Don’t Wait for the Brick
Mark 2:1-12
February 23, 2003
St. John United Methodist Church
David Beckett, D.Min.

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. Who could blame him, with his Jag boasting a 240-horsepower engine? He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars, however, and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag’s side door! He slammed on the brakes and spun the Jag back to the spot from where the brick had been thrown.
He jumped out of the car, grabbed a kid with a buzz cut, wearing tattered cargo pants and pushed him up against a parked car, shouting, "What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing?" Building up a head of steam, he shouted, "That’s a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?"
"Please, Mister. I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do," pleaded the youngster. "I threw the brick because no one else would stop." Tears were dripping down the boy’s chin as he pointed around the parked car. "It’s my brother," he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair, and I can’t lift him up." Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He’s hurt and he’s too heavy for me."
Deeply moved, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He lifted the young man back into the wheelchair and took out his handkerchief and wiped the scrapes and cuts, checking to see that everything was going to be okay. "Thank you," the grateful child said to him.
The man then watched the little boy push his brother down the sidewalk toward their home. It was a long walk back to his Jaguar ... a long, slow walk. He never did repair the side door. He kept the dent to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.
God whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart. Sometimes when you don’t have time to listen, he has to throw a brick at you. It’s your choice, each and every day: Listen to the whisper….or wait for the brick.

The four friends in today’s gospel account heard the whisper, which is why they took the drastic action they did. They learned that a healer named Jesus was in the town of Capernaum, so they put a paralyzed friend on a mat and carried him to Jesus’ house. When they arrived, however, they found that the house was packed, and the crowd was spilling out into the street. There was simply no way that they could elbow their way inside, especially with the human load they were carrying. So they grabbed some bricks of their own to get the attention of the others. Climbing to the roof of the house, they punched a hole through the roof and lowered the paralyzed man down on his mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he proclaimed to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Then he said to the man, "Stand up, take your mat and go to your home." And he stood up, picked up his mat and walked out through the front door, amazing everyone in the house.

God whispered in the souls of those four friends and spoke to their hearts. He inspired them to seek out Jesus, using whatever means necessary, and to trust him to heal their paralyzed friend. When the foursome dug through the roof, Jesus looked up at their dusty faces and saw their faith shining through.
The question for you and me is, "Would he see the same in us?" Tragically, most of us are moving too fast and making too much noise to hear the gentle voice of God. Our windows are rolled up, our heaters are blowing, our CD players are cranked, our 240-horsepower engines are roaring, and we have little chance of hearing the whisper.
We often don’t pay attention until we get hit by a brick. And then, when we do try to get involved with others, it can still fall short because our connection with the needy and marginalized is peripheral at best. We touch the lepers, warns Miriam Adeney, "at arm’s length, without ever leaving the security of our own turf. Loving our neighbors means something more. It means being vulnerable. It means entering into their pain. When God in Jesus came to live among us, He shared our troubles and felt our hurts."

Faith without works is dead and that’s why the foursome in Capernaum had to punch through the roof to get their paralyzed friend to the healer. It was only when there was dust on their faces and dirt under their fingernails that Jesus looked up and saw their faith.

So what are you going to do this week to make your faith visible? The young executive in the Jag lifts the hurt boy back into his wheelchair, takes out his handkerchief and wipes the scrapes and cuts. That’s active faith. Another person spends a day each week reading and singing with patients on an Alzheimer’s unit. That’s visible faith. A family devotes a night on a regular basis to working at a local shelter for the homeless. That’s faith in action. An individual serves as a Stephen Minister and acts as a caring presence in the life of someone who is feeling alienated from friends and from God. That’s faith you can see.

On a grave in Ruleville, Mississippi, there grows a cactus, one that flowers every so often. It has been there since 1977, when a woman was buried there after having lost her battle with cancer. On the tombstone, under the name of Fannie Lou Hamer, are the words she lived by: I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Fannie Lou Hamer is not the kind of person, if you look at her early life, who you would think likely to have been written up anywhere, any time. She was the 20th child of a family of black sharecroppers in the poorest part of the poorest state in the nation. When she married and found she couldn't have children, she and her husband adopted two daughters. Her only talent was the ability to sing, especially the spirituals which were so much a part of her life.

In 1963, when she was 45, she heard a speech that turned her life around. In the speech, she was told that she was a citizen and could vote. So she tried to register but failed the literacy test which was then required. She vowed she'd be back the next month to try again -- and again -- and again -- until she passed. The landlord came and told her that if she persisted, she'd lose the little bit of farming equipment she had and the land she and her husband were sharecropping. She persisted and was evicted. One of the voter registration groups heard of her courage and asked her to work for them, which she did. In her travels, she was arrested for going into the whites only part of a bus station, hauled off to jail and badly beaten. After some pressure from the U.S. Justice Department, she was released. Surprisingly, the bitterness that might have been there wasn't. As she put it, "It wouldn't solve any problem for me to hate whites just because they hate me."

Here was a woman, mostly self-educated, who decided in the latter half of her life to use the God-given power that was hers for bringing justice to Ruleville and other parts of the South. And so a cactus blooms over a grave that friends had to take up a collection to buy. And the cactus stands as a symbol of a woman who could bloom in the midst of an arid desert of injustice and hatred.

Sometimes, it seems that Christians like you and me hide behind our niceness. We don’t want to get too close to the poor and needy, especially the mentally ill. If I’m holding one end of that stretcher with my paralyzed friend, and I see the crowds surrounding the home where Jesus was teaching, I could easily turn around and forget the whole thing. Nice people don’t destroy peoples’ roofs. Nice people don’t throw bricks at new cars.

In Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days, Muriel Kebsback, a sickly 17-year-old, spends much of her time looking for signs and omens. One day when she goes to a clearing in the woods, she feels that a vision or miracle is about to occur. She fantasizes that Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility will give her a message of great importance like the one received by the children of Fatima. The pope would then send an emissary to hear the message. But she would decline to reveal it until a time more than 20 years later. In the meantime, a shrine would be built in this place. And in the proper year, she would reveal the message from God: Be nice.

Be nice was the most powerful message that poor Muriel could conceive. It's not bad. Not too complex. Perhaps profound in its simplicity. And who could dispute its value? But being nice is not Jesus' message. It's love God and others. And loving sometimes means being demanding. Sometimes it means getting dirty. Sometimes it means knocking holes in peoples’ roofs.

The key is to listen for the whisper, and then act. To get up, get moving, get lifting, get carrying,... whenever you hear the gentle voice of God calling you to do some work on behalf of others. Sure, there may be some barriers that separate you from Jesus, and from people around you. But like the fearless foursome of Capernaum, you can break through them.

When you place the needs of the world in front of Jesus, amazing things can happen. The paralyzed can be healed. The hungry can be fed. The oppressed can be freed. The poor can be helped. Peace can break out, justice can be done, and hope can replace even the most desolate forms of despair.
It all starts with hearing the voice of God, and taking action. Quick. Before the next brick hits.

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Copyright © 1998-2004 Jon S. Dawson.  Last modified: February 01, 2009

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