Today’s Gospel lesson is certainly one of my favorites,
        just because of the image of Jesus sitting there
        in his living room trying to teach people about God,
        when they hear all this clomping around on the roof,
        then the banging and the tearing,
        then pieces of thatch begin falling on them,
        and they see these guys up there tearing the roof off the house.

Then the guys on the roof use ropes to lower a stretcher
        into the living room,
        and lying on the stretcher is the paralytic.
This bizarre incident not only disrupted Jesus’ lesson plan;
        it also wrecked his house.
He lived in Capernaum and this was his home.

In Luke, Jesus says, “The fox has its den and the bird, it’s nest.
        But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Well this lesson tells us how that situation came about.

Some our St. Francis families, Stuart and Deborah Wilson,
        and Jack Wray and Pam Candler,
        have had their roofs destroyed by weather.
Losing your roof is unsettling to say the least,
        and to have a bunch of small town ruffians
        deliberately tear your roof off
        while you’re sitting under it trying to lead a Bible study

                – well that could stir up some feelings.

At this point the plot takes a turn
       that usually throws people off track
       so they don’t get on to what the story is about.
Jesus said, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”

We read this and we go off on what sin has to do with sickness.
True enough, a lot of people in Jesus’ day believed that sickness
       was caused by one’s sins, or even by the sin’s of one’s ancestors,
       a kind of inter-generational karma.
True enough, there’s a strand of the Christian tradition
that says our worldly sufferings are punishments for sins.

True enough, it is a popular notion today
       to say whatever happens to people, especially health problems
       is caused by their own bad attitudes or lack of faith
       or failure to plug into the abundance of the universe.

But most of us don’t believe God’s justice works that way.
Most of us don’t believe God goes around striking people blind
       or giving them cancer.
Orthodox Christian theology doesn’t blame sick people
       for their sickness.
In Luke, Jesus expressly denied that our worldly afflictions
       are punishments for sin.
In Matthew, he says, God causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine
       on the just and the unjust alike.

So why does Jesus forgive the paralytic’s sins?
The truth is I don’t know,
       and neither does anyone else.

Maybe Jesus was forgiving the man
        for his part in destroying the roof.
The story doesn’t tell us anything about sin and sickness
        except that forgiveness is easier than healing
                and Jesus can do both.

So let’s look at what this story is really about

        – not the connection between sin and suffering
        but the connection between prayer and healing.
When the paralytic’s friends wrestled the man up to the rooftop,
        tore off the roof, and lowered him into Jesus’s house
                they gave us the best picture of intercessory prayer
                          in all of Scripture.

These men cared about their friend
         and believed he could be helped
         if they could just get him to Jesus.
Their faith is the key to the story.

It says “When Jesus saw their faith . . .”
         that’s when he acted.
We don’t know whether the paralytic had faith or not.
But the friends’ faith made the difference.
Why should that be?
Why should healing depend on faith –
         not even the faith of the one who needs healing,
         but the faith of his friends?

We need to back up a long way to understand how this works.
Without the creation, there is only God.
God creates the universe by allowing the existence
         of that which is not God – really and truly is not God.
It isn’t God in material form, masquerading as the universe.
It’s a real, personal creation capable of loving God or not,
        free to obey God or not.
The universe is not just an extension of God,
        not a puppet dancing on strings.

If God does not allow the universe autonomy,
        the universe does not exist as its own reality.
If the universe is going to exist in a meaningful way,
        then it has to be free to obey God or not.
That’s where sin, sickness, and suffering come in.
God does not make us sin.
God does not make us sick.
God does not cause us to suffer.
God does allow the universe to be free.
In freedom there is room for love, truth, and beauty.
But there’s also room for sin, for sickness, and for suffering.
There is room for things contrary to God’s will.

Search the Gospels.
Not once does Jesus strike anyone blind or deaf or leprous
        to punish them for sin, to teach them a lesson,
                or to build their characters.
Every time Jesus encounters sickness, he heals it.

Sickness, suffering, injustice, and oppression
        are not God’s will.
They are what happens in a creation
        that is free to accept or reject God.

In the face of suffering, God always wants to help.
In the face of sickness, God always wants to heal.
Otherwise, he would not be God.
But there is a line God cannot cross
        without violating the autonomy of the creation,
        without making the creation into a mere extension
                 of God’s self.

That’s where prayer comes in.
As part of the creation,
        we have some authority to invite God in.
We have some authority to give God permission
        to do what God already wants to do.

Every time we pray the Our Father,

        “Thy kingdom come. They will be done,”
        we invite God to intervene in the created order.
Every time we ask for healing and mercy,
        for justice and peace,
        we invite God to intervene in the created order.
Every time we lift up the name of a person
        in need of comfort, blessing, and strength,
        we invite God to intervene in the created order.

We are not in charge.
We do not have authority to open the door all the way
        because it isn’t just our door.
Against our wills to invite God in,
        there are countless wills set on keeping God out.
And, truth be told, our own wills are divided.
But our prayer has the authority to open the door a little,
        and sometimes it only takes a little.

That’s the point of the loaves and fishes story.
Sometimes, it only takes a little bit of human willingness,
       a little morsel of human good will,
       to make room for God to do wonders.

Am I saying God’s ability to do good, not just for us,
      but for others, depends on our praying

      – that if we do not pray, God’s ability to do good
                is the less?
Yes, I am saying and I do mean exactly that.

Given God’s faithful commitment to allowing
       the universe to exist freely, meaningfully,
                and not as a huge puppet –
       given that commitment, God’s ability to do good
                depends on our extending the invitation.

That is why Jesus teaches us to pray,
       and St. Paul urges us to pray without ceasing.
There is no better picture of prayer
       than the paralytic’s friends
                tearing off Jesus’s roof to get his attention.

Is there anyone we care about?
Is there any wrong we want to see righted?
Do we care that 10,000 people die of AIDS, malaria,
        and tuberculosis today

        – that 10,000 more will die tomorrow

        – and that those are not statistics but real people
                with mother, fathers, spouses and children
                who love them and are left in grief?
Do we care that humanity is divided by prejudice and hatred
        grounded in race, religion, and nationalism?

If we care about anything at all,
        then let’s hoist it to the roof with prayer,
        tear off the roof with prayer,
        and lower it into the presence of Jesus with prayer.

Let’s pray with words and also action.
Let’s pray with money and time and attention.
Instead of just telling Jesus what to do,
        let’s step into the fray ourselves
                and ask him to come with us.
We’ll probably find him already there
        waiting for us to join him.

And then we’ll pray with infinite delight,

        “Glory to God whose power working in us
               can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”

                                                                  Amen.