Let’s talk about sin. Ah, come on. You knew it was coming. I’m from Texas. I’m a Christian. You knew I’d get around to talking about sin.

            And of course, like so many other Christians, we don’t really mind talking about sin as long as we’re talking about someone else’s sin, right?

            Actually, like you, I don’t like talking about sin. I am uncomfortable with so much of that language. ( And for good reason.)

            But since the focus of the gospel story this morning is Jesus saying to a paralytic that his sins are forgiven, we can’t really understand what is meant by forgiveness without talking about sin. We need to know what it was being  forgiven.

            Most of the time, when people talk about sin, they mean an action that is against the mores of society.

            A friend of mine used to tell a story that described that kind of thinking perfectly. What my friend discovered was that there existed what he ended up calling ‘regional sins.’  My friend had grown up in a rather fundamentalist church in Texas, and like many of those churches, they were pretty clear about what was sinful. He knew where things stood:  no dancing, no drinking, no smoking,  no swimming in mixed crowds, or anything else that might tempt people into the multitude of sexual sins, among other things. Imagine his surprise when he moved to Wisconsin and discovered that swimming in mixed crowds, an absolute ‘no-no’ in the South, was not considered a sin by the same denomination in the North. My friend (who, by the way, ended up an engineer and asked way too many questions for that brand of Christianity) wanted to know how something could be a sin in one part of the country and not in the other. What he discovered was that the swimming season was too short in Wisconsin to allow for such purity. There you have it: regional sin.

            Justo Gonzales, points out that “most of Christianity, however, is aware that sin is both an action and a state. As an action, sin is a willful violation of God’s will, and therefore one may speak of sins in the plural and classify them according to various criteria. But in a deeper, even the deepest sense, ‘sin’ is not an action, nor even an attitude, but a state, a condition in which humans find themselves estranged from God and therefore also from each other and from the rest of creation.”

            To put it simply, according to Dr. Gonzalez: “Sin is a barrier that separates humans from God; standing between what we are and what we are intended to be.”  

            I want you to remember that as we turn to this story in the gospel.

“Sin is a barrier that separates humans from God; standing between what we are and what we are intended to be.” And I want you to remember that story about the healing of the paralytic and the pronouncement that his sins are forgiven and the ruckus  Jesus’ words  raised with the scribe has been selected as an Epiphany reading. Not a Lenten reading. We expect to talk about sin during Lent, don’t’ we?  Sin and repentance and hopefully,  forgiveness. That’s the stuff of Lent.

            But we aren’t in Lent yet. We are still in Epiphany. We are still in the season of revelation. Of ah-ah! Of light and a conscious awareness of God at work in our lives. An awakening, if you like. New beginnings.

 In this text, we are invited to be open to revelation;  an epiphany, as we talk about sin.

            “Sin is a barrier that separates humans from God; standing between what we are and what we are intended to be.”

            Now, keep in mind in Jesus’ day that any kind of illness or disability was a punishment for sin, as we look at this story of the paralytic lowered through a roof by his friends for healing.

             This man, in the eyes of his culture, was a sinner.

            All we know is that he was a paralytic, and that he had a group of friends, among whom  four friends who were willing to carry him to Jesus for healing.            

             Doesn’t it make you wonder what kind of person this ‘sinner’ might be . . .this ‘sinner’  who had  ‘some people’ – among them four friends so committed to his well being that they loaded him on a stretcher, carried him to where Jesus was, and then, when the room was so crowded there was no room to stand, figured out how to haul him up to the roof, remove a part of the roof, and then carefully lower their friend down so that Jesus could heal him. To have friends like that, one must be a good friend, I would think. He had friends who knew there was something more to this paralytic than his sin. Something about who he was and how he was in relationship to others.

I have heard people say, “I would do anything for this or that person.” There aren’t many people in our lives for whom we would be willing to ‘do anything.’ This fellow had a bunch of friends, and four  friends who were willing to do so almost anything. Which says to me that this person was well loved, valued, and important to his friends. This paralytic may have been viewed by some as only a cripple, or only a sinner, but he was not seen that way by everyone.

            So, perhaps we need to look closer at that definition:

            “Sin is a barrier that separates humans from God; standing between what we are and what we are intended to be.”

            Perhaps in this case it was not the ‘sins’ of this man as defined by the mores of the day that separated him from God. Perhaps it was not even the state of sin that stood between what he was and what he was intended to be.

            Perhaps it was a barrier woven into the domination system that was in the way, that was the barrier.  Perhaps it was that very system , the one that blamed people for their differences that was the barrier. Perhaps it was something like the’isms’ that so cripple many in our day and time: classism, racism, able-bodism, heterosexism or another of those ‘isms ‘

            Perhaps there was something in his life that those in his culture had determined was sinful--  but  that he experienced in a different way. What do we do when some choose to label as ‘sin’ the very thing we have experienced as bringing us closer to God, and closer to our real selves? Something that is part of how we are created? 

            That kind of disconnect between what we know and what others think they know, that labeling, that kind of judgment can cripple us, if we accept their judgment. For to accept that judgment is to swallow lies whole or even bits and pieces of lies.  Toxic untruths.  And that can separate us from God and stand between what we are and what we are intended to be. It is the state of sin to allow ourselves to be named by anyone save God, to let our value be determined by anyone save God, to let anyone save God determine how our lives are to be lived. Because that is the essence of idolatry. It is allowing someone or something else to be our god.  The disconnect between what is true and what the domination system would have us believe about ourselves can paralyze us, especially if we are unable or unwilling or lack the strength to stand up to those assumptions, If we have not yet been empowered to name our own truths, claim our belovedness, know our worth as children of God and take a stand not just for our sakes, but for the sake of truth itself. At the core, liberation is a rejection of false idols, and a return to God.

            You see, the domination system works at keeping us from being our true selves. The dominations system seeks to strip us of our power, strip us of feeling valued, beloved, worthwhile. It is the domination system that separates us from God and becomes a barrier to what we are intended to be. Whole and real and honest.  But it can only work if we are willing to believe the lies.

            The system is sinful. And our fallenesss is believing the lies of the domination system.

            Close your eyes and imagine the friends who carried this paralytic to Jesus as his chosen family. Others who had also been judged, labeled, wounded by narrow mindedness and misunderstanding. But they were able to walk because they refused to accept others definitions of who they were, and whose they were. They were empowered by claiming their truth  and they went to enormous lengths to empower their friend. Or perhaps among them were those who were advocates or allies, who had also learned to say ‘no’ to the lies, and were ‘standing with.  ‘It was the friends who had faith in this story. They were the ones who knew things were not as they should have been.  They were the ones who did not accept the domination system as the highest power. They were the ones who knew there was a greater truth. These friends were able to walk when the paralytic could not. Because they knew where to find the truth. They did for him what he was unable to do for himself. They knew that truth would set him free. They knew that love would unbind him. They knew to seek the Source of Love in the face of the denomination system.            

            God bless the folks who keep the faith in the face of great prejudice and greater misunderstanding and ignorance. God bless the folks who say ‘no’ to lies. God bless the folks who reject false idols and turn to God.

            God bless those who do the hard work of lifting others up rather than putting people down. God bless  those who are willing to help carry the load. God bless those who see the power of community: that together we can accomplish things we could not manage alone. God bless those who are, with others, a movement of solidarity; the movers and shakers  who, when doors aren’t open or blocked, are willing to find creative ways to help others gain entrance, so that they, too, may know the truth about their own belovedness.

            We are told that when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”

            Pay attention.

‘Child, your sins are forgiven.’ Child. Child of God. That’s who he was.  That’s who we all are. That’s how Jesus saw him. That’s how the God of Jesus’ understanding knew him. Loved him.

            “Your sins are forgiven.”   The lies that have been told, the prejudice, the judgments of others – the brokenness of the domination system; it has no power over you. It is not the truth about who you are. Like shackles, those lies must fall away.

            The state of sin in which you have lived has now been exposed as a lie, a myth. Not reality. It has no power over you. Let it go. Don’t continue to ‘buy’ it. Don’t swallow that toxic untruth any longer. Nothing can separate you from God’s love; don’t give your power away.

            The hope in this story is there for all of us. For all the lies we’ve believed and told, and all the pain we’ve inflicted and been wounded by; for living in a state of unreality.

             For whatever has stood between God and us and kept us from being more fully who we were created to be, this story offers an epiphany about sin and forgiveness.

`William Countryman says about this story:

            “What God says to you in Jesus is this: You are forgiven. Nothing more. Nothing less. This is the message Jesus spoke and lived.

            But is it really good news? And for whom? . . .  It looks . . . as if the good news was originally good for ordinary people who were not particularly pious nor particularly respectable. To them, God said in Jesus, “You are forgiven.’

            God might have said it more simply: ‘You are loved. I love you.’ This message is true, but it would have been ambiguous. It might have meant, ‘I love you because you’re good. It might have meant, ‘I still love you and would like to go on loving you, but I won’t tolerate your behavior much longer.’

            Instead, God says something quite unambiguous: ‘You are forgiven.’ What this means is, ‘I love you anyway, no matter what. I love you not because you are particularly good nor because you are particularly repentant nor because I’m trying to bribe you or threaten you into changing. I love you because I love you.’ “        

            That’s the epiphany moment in this story. The liberating moment in this story. God loves us because God loves us. That is the truth. Nothing else.

            And, like all liberation movements: liberation brings change and  there is always resistance to the change that occurs. The scribes are up in arms about Jesus’ saying, “Your sins are forgiven.”

            “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” It’s hard to see realtity when we are stuck in the dark myths of the domination system.

            The argument that ensues is about Jesus’ power to forgive sins. An argument that seems to end as the previously paralyzed man takes up his mat and saunters out on his own two feet.   

            Walks out knowing he is loved by God simply because he is loved by God.  Nothing can change that, and I would hope that for the rest of his life, no one could convince him otherwise,  or take that away from him. God loves him. God loves him because God loves him.

            In our epistle we are told that in Christ it is always “Yes.” The ‘no’ of the domination system is replaced by a resounding ‘yes.’

 “For in Christ every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’     . . . it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting the seal of Christ on us and giving us Christ’s spirit in our hearts as a first installment.”

            Do you see this fellow, with his mat rolled up under his arm walking out into the warm sunlight -- his heart filled with God’s love, into the arms of his friends, high-fiving and saying just that, ‘Yes!  God said Yes! Yes, by God!  Yes, to who I am! Yes to life! Yes to love!  

Yes, forever!

Yes, yes, yes!”