house when I removed the roof. We got to act the story out. The stories of Jesus work like that – they stick in our minds, we remember them, and even without a model, we can often visualize the setting and the people involved because the stories are told so simply. The stories of Jesus impact us at all ages. The meaning of the story doesn’t necessarily change as we age, but hopefully the meaning of the story deepens when we reflect on it again and again.

Think about how the concept of being carried changes over time – especially the difference that it has for children to think about vs. adults. We’ve all been carried and at one time, we all enjoyed being carried. One of the first things that we all did as young children was to lift up our arms to our parents and ask them to pick us up or to carry us. We asked for piggyback rides and we asked teens or adults to catch us at the bottom of slides. We were carried to bed when we fell asleep on couches and floors or in cars. Being carried was a positive experience. Then as we became adults, being carried began to turn into a negative thing. As an adult, if someone tries to pick us up, we probably yell at them that they’re going to hurt their back, or if we are having physical problems in which we have to be picked up or moved by someone else, we feel helpless and frustrated that we can’t do it ourselves. Adults mostly don’t want to be dependent upon others like that. Carrying someone is a negative because it can also mean a reference to someone who isn’t

pulling their own weight in a situation. “I’ve been carrying him” or “she’s being carried”. The truth is, that when you think about it, there isn’t a much kinder act than to carry someone in the good sense of the word – whether it is to literally pick them up or it is to let them lean on us for support when they can’t move on their own. Just like in the story of the paralytic man, sometimes it is not possible for one who is sick, for one who needs forgiveness, for one who needs the Word of God’s love to come before God, to come before Christ, to come into the Holy Place where Christ is to be found.

Like the man carried by his friends – people need a community, a church, brothers and sisters – to carry them to where they need to go – and more – to believe for them when they don’t or simply can’t believe for themselves. Sometimes we’re the one who needs to carry our friend and sometimes we’re the one who needs to be carried. Healing and forgiveness need a set of relationships, a community, a group, a fellowship, who in love and faith will carry those who can’t carry themselves to the one who can heal, to the one who can forgive, to the one who speaks the truth, to the one who can bring justice. For healing and forgiveness to happen, we need friends, a family, people who will not give up, just as the ones who brought the man to Jesus did not give up but instead removed the roof of the house, the barrier that was keeping them from Jesus, so that the one in need might meet the healer. They couldn’t get to the front of the line and get in the door, so they got in through the roof. Talk about thinking outside the box.

Some of the most powerful stories of caring and compassion are stories that involve carrying someone. Carrying someone can truly be a gift as in the worker at the rehab center who moves a person with dangling legs to the bars where they begin to try to walk again; the nursing home nurses and aids who lift the worn out body from the bed to a chair so she can have a nice visit. If you think with me, you’ll have visions like I do of numerous news stories where people are being carried out of burning buildings, or

out of areas that have explosions going on around them. Some of the survivors of the Holocaust who were too weak to walk were carried out of the camps. During the hurricanes people were lifted out of trees and out of homes into boats. During the tornadoes people were carried out of wreckage. When the miners were trapped underground, rescuers went down and literally lifted them out with the aid of some equipment. Some of the stories that gripped me the most were the ones that came on September 11, 2001. With the stairs being the only way out, there were many survivors who talked of firefighters and co-workers who carried wheelchair bound people and hurt people down many flights of stairs to safety. And then I thought too about all those who made it down many flights of stairs carrying others and being carried only to then be killed before getting out. It is a slight comfort to know that so many died trying to help others. To carry another is truly to care for another. It is often life saving to carry someone. We may not be able to change the world, but we can change the world for someone.

Often the carrying is a physical carrying like those I’ve mentioned, but of course, sometimes we need to be carried, helped along, lifted up, cared for in other ways too. Christians need to sometimes be carriers, carrying others to the feet of Jesus when they can’t make it on their own – carrying them without judging how they got in the shape they are in. Sometimes as Christians we need to be humble enough to acknowledge that we need to be carried – carried through a time so rough and difficult that we can’t do it alone – carried to the feet of Jesus; carried to his loving arms when we’ve become so wrapped up in being judgmental or angry that we need to learn again how to be loving. Sometimes we need to be carried by others because we’re too full of fear to do it alone. Sometimes fear is what makes us need others to carry us – not literally, but to help us over the scary things in life. We need others. That’s all there is to it and we don’t lean on each other enough.

A woman named Mamie made frequent trips to the post office. One day she confronted a long line of people who were waiting for service from the postal clerks. Mamie only needed stamps, so a helpful observer asked, “Why don’t you use the stamp machine? You can get all the stamps you need and you won’t have to stand in line.” Mamie said, “I know, but the machine won’t ask me about my arthritis.” We need human contact. If you wonder, think about how many times you’ve called a place of business, punched in number after number, listened to menu after menu and then frantically pressed 0 over and over shouting at the phone “I want to talk to a real person” There is unhealthy dependence on others and there is unhealthy carrying but there are also very powerful meaningful ways to be carried.

I wonder how the gift from Jake and Ruth Watson will be looked at ten years from now. Will people say, “the folks at Corydon Christian let that money from the Watsons carry them along for another 10 years so that they didn’t’ have to do as much – but the money just kind of nursed them along?” Or will people say “That money from the Watson estate really carried Corydon Christian through some financial struggles and look how it lifted those people up to have more energy and excitement for their ministry, look how the money inspired others to give more so that the ministry could grow. Look how they invited and welcomed new folks in because they felt so good about their church they wanted others to experience it too.” The choice is up to us – are we going to let the money carry us by dragging us along or are we going to let it lift us up to new dreams and new energy. The choice really is up to all of you.

There are so many among us who need a healing community, a group of faith-filled friends, to carry them for a while – to carry them to the one who has the power to also carry us, to heal and forgive, and yet they – even as their legs give out under them – find it difficult to ask for help – to tell others that they need help dealing with old age or with the death of a loved one, or that they need help dealing with a difficult child or an unhealthy marriage, that they need help to believe in God, that they need help to deal with depression or whatever it is that they, that we have to deal with.

The paralytic man in the story did nothing and the story said nothing about him, about his faith or his character. But grace and healing is not dependent on the faith of the one needing the healing or even on the faith of those friends who help them to meet the healer, but rather it is dependent on the love of God who makes healing possible. And we all need healing of some kind – physical or emotional, or spiritual. In carrying one another, may we know the arms of God who carries us when we need it the very most.