I am referring, of course, to the care-givers, to those who, like the friends in the account we just read from the Gospel according to Luke, care for others.

The primary focus in the account is, of course, on Jesus, on the way in which he is filled with the healing power of God, on how he incarnates the power of God to heal and forgive sins. The secondary focus is on the man who was paralyzed, unable to walk, who is both healed of his physical ailment and granted forgiveness of sins by Jesus. And almost lost in the shuffle are the anonymous friends.

You know their story, because for so many of you, this is your story. You know what it is like to be the care-giver. You are the young parent up at all hours of the night trying to soothe a colicky infant, having to take another sick day from work to sit at bedside with a child suffering from still another earache or case of the stomach bug, or trying to figure out how to give a bath to a child in a cast after the snowboarding accident – continually short on sleep, frazzled and often at your wits end, too worn out for intimacy with your partner, wondering what ever happened to that fun-loving and care-free person you used to be. You are the spouse, making still another run up to the hospital with your mate so they can get another round of chemo, another dose of radiation. You are the adult caring for aging parents in that in-law suite, trying to keep track of all their meds, navigating the intricacies of Medicare and Medicaid, trying to keep their finances in order, and all the while trying to keep your own health and work and life on a somewhat even keel. You are the mom and dad of a child who had a run-in with the law, now trapped in the uncaring bureaucracies of schools and courts, and you find that it is a full-time job to help your child through these challenges.

You know their story, but not only from situations in your homes and families, but because this is what many of you do here, in the church. You are care-givers here in so many ways. You are members of the TLC, the Tender-Loving Caregivers, bringing meals to those at home and recovering from an illness, driving ill members of the congregation to doctor’s appointments, making a friendly visit to a shut-in. You are members of the Called To Care lay visitors, spending an hour with a church member who has lost their job, is struggling to recover from a broken relationship, or simply can no longer get out of the house. You are members of a Bible Study group, or the Guild, or Women in the Spirit, and where there is a need, be it at a home, in a hospital, or in the waiting room outside of a court room, you are there.

Luke’s account of the friends and the paralyzed man is for each and every one of you, for care-givers everywhere. In other accounts of miraculous healing, the healing is attributed to the one who suffers from a physical, mental or spiritual condition – “Your faith has made you well” says Jesus -- but here, the deciding factor is not the faith of the paralyzed man, but that of his friends. The ones who cared for this man day in and day out, who tended his needs, who provided for him, who braved the crowds barring the way to see this healer from out of town, who even went so far as to haul their friend up onto the roof, break through the tiles barring their way, and lower him down right in front of Jesus. “When he saw their faith”, Luke tells us – when Jesus saw the faith, the determination, the imaginative way in which these friends let no obstacle stand in the way of the healing for their charge – when Jesus saw their faith, their friend was healed.

As Fred Craddock observes, “Here is the church in miniature: a person being sustained by the faith of others when his or her own condition – physical, spiritual, or mental – is at least temporarily far short of sufficient.” (Preaching through the Christian Year, B).

This is what you, in your own right, do as well. You bring healing to those you care for. Sometimes that healing takes a physical form – relief from pain, calming of a fever, a boo-boo-band that takes the hurt away. Sometimes that healing takes an emotional form – your caring presence and sympathetic ear open a door to a sense of calm, your sage advice helps a friend set their feet on the right path. Sometimes that healing takes a spiritual form – your prayers and faith surround someone in a divine embrace, and even amid the worst of times, they understand that they are beloved by their Creator and of infinite worth just as they are.

You, as care-givers, share Jesus’ healing ministry. And you know that this care-giving, while often difficult, has it rewards. And yet, who cares for you? Who cares for the friends whose limbs ache from carting that man across town to see Jesus, who laboriously haul his bed up, hand over hand, onto the roof, and whose palms suffer rope burns as they gently lower him to Jesus? Who, in short, cares for the care-givers?

First off, you do. You, the care-giver to others, you care for yourself. I think this may be hard for many of us, particularly when we get so wrapped up in caring for the needs of others. And yet the truth of the matter is this – if you don’t care for yourself, there will be little left for caring for others. By taking care of yourself, you help maximize the care you can share. If it feels selfish to you to take care of yourself, then don’t do it for yourself – do it for those you care for.

No one can run on empty for long. Not even Jesus – and you are not Jesus. We read in the gospels that even as Jesus was continually healing and helping others, he took frequent times apart for rest, to reset himself, to reconnect to his ultimate source of power – his father and our God. After healing many in Peter’s house, he went off to a deserted place to pray; after teaching by the sea, he went off for a walk alone at the beach; after healing many by the seaside, he retreated up to a mountain for a time apart; as he neared what he knew was the end of the road, he went off to the garden to pray. So you, the care-giver, you need to find ways to care for yourself. Sometimes that will mean time away by yourself – the Jesus on the mountainside model. Other times, that will mean time away with others who share similar burdens – for parents or spouses of an alcoholic, that might mean attending Al-Anon meetings, for over-stressed parents, perhaps a young parents group, for pastors like myself, a clergy support group.

So who cares for the care-giver? First, you do. And then, the rest of us do. You see, caring is not an option for us – we are a caring community, and care-giving is not something only a few of us are called to do, it is part of the DNA of the body of Christ, and each and every one of us are called to care for each other. We mediate the love and forgiveness of God through our actions.

Some of you, to be sure, have special gifts for caring ministries, or you find yourselves thrust into caring for others by circumstances. And yet that does not get the rest of us off the hook from caring for you, for doing whatever we can, in our own small ways, to support and comfort and strengthen you. It might be something as simple as sending a supportive message to a Facebook friend, or dropping a card in the mail, or making a phone call; it might be offering to provide some respite care, taking over at the bedside for a couple hours so that a care-giver might get away for just a bit; it might mean accompanying someone to doctors’ visits, being the stenographer who takes all the notes so that later better decisions might be made; it might be something as simple and yet as difficult as holding them up in prayer – I say “as difficult” because I know for many people prayer is not something they are comfortable with yet.

So who cares for the care-giver? The care-giver does, and you do, and above all, Jesus does. For we are all, each one of us, paralyzed in our own unique way, just as that man in the gospel was paralyzed long ago. We each are “other-abled”, and the worn-out, exhausted, just done-in care-giver is no less in need of healing than the person they tend day in and day out. And yet to each one of us Jesus offers the same healing power, the same message that our sins are forgiven, the same good news that we are loveable and loved, not lost but ever kept in the presence of One who will not let us go, not alone but members of a community which supports and sustains and upholds us. And, finally, not even required to have it all together, because, thanks be to God, we have friends who will bust through roofs to bring us the healing we need, and the friend of all friends, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, who at the last will say to each one of us, “Stand up and take your bed and go to your home.”