The Love Triangle: You, Jesus, and the Mat

I just got home after our week 2 large group on campus--the first full week of classes, heading into Labor Day and it's been a great start to the year.

Tonight I spoke on what it meant to be a community of faith. And I used the passage from Mark 2, the paralytic on the mat.

To sum up: paralyzed guy gets carried by his friends to see Jesus. They can't get to him because of the crowd where he's teaching, so they climb up to the roof, dig a hole in the ceiling and lower him on his mat in front of Jesus.

I don't think that there's any greater picture of a community faith than this: to be a group of people who are so radically committed to getting on another in front of Jesus that we'll do whatever it takes, even tear holes in roofs, in order to get you there.

But in order to live as a healthy, interdependent community of faith, we have to understand our relationship with the love triangle of you, Jesus, and the mat.

There are three more extreme ways that we can relate to the mat.

1. Some of us don't want anything to do with the mat--we want mat-independence.

We don't want to be needy or broken, so we won't lie on the mat. And we don't want to have to be bothered to help others who are needy or broken, so we won't carry the mat. We've bought the uniquely American myth of the radically independent and autonomous individual.

But to have any part of Jesus means we must deal with the mat. Because the only way we come to him is by lying on it, confessing our need and his sufficiency. And the only way we follow him faithfully is by helping to carry others to him, and taking our turn on the mat when need arises.

The call here is to repent. Independence is a myth, a lie. We are hard-wired for relationship, first with God, then with one another. We must learn healthy inter-dependence. We must learn to relate rightly to Jesus and to the mat.

2. Others of us love the mat, in fact, we're mat-addicted. We love crisis, drama, and all the attention and affection we get when we're lying on the mat. Perhaps it starts as genuine need, but we grow comfortable here, become used to being the center of attention. For some of us, it's the only way we feel loved.

The call here is to hear Jesus words: "take up your mat and walk." Jesus speaks words of healing over us, and calls us to trust him--his love is sufficient for our needs. The call to those who are addicted to being on the mat is to walk in the power and healing of God. That's a process, but it starts by being willing to get up off the mat.

3. But the most common issue here at UNC: those willing to CARRY the mat for others but who are unwilling to LAY on the mat themselves. These folks are willing to serve, but hate not having it all together, hate being needy or broken or vulnerable.

And we can make it sound so spiritual: I don't want to impose. I don't want to be a bother. I don't want to sound like a whiner.

But the reality is that the reason we won't lie on the mat, even when we need to is one word: pride. That's not selfless or spiritual at all. It's just death. And the call here is to repent of that pride and to die to our desire to be seen as strong or powerful or polished and to engage in real relating with the people around us, Jesus, and the mat.

There's a time for all of us to carry the mat for others and a time to lie on the mat ourselves. That's genuine, real, healthy, interdependent Christ-centered community.