Ever since I posted a reflection here on the story of the paralytic's friends breaking into Jesus' house, the pericope has continued to occupy my mind and imagination. Recently I had a chance to preach in an ecumenical setting, and a whole new aspect of the story's meaning began to emerge for me. Here's the sermon. (Some of it will be a little familiar to those who read the post, especially the opening sections.) The texts were: I Kings 8:12-13, 20-21; selections from Psalm 55; Hebrews 3:1-6; and Mark 2:-12.

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I didn’t realize till I was well past seminary
and already serving in a church
that, as an adult, Jesus went to live in the city of Capernaum.
I suppose I never noticed before
because Christmas focuses our attention on Bethlehem and Nazareth,
while Easter and Pentecost put us in Jerusalem.
All the other cities of the Gospels just slide by.
Their names are familiar but they don’t mean much.
But Capernaum is important:
it’s where Jesus decided to establish his base of operations for his ministry.

Recently I realized that it’s not just the city of Capernaum that’s important.
Mark’s gospel gives us more detail than that.
I’m sure I had read Mark, chapter two, dozens of times already,
but only a month or two ago
I caught a small detail that I’d always missed before.
Jesus wasn’t just a visitor in someone else’s home in Capernaum:
as it turns out, Jesus had a house, a house of his own.

The first verse of our gospel lesson today tells us:
“And when he returned to Capernaum after some days,
it was reported that he was at home [ὅτι ἐν οἴκῳ ἐστίν].”
I got curious about that phrase “at home”—
as it is translated into English—
so I looked up the Greek.
It just says “en oiko,” “in house,” rather vague:
it could have been someone else’s house.
But a little later in the same chapter, just after the story we heard today,
it says very clearly, in Greek as well as in the English translation,
that Jesus “reclined at table in his house [ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ αὐτοῦ].”
It was definitely Jesus’ house.
Jesus was not only a guest, but also a host.
He didn’t just go to other people’s dinner parties,
but gave dinner parties of his own.

Well, what makes this more than just another interesting
but unimportant detail in the life of Jesus?
The amazing fact is not that Jesus had a house,
but what happened to his house.
For we learn about the fact of Jesus’ house
from the story of the paralytic who couldn’t get inside the house.
The house was completely full of people listening to Jesus preach the word.
The paralytic, stuck in his bed, was unable to help himself.
But his four faithful friends refused to be stopped by the crowds—
or by the fact that the house was Jesus’ own house.
“When they could not get near Jesus because of the crowd,
they removed the roof above him,
and when they had made an opening,
they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.”
Can you believe their courage—or foolishness?
They wanted Jesus to help their friend—
but they got to Jesus by destroying his house!
Making a big hole in the roof!
I’d always imagined that this was some other person’s house.
But no, it was Jesus’ house.
And yet—Jesus did not get angry about the destruction—
he did not yell at the four friends or punish them.
All he saw was their faith.
And he forgave the paralytic’s sins and healed the paralytic’s body.

We learn three important things from this little detail about Jesus’ house.
The first is that Jesus wasn’t above having a house.
A house was a useful thing for him;
it was a place to gather people to hear his word,
a place to feed them and heal them and forgive them.
But the second thing we learn, equally important,
is that the house is not more important than the people it is there to serve.
If it’s necessary to break the house,
rip it open,
destroy a part of it,
in order to forgive and heal and teach,
then that’s OK.
Go ahead and break open the house:
it’s more important to save the sinner
than to preserve the house in perfect condition.
And that leads to the third point:
even though it was the house that got broken,
it wasn’t the house’s fault
that the paralytic couldn’t get to Jesus.
It was the fault of the people in the house.
After all, why didn’t they look out the door
and see that a man needed their help?
Why wouldn’t any of them get out of the way,
even for just a few minutes?
The people in Jesus’ house acted like it was their house—
“we got here first, we’ve been sitting here all day,
we have good seats and a good view,
we belong here, this is our house.”
But when people turn Jesus’ house
into an obstacle to healing and forgiving and teaching,
then the best thing that can happen, for all the people involved,
is for the house to get broken.

This story in the gospel of Mark
isn’t the first time that God’s house got broken.
It happened quite a lot in the Old Testament.
Even early on, when the ark of the covenant was still camping out in a tent,
it got stolen sometimes.
First King David and then King Solomon wanted to solve that problem
by building a very impressive house for the Lord—
the temple in Jerusalem—
but that house also got knocked down
when Babylon came invading.
Poor Solomon thought he could solve the problem
of the Lord’s house forever,
but he was the first one to contribute to its destruction,
when late in his life he wandered off after other gods,
forgetting the one true God, Who had granted him wisdom in his youth.
The second temple rebuilt by Ezra and Nehemiah
eventually got knocked down too, by the Romans;
and the third temple of the Lord,
which is the body of Jesus Christ,
was also torn down through his death on the cross.
But this house alone, this temple of the Lord,
was raised up again to stand forever.
When we share with Christ through baptism into his death and resurrection,
we also become part of that house.
“We are his house,” as the epistle to the Hebrews tells us.
Christ is faithful over this house
and builds it up day by day.

And yet this house also has been broken.
Just like the tent that held the ark of the covenant,
just like the temple destroyed by invading armies,
just like the body that hung upon the cross—
so also the house of the Lord that is the church
has been broken.
We could blame enemies on the outside for this,
as the Israelites blamed Nebuchadnezzar and his armies;
but all the prophets told Israel
that Israel itself was to blame.
We could blame our former friends—
as we heard in the painful words of the psalm we said together:
“It is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it…
But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend.
We used to take sweet counsel together;
within God’s house we walked in the throng.”
We could say that we are innocent,
that we were always listening attentively to Christ’s word
and gathering faithfully in his house;
but in Mark chapter two we learn
that sometimes we use our attention to Christ’s word
to hide our lack of love for our neighbor.
We could make many excuses,
but maybe the answer is as simple as this:
sometimes we love the house more than we love the Lord.
Sometimes our ways of being the house
keep others from getting to the Lord
and becoming part of the house too.
Sometimes the greatest mercy the Lord can show us
is to let the house get knocked down—
and when that happens, at last,
people can be forgiven and healed and taught again.

Our Lord thinks it is a good thing to have a house.
Our Lord uses his house to feed his friends,
to heal and to preach and to forgive.
But the Lord will allow his house to get broken
if the house stops being the way to
feeding and healing and preaching and forgiving.
This breaking looks and feels very sad,
but it will turn into a blessing,
just as the breaking of the Lord’s own body turned into a blessing.
The Lord rose again;
the house will be rebuilt;
and we also shall be raised up and rebuilt
into a new house of renewed people.
Speed the day, merciful Lord!
Amen.