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Mark 2:13-22

¹³ Jesus^* went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. ¹⁴As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.

¹⁵ And as he sat at dinner^* in Levi’s^* house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting^* with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶When the scribes of^* the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat^* with tax-collectors and sinners?’ ¹⁷When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people^*came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ ¹⁹Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

²¹ ‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.²²And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’^*

Lenten Reflection for Thursday, March 5 
Ann Mellow 

Mark 2: 1 - 12 

²When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. ²So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. ³Then some people^* came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. ⁴And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.⁵When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ ⁶Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ⁷‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ ⁸At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? ⁹Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? ¹⁰But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic— ¹¹‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’¹²And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’ 

Jesus is always turning things upside down. What a troublemaker!  It would be so much easier just to go along as usual. Even when things are tough, we often resist changing our perspective.
 
The people who cut through the roof to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus were willing to take a chance in faith and hope. Perhaps this new prophet would be able to help. And, as is often the case in the gospel, those with power, the scribes who write the rules and shape reality, were not happy at all with Jesus coloring outside the lines and forgiving the man his sins. After all, who does this man Jesus think he is?
 
And Jesus, as is his way, doubles down by performing a miracle, as if to say, “What does it take for you to get unstuck, to change, to see the presence of God right in front of you? This man will walk. Is THIS enough?”
 
How often are we like the scribes, debating the boundaries of our known if sometimes unsatisfying world view and reality, unwilling or unable to see a different way, a scary way, an unknown way, one that is right in front of us – a life-giving way that Jesus holds out to us.
 
And the man in the story was literally paralyzed. But sometimes I can feel that I am also paralyzed, stuck, held back in some way by the daily-ness of life to let God in and allow my life to be transformed. 
 
The Mothers have consistently challenged us as individuals and as a community to take that brave step to walk more closely with Jesus; to open ourselves to God and to unknown possibilities, ones that might even turn our own worlds upside down. To learn to walk anew. It is a journey worth taking, I think. 

Lenten Reflection for Wednesday, March 4 
Ellie Berlyn 

¹ Corinthians 2:1-13

²When I came to you, brothers and sisters,^* I did not come proclaiming the mystery^* of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. ²For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. ³And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. ⁴My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom,^* but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

⁶ Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. ⁷But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹But, as it is written,

‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
   nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him’— 

¹⁰these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. ¹²Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. ¹³And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.^*