Small Groups - Breaking and Entering

Enjoy this summary of an article by John Ortberg about the value and importance of true community. 

One of the great stories in the Bible about community involves a paralyzed man and the friends who brought him to Jesus (Mark 2:1-8).

Imagine what life was like for a paralytic in the ancient world. This man's whole life is lived on a mat three feet wide and six feet long. Someone has to feed him, carry him, clothe him, move him to keep him from being covered with bedsores, clean him when he soils himself. He will never know the sense of independence we prize so fiercely. He has no money, no job, no influence, no family, and seemingly not much of a future.

What's he got going for him? He has friends. He has amazing friends. He is in one of the killer small groups of all time.

In one sense, this whole story takes place because of his friends. Without his friends he never makes it to Jesus, never gets healed, never gets forgiven.

Choosing community
Because of his physical condition, the deck was stacked against friendships emerging here at all. This is a fast-paced world, and it is not a very gracious place for those who can't run as fast as others.

Yet, here is a little band of men who refuse to let any obstacle stop them. And this is a key point: Their little group did not come about by accident. In the face of formidable obstacles—social stigma, inconvenience, financial pressure, a high cost of time and energy—they chose to become friends.

The requirement for true intimacy is unhurried time. If you think you can fit deep community into the cracks of an overloaded schedule—think again. Wise people do not 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 or rejoice in a hurry.

Many people lack great friends 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.

The Fellowship of the Mat
Think about what the paralyzed man goes through in order to be friends with this group of men. He must have wrestled with his sense of dependence. It is a very vulnerable thing to have someone carry your mat. When somebody's carrying your mat, they see you in your weakness.

There is the gift between these friends: trusting vulnerability and dependable faithfulness. This mat, which according to society should have created a great gulf between him and them, instead became an opportunity for servanthood and acceptance. This group becomes the Fellowship of the Mat. Wherever human beings love and accept and serve each other in the face of weakness and need, there is the Fellowship of the Mat.

If you want a deep friendship, you can't always be the strong one. You will sometimes have to let somebody else carry your mat.

A gang of roof-crashers
Then one day Jesus comes to their town. These four men find out about it, and naturally they want to hear this famous rabbi.

One of them says, "We can't just go ourselves. We've got to get our friend there. To do that is going to make things harder logistically, but they're not thinking about themselves. They are thinking of him. Friends do that. Friends serve each other.

When they get to the home where Jesus is teaching, it is standing room only "There was no room left, not even outside the door," the Bible says. Then one of them gets an idea—probably the youngest guy the tattooed and pierced guy, because he's an outside-the-box thinker.

"Dudes! What if we make a hole and lower him through the roof! Whoaaa!"

The man's friends must wonder how Jesus will respond to their unconventional plan.

Jesus looks up and sees the faces of four friends staring down at him. They have nothing to ask for themselves. Their only thought is, "If we can just get our friend close to Jesus … " That's what great friends want to do for each other.

Then the text says an amazing thing: "When Jesus saw their faith … "

Usually healing stories speak of Jesus seeing the faith of the one asking for healing for themselves or their child. Here it's the faith, not primarily of the man, but of his friends.

A big hole in the ceiling, four faces in it—sweaty, dusty, anxious, hopeful faces thinking only of their friend and trusting somehow that Jesus will respond. Jesus sees a group that possesses and acts on an irrational commitment to the well-being of one of its members.

Jesus turns and looks down at this twisted, motionless body on a mat. He sees not only a broken body but—as in every one of us—a broken, fallen soul.

He speaks tenderly: "Son, your sins are forgiven."

I wonder what the man on the mat thinks at this point. He hadn't really signed up to have his sins talked about.

It is striking that Jesus knew the man needed forgiveness as well as healing. A friend of mine asked recently, "What sins can a paralytic do, anyway?" Jesus understood, of course, that the deadliest sins—resentment, arrogance, judgmentalism, lovelessness—are ones we can commit without lifting a finger.

The gift that keeps living
A key part of this story is that there are others present in the room—teachers of the law, people who were thought of (and thought of themselves) as spiritual giants. They apparently arrived on time and got good seats. But you will notice that they had no friends to bring to Jesus. They were supposed to be the spiritual ones—but apparently no one they knew was hurting or confused or needed Jesus.

There is an important implication to this. It is simply impossible to love the Father without also sharing his heart for people.

I grew up in circles where many people thought they were becoming more spiritual because they attended many church services or watched many preachers on television or memorized many Bible verses. But their hearts for people—especially for people far from God, for the lost, for the searching, for people with bad habits—got a little harder and colder and more judgmental year after year. What is bad is not just that this happened but that these people thought they were growing spiritually.

The truth is, the more spiritually mature you grow, the more you will find your heart drawn to people. You want to reach out to people, especially those neglected by society or far from God.

The man stands up. He lifts his mat off the ground. He folds it up. He has spent his whole life on that thing. And suddenly—never again.

His world has enlarged from three-by-six to as far as his feet can carry him. Not just his body has been healed. His heart has also. His soul. Every sin has been forgiven. Physically, relationally, spiritually, he is the healthiest guy in the room.

Imagine when he becomes an old man and hits 80. The other members of his small group are using walkers and canes. His legs are still running strong.

Source: Small Groups - Breaking and Entering