The Church Underfoot

“One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.” – Luke 5:17-19

This story is one that those who grew up in the church have heard many times. We’ve imagined what it was like to dig through the roof and to lower the paralyzed man down before Jesus. But have you ever noticed why they had to do that? Have you noticed the crowd that was underfoot? Have you noticed who it was that made up the crowd?

It was the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law that made up the crowd. Now, I may be reading something into the text that isn’t there, but I assume they were there to “test” Jesus – to examine His theology (that is, after all what they seem to be doing in the rest of the gospel!). Yet Jesus was there that day to heal. He was not there primarily to teach, but to heal. So on that day, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law were only in the way. It was their presence (along with that of the others who were there to be healed) that kept the paralytic from being brought before Jesus.

Now, I have learned to read “Pharisees and Teachers of the Law” as “church folk”. I don’t do this because of a dislike for church folk or because I see negative similarities. I do this actually for all the positive things I see in the Pharisees and Teachers – a zealousness for their faith, a knowledge of their religion and religious heritage, and a thirst to continue to grow in wisdom and knowledge. The Pharisees and Teachers were there for the right reasons, but on the wrong day. They were only in the way.

This thought causes me to wonder. How often do we “church folks” who are thirsting for wisdom and knowledge about Christ get in the way of His work in our world? How often do we misinterpret Christ’s agenda in our world? Our community? Our church?

Perhaps the mistake of the Pharisees that day was to assume that it was more important to know about God than to join Him in the work. We do well to remember that “God so loved the world that God sent the Son” (John 3: 16 paraphrase) – that God’s Great Love was and is expressed through action. And we ought also to remember that we (the local church) are now His Body in our world and we are to be the instruments of that love. We are to be His “hands and feet”, not underfoot.

Prayer: Lord, help us to be your Body, to bring healing to those who are crippled by life and not be the obstacle that prevents them from being brought to you.

 

 

 

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