Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
February 23, 2002
The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

Spiritual Beings
Created for Full Humanness
The Rev. George S. Yandell

Gospel: Mark 2:1-12
(A copy of this sermon is also available in audio.)

I didn't know exactly how, but growing up in East Tennessee, I knew I was different from my friends who went to Southern Baptist and Southern Presbyterian churches. Because we Episcopalians (and Roman Catholics) didn't hide our participation in some of the activities our fellow Christians called sinful, we were kind of shunned by them. Only later in life have I come to understand how much our religious upbringings shaped our worldviews.

When Billy Graham came to Knoxville, TN in 1970 or early '71, he invited Richard Nixon to appear with him. Were any of you there for that event? I was--my buddies dragged me to Neyland Stadium, filled to capacity. I listened to the messages, I sang the songs, I tried to understand, but somehow it just got me feeling squirmy, especially when candidate Nixon spoke. When the altar call came, my friend Carolyn dragged me down onto the turf on about the 40-yard line, and she suggested I talk to one of the counselors. He asked me, "Is Jesus alive in your life?" I said he was. "But do you really know him as your Lord and Savior?" I said I was pretty sure I did. "Has he redeemed you from your sinful nature and made you born again?" And I said, as politely as I could, "I think I've had enough of this,' and turned away and walked back up into the stands. I felt disturbed. I was disturbed that Carolyn clearly thought I desperately needed saving. Also disturbed about what Billy Graham said about our needing to overcome our sinful nature. Now I know why.

In a remarkable book called The Healing Spirit, psychiatrist Dr. Paul Fleischman says everyone is spiritual, even if they don't know it. One of the ten hallmarks of the inner spirit is a personal worldview that motivates our actions, mostly unconsciously. One's worldview might be a God on top sort of hierarchy of things. We might hold a worldview that says chaos rules. I have discovered that the predominating worldview of the Southern Baptists I grew up with is in conflict with mine. It all has to do with sin and human nature.

To sin is to miss the mark. To aim for the bulls-eye but to hit outside the target area is sin. Please turn to the Catechism, p. 845 in the The Book of Common Prayer. Those of us preparing for Confirmation on March 2 are more familiar right now with this part of the Prayer Book than the rest of us. The first section on "Human Nature" teaches us about the nature of humans and sin. I'll read the questions, and I'd like you to read the answers.

Human Nature

Q. What are we by nature?
A. We are part of God's creation, made in the image of God.

Q. What does it mean to be created in the image of God?
A. It means that we are free to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God.

Q. Why then do we live apart from God and out of harmony with creation?
A. From the beginning, human beings have misused their freedom and made wrong choices.

Q. Why do we not use our freedom as we should?
A. Because we rebel against God, and we put ourselves in the place of God.

Q. What help is there for us?
A. Our help is in God.

Q. How did God first help us?
A. God first helped us by revealing himself and his will, through nature and history, through many seers and saints, and especially through the prophets of Israel.
(From The Book of Common Prayer, p. 845. Copyright ©1977 by Charles Mortimer Guilbert)

Those high school friends who were afraid for my soul have a different view from the Catechism. They emphasize that our nature is sinful, that without an intent to change ourselves and the intervention of Jesus, we are doomed. They hold that Satan distorted our nature, that we're not God-imaged like the Catechism says.

In the time of Jesus, the devout Jews believed that when humans got sick or were born disfigured, it was because they or their parents had sinned, had broken the law of Moses. To be sick was to be marked as a sinner and shunned.

A wise man recently told me: "We are not human beings created for a spiritual experience, but we are spiritual beings created for a full human experience." I like that. It sums up my worldview, shaped in part by the Episcopal Church.

In the story in the Gospel today, Jesus heals a paralyzed man. It is a curious sequence of events, though. Jesus is at home in Capernaum. The house where he's staying is jam-packed with people wanting to meet this healer, this rabbi they've heard about. Jesus says to the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." This got the scribes agitated, because they believed God alone could forgive sins. So in order to show the scribes the distinction they should make in their attitude about sin and humanness, Jesus said, "But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins," he said to the paralytic, "I say to you, stand up, take your may and go to your home." And he did.

It's easy to overlook a very subtle part of this story. The paralyzed man was brought to the house by a group of folks who couldn't get him through the crowd. Four of them took great pains to climb up on the roof, dismantle it, and lower him down to Jesus. The words say, "When Jesus saw their faith," he forgave the paralytic his sins and healed him. He saw the depth of the friends' faith, and he saw the worth of the paralytic himself. The man and his friends were god-imaged, god-created, so it was entirely natural for Jesus to look upon the paralytic and to forgive his sins.

Those friends of the paralyzed man give us a powerful demonstration of how to be the Church. We are spiritual beings created for full humanness, brought together as the Church. The Church's job is not to provide a spiritual environment, but to provide a place where we can become human together. Because God created us and imagined us, God intends us to imagine the Spirit together. Our imagination becomes the implementation of faith. Faith cuts holes in roofs. Faith breaks down barriers between the shunners and the shunned. Faith converts pompous egos into humble spirits, contentious individuals into faith-full people working together. Faith energizes us to become fully human. God yearns for the world-view of us spiritual beings to bring power into God's world- power for each being on this planet to imagine all others as god-brothers and god-sisters.

Copyright 2003 Calvary Episcopal Church

Gospel: Mark 2:1-12
When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2 So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. 3 Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." 6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7 "Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 8 At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, "Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and take your mat and walk'? 10 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins," he said to the paralytic, 11 "I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home." 12And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" NRSV

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