Those Inside the House
Southeast Christian Church Luke 5:19 says, “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.” The verb tense here is this idea that these friends tried and tried to find a way; they kept trying to find a way, and they were waiting to find a way. They were working at getting through the crowd, but they just couldn’t squeeze their way through all the people already inside the house. But they didn’t find some reason to say it was just too hard, too expensive, or too distracting. They go up to the roof, all of them together, and they lower their friend down in front of Jesus after literally wrecking the roof.
The friends came to this radical idea because the people inside the house weren’t making any room available to them so they could get their paralyzed friend to Jesus. To us, this may seem incredibly insensitive or rude, and yet, it happens so often in the Church today too. It happens in the church when we care more about keeping things intact than about restoring lives that have been shattered. It happens when we are more upset about stuff getting broken than we are excited about broken things being mended. It happens in the church when we're more focused on debating the teachings of Jesus than we are focused on people being forgiven and healed by Jesus. It happens when we're more upset about the church being messy than excited about messy people coming to church. It's when the church exists for itself and makes no room for those on the outside. To those on the inside of the house: we should always be thinking, praying, dreaming, and loving those outside the house.
Reflection/Discussion Question: When have you found yourself being more concerned about what is happening inside the house than with loving those outside the house?
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