Finding the Love of Your Life
02/01/2004 - The Healing Power of Community
One of the most powerful books I've ever read on community wasn't written about community, it was written about war. The book was called Band of Brothers and it was written by Stephen Ambrose. It's since been aired as a mini-series on HBO produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
Band of Brothers is about Easy Company, the 506th regiment of the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army that served in World War II. These are paratroopers who landed behind enemy lines in France on D-Day, knocked out four Nazi cannons aimed at Utah Beach, and fought their way through bloody battles all the way to Germany where they captured Hitler's headquarters at Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden. It's an incredible story of amazing courage and commitment and community.
About Easy Company, Ambrose writes, "They thought the Army was boring, unfeeling, and chicken. And they hated it. They found combat to be ugliness, destruction, and death. And they hated it. Anything was better than the blood and carnage, the grime and filth, the impossible demands made on the body - anything, that is, except letting down their buddies."
"In combat they found the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They found selflessness. They found they could love the other guy in their foxhole more than themselves. They found that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them ... The result of sharing all that stress through training and through combat created a bond between the men of Easy Company that will last forever."
Did you hear that? There's something about suffering together, there's something about sacrificing together, there's something about laying our life on the line for others that creates a deep, lifelong sense of community, a band of brothers and a band of sisters that is tight. War can produce that. And life, with all its battles, can produce that too if we're walking through it with other people in community.
The great ancient philosopher Aristotle put it this way, "Without friendships no one would choose to live, even if they had all other good things in life."
The great philosopher of our day, Yogi Berra, said it like this,"If you don't go to somebody's funeral, they won't go to yours."
This morning we continue our series called Finding the Love of Your Life and the title of today's teaching is "The Healing Power of Community." This series is based on a recent book by John Ortberg called Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them. And as we've said from the start this is not a series about finding the perfect mate. Instead, it's about finding out how to be a better lover. That's what it means to find the love of your life. We all want to get better at expressing that agape kind of love that Jesus talked about, that unconditional, self-sacrificing love that Jesus said is the mark of his followers.
I've asked you to look at this series as a sequence of love lessons. Lesson number one was that all of us are slightly irregular, we all come "as is." Lesson number two was that all of us "as is" people were created for community. We need each other. It's not good to be alone. And today's lesson is that the community we were created for has the power to heal our lives. If you have your Bible turn with me to Mark 2:1-12.
Mark 2:1-12, A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3Some people came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." 6Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7"Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 8Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? 9Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? 10But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins ...." He said to the paralytic, 11"I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." 12He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
Mark 2 contains one of the greatest stories about community found anywhere in the Bible. It's about a paralyzed man, his four friends, and Jesus.
To be a paraplegic in Jesus' day meant you didn't have a life ... literally. Ancient Rome was not kind to the disabled. Handicapped babies were often left outside to die. At one time, Rome actually had a law on the books that said, "Quickly kill a deformed child." But if you did survive infanticide you didn't have much of a life to look forward to.
This man's whole world was defined by a three foot by six foot burlap mat that he called home. He ate on that mat, slept on that mat, urinated on that mat, begged on that mat, and felt imprisoned on that mat. There were no doctors or hospitals, surgeries or treatment centers that could help him. Nothing could be done for him medically. He was a hopeless case.
His whole life he was dependent on someone else to feed him, to clothe him, to carry him, to move him, to change him, and to bathe him. He had nothing to contribute to society. All he could do was beg people to drop enough coins on his mat to keep him alive for one more day. His "as is" tag was real big, like three feet wide by six feet long. It wasn't hard to see that this guy was slightly irregular.
And in Israel, where this man lived, he would have suffered from another stigma. It was commonly believed that if people were suffering physically, they had done something to bring it on themselves. In another New Testament story, the disciples see a man who was blind from birth and ask Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Many in that day would've looked at this man with absolutely no pity, figuring that he was getting from God exactly what he deserved.
So the paraplegic in this story has no money, no job, no influence, no family, no future. Nothing. And he would have been a totally hopeless case except for one thing. He had one thing going for him. He had friends. This man had four amazing friends. Somewhere along the line he had built a little community, a support system of four committed comrades, a band of brothers who were about to step up and help heal his life forever.
Community is not something we drift into. Community takes intentional effort on our part. And this man had made the effort. Psychologist Alan McGinnis who wrote The Friendship Factor says that the number one rule for entering into deep friendships is this: Assign top priority to your relationships. Sounds so simple, but that's a huge challenge in our culture.
We read romantically about the early church in the book of Acts and how they worshiped together and ate together and talked together and prayed together and it all sounds so wonderful. And we're drawn to it. But we can get so frustrated because we try to create first-century community on a twenty-first century timetable and it can't be done. We'll never fit deep community into the cracks of an overloaded schedule. So what do we do? Give up?
Ortberg says, "Wise people don't try to microwave friendship, parenting, or marriage. You can't do community in a hurry. You can't listen in a hurry. You can't mourn in a hurry with those who mourn or rejoice in a hurry with those who rejoice. Many people lack great friendships for the simple reason that they have never made pursuing community a high priority. You can't carry somebody's mat in a hurry. And everyone comes with a mat."
We don't give up. Instead, with God's help we assign top priority to our relationships. That's the reason we haven't loaded this church up with a lot of unnecessary meetings, because from the start we wanted to provide you and me with the time we need to build deep community in our marriages, with our families, and with a few choice friends. We don't want the church to add to the busyness to our lives because community takes time. And the paraplegic in our story had invested time in these four friends and they had in him.
It wasn't hard to see that he was "not normal." His mat was obvious to all. And I'm sure there were times when he must have wrestled with his condition and the sense of dependence he had on these guys. I'm sure there were times he struggled with jealously when they would drop him off at his house and then walk out the door on legs that worked. I'm sure there were times he got so angry and wished he could hide his mat or destroy his mat altogether.
The mat in this story stands for the weaknesses we all have. It stands for our brokenness and our imperfection. Every one of us has a mat. Some, like this man's, are more obvious than others. It's the "as is" tag that we all try to hide. But if we try too hard to keep it hidden we will never develop deep community, we will never get close to anybody. We have to take a risk and open ourselves up.
In her book Community and Growth Jean Vanier writes, "There is no ideal community. Community is made up of people with all their richness, but also with their weakness and poverty, of people who accept and forgive each other, who are vulnerable with each other. Humility and trust are more at the foundation of community than perfection."
If you want a close friendship, you can't always be the strong one and pretend that everything is fine. That will block community. There have to be times when you let someone see your mat and help you carry it. That's what makes healing possible. That's the power of community. And that's what happens in this story.
One day this group of friends hears that Jesus is coming to town. One of them says, "Great, let's go see him." Another says, "Wait a minute. We can't just go by ourselves. We've got to take our friend. This could really encourage him. And maybe, if what people are saying about Jesus is true, he could even heal him. Wouldn't that be awesome?"
So they stop by their friend's mat and literally pick him up and take him to Jesus. They get him to the home where Jesus is teaching and it's packed out. Even the handicapped spot is taken! SRO ... standing room only. Jesus is so close, yet so far. So they kick themselves for not getting there earlier and they're about to leave when one of them says, "Hey, wait a second. I've got an idea. Follow me." And he leads them up an outside staircase and out onto the roof.
In those days, stairways like that were common and flat roofs made of reeds and dried mud were used like patios to catch the cool Mediterranean breezes. So they get up to the roof and start remodeling this guy's house! They dig through the mud and in between the crossbeams and install a skylight big enough to lower their friend right down in front of Jesus.
And as Jesus is teaching the packed room starts to hear a strange noise coming from the ceiling. Then dust and dirt starts falling down, getting in their eyes and hair. But Jesus keeps on teaching. Then huge chunks start dropping to the floor. And finally, Jesus stops and looks up to see a hole in the ceiling and four pairs of eyes staring down at him while the man is lowered to the floor.
Meanwhile, the homeowner's on the phone to his insurance agent wondering if this mess is going to be covered under his homeowner's policy. Maybe he can call it an act of God, after all, Jesus is there!
These men are so devoted to their friend, they so badly want to bring him to Jesus, that they refuse to let a little obstacle like a roof get in the way. Ortberg calls this "roof-crashing community." It's the kind of community that involves two things: noticing and doing. It means when you see a friend discouraged, you write a note or pick up the phone. When you know someone really needs to talk, you turn off the TV and take time to listen. When someone new walks into your circle you reach out and invite them in.
This week I received a breathtaking e-mail from a teenager who went on the recent Young Life winter weekend. And in it she describes this kind of "roof crashing community."
She writes, "When I signed up for the winter weekend there was doubt hanging over me. Unlike all the kids who knew each other from Young Life, I didn't know anyone who was going ... So I climbed onto the bus and sat uncomfortably by myself for more than half of the trip to New York. Suddenly I was beginning to think this wasn't such a good idea. You know how you talked about feeling lonely in a crowded room? Well, that's how I felt sitting in that bus packed full of people. Finally, someone came up and sat with me. I don't think he realized how good that made me feel. I could have squeezed him to death. That's how happy I was. He then introduced me to his friends who introduced me to their friends. And as the weekend progressed, I ended up meeting tons of awesome kids that I never would have met ... I can honestly say ... the weekend proved to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me. For the first time ever, I felt the presence of God and I made the decision to hand my life over to him for good ... I continue to attend Young Life and Valley View High where I have experienced a community like never before!"
That's the healing power of community. And it started when that guy took the risk to sit down next to that girl, on her mat, and meet her in her loneliness. He crashed through the roof and look what God did. God loves to use people to heal people.
Jean Vanier writes, "A community is never there just for itself or for its own glory. It comes from and belongs to something much greater and deeper: the heart of God to bring humanity to fulfillment. A community is never an end in itself; it is but a sign pointing further and deeper, calling people to love."
Now imagine you're the guy on the mat. You're about to take the biggest risk of your life. You're about to go through the roof to see Jesus! What's he going to do? What's he going to say? Maybe, he'll be ticked off because you interrupted his sermon. Maybe he was in the middle of a really good story or a powerful point. Maybe he can't heal you at all or won't? And what about the crowd? How will they react? Will they be civil or hostile?
Besides you wonder, "What if they drop me?" On the other hand, if you don't go through the roof you may never have another chance to get healed. This is your one shot at wholeness. So there's this long pause. Your friends are staring down at Jesus and Jesus is looking up at them.
He sees their four dirty, anxious faces, but he sees something else. He sees their hearts full of faith, not asking anything for themselves, but only for their friend. And he turns to the man on the mat lying in front of him and says, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
That's a strange thing to say! The man didn't come to have his sins exposed. He came to be healed. But Jesus is healing him, inside and out. He's healing him of his anger and bitterness, resentment and jealousy. He's saying, "You're clean. You're forgiven. You're right with God." And then to prove his ability to forgive sins, he heals his paralysis and says, "Take up your mat and walk! Show everybody that a miracle has happened today."
And the religious people go nuts. They accuse Jesus of blasphemy and they question his authority. They miss the whole point. They didn't bring anybody to Jesus. Instead, they got there early, sat in the front row, and tried their best to catch Jesus saying something wrong.
The man walks out of the room, runs up to the roof and throws his arms around his friends. Yes, Jesus did the miracle. But these are the friends who brought him to Jesus. Without them there would have been no miracle. There would have been no healing.
Community is a powerful thing. It has the power to heal and to give life. And you find that kind of community often expressed in friendship, or in a marriage, or in a small group, or in a church, wherever there are two or more people who possess an irrational commitment to care for each other.
It's not always easy. It wasn't easy for these four guys to lug their friend to Jesus and tear a roof off. But a deep commitment to community and the willingness to assign top priority to your relationships can overcome the obstacles of busyness or fear or conflict or indifference or the awkwardness of sitting down on a bus next to a person you don't even know. Those are the roofs that need to be crashed through. And when they are healing and wholeness happens. That's the kind of community where Jesus shows up. That's the kind of community we want to be.
Lesson number one ... everyone has a mat. Lesson number two ... everyone was created for community. Lesson number three ... the community we were all created for has the incredible power to heal.