I remember I was coming home from the gym one morning several months ago and I was listening to the radio. WBEZ was doing a series on how the pandemic had impacted people’s lives and the episode was on this very topic. Different people were telling stories of how the process of caring for their loved ones had been completely upended by the pandemic.

The one that really stuck with me was a woman who was caring for her mother who had Alzheimer’s. She was used to taking her mom out to the senior center for breaks. When the pandemic lock-down began, she was with her mom 24/7 and her mom became even more confused because she got knocked out of her routine. She said constantly being at home with her mom felt like being trapped in a prison with no possibility of escape. I will be honest with you, until hearing that story, I had never even considered what it would be like to care for someone in that position.

What I had been focused on all this time is what Kim Hogan was talking about—how do we care for people who have contracted COVID. And it just so happens that the same day I heard that interview, I was meeting with Sharon Ferdinand for communications planning. I mentioned this was one of the topics I wanted to include in my fall sermon series and she said, “Well, that’s my issue.” And as you heard her talk about, she’s been caring for her husband who has Parkinson’s disease.

What you could probably hear in her voice is how the pandemic put of all the pressure of caring for her husband on her. Whereas previously, Sharon could spread out that care through the various services her husband utilized, now she was a one stop shop. Indeed, one of the biggest challenges, beyond even the care itself (where she talked about the challenges of administering the medicine), was the fact that people with Parkinson’s need to be out and about. They need to be active to keep their brain stimulated. Sharon’s husband used to go to the gym or spend time with his friends, but with the pandemic, now she was his only social outlet.

Understandably, Sharon is exhausted. You could hear it in her voice. Day-in and day-out, she never really got a break. And she suffered like this in silence. I don’t think she would have mentioned it unless I had brought it up at our meeting. And at one point, I asked Sharon, “How do you do it? How do you get up every day, facing this uphill battle with these heavy responsibilities, knowing that this progressive disease will only get worse? How does it not break you?” Sharon’s response was amazingly simple, “He’s my husband and I love him and, when push comes to shove, I would do anything for him.”

We see this kind of love in the story we read today from the gospel of Mark. To provide a little context, Jesus has been out and about, preaching about the kingdom and healing the sick and his reputation has spread so much that now people are beginning to seek him out. When Jesus returns to the town of Capernaum for some rest and relaxation in Peter’s house, people begin to swarm around the door. In fact, there are so many people seeking Jesus’ help that Jesus can’t even stand in front of the door to address everyone. He’s forced inside by the crowd.

Well, in the midst of all this, there’s this guy who’s paralyzed who wants to be healed by Jesus. Being paralyzed at any point in history is challenging, but being paralyzed in the ancient world was incredibly difficult. There was no thought of helping those with disabilities (like what we’re trying to do with the wheelchair lift in the Memorial Prayer Garden hallway). In fact, depending on the severity of the disability, it was not uncommon in the ancient world to euthanize the disabled because the burden on the family would be too great.

So it’s important for you to understand that having a disability, particularly one where you could not walk, meant you were living your life on the margins. And you will notice that in this story, it is not his family who is trying to get through the crowds to help him see Jesus. Instead, four friends are carrying him on a stretcher. Although we can’t say for sure, it is likely that this man is cared for by his friends. They are there for him day-in and day-out, just like Sharon is there for her husband day-in and day-out.

They see an important opportunity with Jesus being in town. Perhaps Jesus could heal their friend? Unfortunately, the crowds are so great that there is no way they’re going to be able to get their friend through to see Jesus. So they come up with a plan—rather than break through the crowd and go in the front, they will go around to the back of the house, climb up on the roof, lift their friend up onto the roof, tear a hole in the roof and lower their friend down to see Jesus.

Now that, my friends, is love. They will do anything to help their friend find some relief from his burden and, when Sharon told me her story, I immediately thought of this parallel from the Bible. Sharon’s love for her husband and the friend’s love for the paralytic are of the same nature. They are both willing to do anything to see their loved one healed.

Which raises an interesting question: to what lengths are you willing to go to heal those who are struggling in your life? I think that when it comes to our family, most of us are willing to do just about anything to help them. But what about people who are outside of our families? What about your friends, acquaintances or even strangers? This is where Kim Hogan’s story comes into play.

From the time I first came to this church, I realized Kim was a force. She is a deeply caring person and it’s in her nature to get into the fray. As you could hear from her interview, give her a challenge and she will rise to the occasion. Most people, given the option to work with COVID patients, would, understandably, run in the other direction. Kim walked straight into the chaos.

And she’s not the only. So many of our medical personnel put their lives in danger to care for us. They were around this virus all the time and were doing everything in their power to save anyone who was sick. We owe them a debt of thanks for what they did and what they are doing now to save so many lives. However, I want to focus for a moment on Kim’s reflections on performing these assessments.

If you remember, she said that when people came to her with symptoms, they would often ask her, “Am I going to die?” That is such a heavy question to lay on someone’s shoulders. Personally, I love her response, which was “Not today.” It’s both true and honest, but does not give them false hope. I can relate to being in her position of being asked questions like that because I have been asked the question by someone who was dying, “Do you think I will go to heaven?” My response was, “I’m not God, but based on the life you’ve led, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” Now if TC asked me that question on his deathbed, I would probably give him a different answer. You know, you don’t want to give people false hope.

Another aspect of Kim’s interview I want to highlight is how, for some of her patients, she was often the first person who had touched them in a while. In our world today, because we are rightfully worried about inappropriate touching, we are now erring on the side of keeping our hands to ourselves, which was made even more acute by the pandemic and not wanting to spread germs.

But humans are not really designed to go without person-to-person contact for long periods. It can be destructive to our emotional well-being. To be clear, I’m not talking about sexual touch. I’m really talking about a handshake, a hug, a pat on the shoulder. These things are important because they make us feel alive and when that gets stripped out of your life, you start to feel disconnected and isolated from the world around you.

This is something that happened a lot with the people who Jesus healed. Many of the people who sought Jesus out were people who had diseases that rendered them untouchable. For instance, if you contracted leprosy, you had to abandon your family, your friends. Indeed, you were expected to carry a bell around your neck and every time you walked into a public space, you would have to ring the bell and yell, “Unclean! Unclean!” to let people know you were nearby. Like a bomb raid, when that bell would go off, everybody would scatter.

Therefore, when Jesus went to heal these people, like Kim, he was often the first person to have touched them, possibly for years. Just the willingness to touch those who are untouchable is incredibly healing in and of itself. But then like Jesus, Kim does have the ability to offer actual healing to her patients. In the world that we stepped into with the pandemic, I think it takes a lot of bravery for us to jeopardize our health to enhance the health of others, particularly the health of strangers. It’s what Jesus did 2000 years ago and, in many ways, I see our healthcare professionals as walking in Jesus’ footsteps by taking a leap of faith and setting aside their needs for the needs of others.

Indeed, caring for the needs of those who are sick is part of our calling as Christians. We read this morning from Matthew 25. I try to talk about Matthew 25 at least once a year because it is so central to our walk as Christians. This particular section of Matthew 25 describes a scene where Jesus is sitting in judgment of all the humans on earth. Those whom Jesus loves are referred to as the sheep and those who Jesus rejects are called the goats. In this scene, Jesus is separating the sheep from the goats.

The criteria Jesus uses to determine whether or not you are a sheep or goat is based, not on what you believed, but rather, on what you did with your life, how you acted. And Jesus is very specific about the actions he expects from others: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, caring for the sick and visiting those who are in prison. Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Now you’ll notice that within this list is caring for the sick. Part of the calling of the Christian life is that you don’t have an option not to care. You have to be there for those who are struggling, but in the midst of the pandemic, this has been really hard to do. The title of this sermon is called Caring Paralysis and the reason why it’s called that is not only because of Sharon’s story where caring for her husband has immobilized her from being able to live her life in other ways. It is also called that because we’ve stopped caring for each other.

I’ve mentioned in past sermons that, when we are isolated from each other, we lose touch with our empathy, sympathy and compassion. We have to be in community to feel empathy, sympathy and compassion because being in community causes friction and friction helps us to see the world from opposing perspectives. But when we’re isolated, we start to turn inward and we become myopic, only really caring for ourselves. It’s a bit paradoxical: You have to be with the people in need to care for them, which leads me to the point of this sermon.

My hope and prayer for you this morning is that 1) you would do what Sharon said and just reach out and spend time with people who are isolated and alone. That can mean the world to them and make such a huge difference. 2) You need to get into fray like Kim. I don’t mean go work on a COVID unit. I mean get into the mess of people’s lives. Get into the problems they face. Don’t fold into yourself. Don’t shy away from the hard situations. God has given us a great responsibility as Christians and it’s important for us to remember, if you want to be a sheep and not a goat, serving others needs to be our top priority. Amen.