Not long after I became the pastor at UBC I attended an Alumni Board Meeting back at Princeton Seminary. I took along some photos of the church to show off to my friends. I wanted them to see our beautiful sanctuary, our fellowship hall crowded with happy people at dinner on Wednesday night, smiling children in Sunday School, and so on. Everyone acted duly impressed except one guy. I handed him the stack and he thumbed through them pretty quickly. “What do you think?” I asked him. “Who’s that?” he asked me. It was Mary Bouldin. She was in every picture, because, you know, Mary’s one of those people who’s going to be here to serve every time the door’s unlocked. “That’s Mary,” I told him. “She’s one of the saints of UBC.” Figured she would like that better than being called a “pillar.” Then he asked me, “Why aren’t you in any of these pictures?” “Well, I took the pictures,” I told him. “I was behind the camera.” “Then how do we really know this is your church?” he said.

Mark’s story today hands us a stack of snapshots. Think of it as a photo album of the early church. Let’s see if we are in any of them. Jesus has returned to Capernaum and the word is out: “Jesus is in the house!” What with the healings he’s performed and the demons he’s cast out and that leper running around shouting “Clean! Clean! Jesus made me clean!” his reputation has grown. Everybody wants to see Jesus. But you can’t get a ticket. You can’t get in the door. In fact, Mark says, you can’t even get to the door, the crowd is so huge. And there’s our first snapshot of the church: people gathering to study scripture with Jesus because they are hungry to hear what God has to say for their day. Are you in that picture? But there’s a problem: the crowd is so large, there’s no room for some people to get to him to get the help they need.

Well, maybe crowding is not our problem. We have lots of empty seats most Sundays. You can stretch out if you’ve a mind to. Not a lot of people are all that interested to hear what the scripture has to say these days. But could there be other ways we crowd people out who are trying to get to Jesus? You know how churches can be. A stranger comes to visit and sees knots of people in conversation. They call each other by name. They laugh and tell stories and mention events and people everybody seems to know. The stranger thinks, “These people all know each other so well; there’s no room for me here,” and feels crowded out by our closeness. Or, our crowd can appear so educated, so well-informed, somebody might think, “I’m not smart enough to study scripture with these people” and feel crowded out by the brains. Or they might think, “Everybody here is dressed so nice, I can’t afford to join this church” and feel crowded out by economic class. Or nobody engages them in conversation or asks who they are or how they’re doing, so they think “These people don’t really want me around” and feel crowded out by the cold shoulder. Somebody might come to church needing to see Jesus for some healing. They’re worrying and they want to pray. They’re fearing and they want to sing. They’re hurting and they want to cry. But some of us are too refined for that kind of raw human spirituality. We prefer a faith that is calm and cognitive, not so emotional and vulnerable, so they think “I’m not sophisticated enough to worship with these people,” and they feel crowded out by our style.

We would never do it on purpose. We’re proud of how welcoming we are to all God’s children. But even here in this welcoming place it might be possible that people who want to see Jesus feel crowded out by his followers. Says Will Willimon: “As a pastor, as someone who has given his life to caring for and worrying about the church, I hate to say this, but it’s true in my experience: the primary reason that people give me for not following Jesus, for not embracing the Christian faith is us, the church.” It’s like that bumper sticker I saw that said, “I love Jesus; it’s his friends I can’t stand.” So Mark gives us a picture of a crowd where Jesus is in the house, most of them just standing there blocking the way, not helping anybody else get to Jesus. Are you in that picture?

Then Mark shows us a snapshot of some people approaching the house, bringing Jesus a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Here is Mark’s second snapshot of the church: a paralyzed man who needs to get to Jesus. But he can’t move on his own. He won’t get to Jesus unless somebody helps him. Do you know how he feels? You ever just been stuck and you didn’t know how to move forward on your own? The physical paralysis of the man on the mat is symbolic of the various ways we may find ourselves paralyzed and needing God’s help. Paralytics. Every church has them. In fact, every one of us in the church plays the paralytic from time to time, even pastors. A year ago today at four in the morning I woke from a deep sleep. I tried to get up, but I could not move. It was a weird feeling. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was having a stroke. My head was telling my legs and arms to move, but my muscles would not obey. I tried to talk, but no sound came out. I lay there - motionless, helpless, confused - for a good five minutes before I was able to roll just enough to fall off the bed and bump into the furniture to wake Gina up so she could help me.

It was scary, but I have to be honest. I’ve had some other times in my life when I was paralyzed, helpless, and confused and not even aware I was paralyzed. I got stuck in habits that weren’t good for my health, in patterns of relating that hurt other people, in ways of doing things that were no longer effective. I could tell you a thousand reasons why something wouldn’t work right down to “we’ve never done it that way before,” but I didn’t have any better ideas or even understand why I was so reluctant to try. Bad habits are hard to change, but first you have to admit they are bad habits.

Turns out in this story the man on the mat is not the only person paralyzed. When Jesus forgives the man, the scribes get all blustery and offended. You better be careful about the things that offend you. That often says more about you, reveals where you may be stuck. These scribes are so offended by Jesus’ presumption in forgiving the man on the mat, they have no compassion for the man on the mat! Now Mark doesn’t say the scribes are bad people. In fact, they’re good people. They’re religious people. They’ve given their lives to studying scripture. They’ve crowded the house to hear Jesus teach. They’re students of the word, but they’re stuck. They’re so set in their ways, so attached to their ideas and issues they’ve missed the heart of the scripture they study, that God cares most about people. People who are paralyzed and don’t even know it. People who are stuck and can’t even see it. That’s a picture of the church. Are you in that picture?

By far my favorite snapshot of the church Mark gives us – the one you want to frame and hang on your wall - are the four friends who do what it takes to get this paralyzed man to Jesus. They can’t heal their friend. But they can carry him. They can lift him up. They can break through the structures and get him past the people who stand in the way. They can let him down easy. They can take him to the only One who can help the man on the mat feel forgiven and be healed. Mark even says the paralytic is healed because of their faith.

Are you in that picture? You got four friends who would do that for you? I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for a life partner who said, “I don’t know what happened, but you’re going to a doctor.” I don’t know how I would have made it in this life if it weren’t for parents and brothers and family who loved me enough to carry me along when I was stuck. I have been lifted and loved and set before Jesus again and again by the prayers of my friends. How about you?

Are you in that picture, carried by friends? More importantly, who’s got a friend in you? Because being the church isn’t just having friends, it’s being a friend. Said Albert Schweitzer, “In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” Being a friend means caring about what another person is dealing with and helping where you can. The Bible calls this “bearing one another’s burdens.” Being a friend means forgiving the times and ways somebody may hurt you, and being quick to ask forgiveness when you have hurt them. Sometimes being a friend means loving people enough to confront them so they can get past their denial and see their paralysis. As Oscar Wilde observed: “A true friend stabs you in the front.” Being a friend means carrying somebody to Jesus through prayer or conversation or even by giving them a ride to church. There are many ways to be a friend to your bothers and sisters in Christ. But the one thing I hear most often from people who are in the hospital or at the graveside or dealing with some such terrible crisis in their lives is this: “I don’t know how I would have made it through this without my friends at UBC!” That’s a picture of the church. Are you in that picture?

Mark gives us three snapshots of the church this morning. Maybe you see yourself in one or two of them. One person is in every picture. It’s Jesus, that carpenter, teacher, miracle worker from up Nazareth way. He has some straw and dust in his hair from the hole those four guys broke in the roof. The sun shines through the hole like a spotlight so bright in the darkened house, it’s dazzling, makes him hard to see. But he’s the one you need to see. Is he in the picture with you? Are you in that picture with him? May we pray?

O Lord, we pray, you will always be in this house teaching us the Word of God. We pray your healing presence would touch and renew everyone who enters here, and we pray you might draw more and more to meet you here. But as we all come to hear you, teach us to be friends to each other. Heal our paralysis, break through our walls, and let your light shine into our lives. O Lord, make us church, in Jesus’ name. Amen.