Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time 2006
There is a lot in today’s gospel. Can’t get through the front door? Go through the ceiling! Seeing their faith: faith as a
communal reality, a communal surround not just one on one,
and as such all the more powerful, also for forgiveness. Unpacking those words of
Jesus, “My child”, this man, this child of God. But I’d like to meditate especially on the
two-fold response of Jesus, this double wonder which
astonished everyone, we have never seen anything like this.
Christ came on earth to save sinners, so
that sins might be forgiven. But he also
spent a lot of time curing diseases and casting out demons, both to forgive his
sins and to cure the paralysis. How does
it all fit together? And how do they
relate to each other?
I think we can start off with the position
that we ask God to have mercy on us because of our sins rather than in
spite of them. It is something bad,
awful, like disease, the difference being that we are complicit in our demise
as well as in that of other people as well as doing harm to other people. So we are not just miserable, we are
responsible, we are guilty. We have been
co-opted, or have co-opted ourselves, in our own demise. But this does not make it less bad, this
complicity of ours makes the harm and damage worse. It penetrates more deeply, it touches into
who we are, mind body spirit. It
requires healing, indeed, a greater and deeper healing, and so we pray, “Lord,
heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.”
And God in Christ comes to do just that.
God, and Christ seem to have two attitudes to us sinners. There is an element of paying tribute to our
victims. This comes through sometimes in
the gospels, for example when Jesus’ little ones come into question. But the over-riding attitude of God in the
Scriptures and of Christ to sinners is pity or compassion, and it is
compassion for us in our sin rather than in spite of us. Because of where it leaves us and what it
makes us: Christ goes to seek us out because we are lost. And to provide healing from
the inside out, as well as from the outside in.
This makes for an interesting meditation on
today’s gospel, namely on what might be the relationship between forgiving the
sins and getting rid of the paralysis.
Whatever it is the paralysis is not a punishment for the sin: that’s an
attitude which the ministry of Christ serves to abolish. But it could well be an expression or
partly an expression of a deeper paralysis, a paralysis of mind and heart and
spirit: a paralysis in which the guy is complicit, yes, for sure, he is a
sinner, he has co-opted himself in his own individual demise, which may or may
not also be expressing itself physically.
But it’s a paralysis all the deeper for that reason. The communal surround of faith provokes Jesus
into action to provide a way out.
This then in turn gives an interpretation
of what Jesus might mean when he says he is going to prove that he can forgive
sins: it is not just a miracle showing that we can trust him generally,
we can take him at his word. The fact
that the paralysis is gone may be showing us directly that the sin is also
gone. The deeper paralysis of spirit having been lifted, the after-effect can
now be got away. It is the full person
who gets up, picks up his stretcher and goes off home, totally healed inside and
out, totally healed from the inside out.
To some extent it can also go the other
way. A person bent double can be also
bent double inside, tied down by their physical illness. Physical illness of one kind or another can
have strong effects on the spirit, absolutely no fault of our own, and
therefore not going right to the innermost person, but there nonetheless, and
part of the overall hurt. Jesus comes to
heal such people also, operating from the outside in rather than the inside
out, but the effect is the same: leaping up and praising God. Like with the paralytic, though in his case
it’s very much from the inside out, a deeper problem requiring a deeper
healing. Lord, heal my soul, for I have
sinned against you.
There is at least one other message, from
the first and second readings, which connect with this.
Jesus, generally speaking, doesn’t
say: repent, you horrible awful
people. He says,
the time has come and the
This is a new deed, in Christ, then, in which as St Paul says, God is displayed as
always Yes, all Yes. It is this new deed
in Christ in which God is displayed as all Yes, which makes repentance such a
good idea in the context of the ministry of Jesus. And so, almost paradoxically though not
really when you think about it: confession and repentance makes most sense in a
situation when in the light of God’s Love, God’s all Yes, the fact that we have
sinned and the fact that we are sinners doesn’t matter any more. In a world lit up by God’s Yes, we can afford
to admit our sins and our status as sinners, because in the light of this love
revealed in Christ it’s all taken care
of! God is all yes, come to the party,
partake of my goodies, forgiveness is on offer, healing is on offer, from the
outside in or from the inside out, whatever is needed. Sin is blotted out, new garments are
supplied, come along and enjoy.
This Yes of God in Christ Jesus is
expressed in all our sacraments, just lit up differently in accordance with
situation or time of life. And it is not
just the sacrament of penance or confession or reconciliation which lights up
this element of deeper healing that this yes brings. The Mass does it also and in a powerful and
indeed obvious manner.
My weeks here at the Cathedral have done a
lot to restore my faith in the sacrament of penance in the old sense of
individual Confession. Here it’s real,
on Saturday morning 11.30 – 12.30, full on for most of that time and sometimes
quite powerful, also before mass.
Whereas at Daisy Hill, it was a time of an hour of nice, quiet
meditation, settle down, read the homily, catch up on the Catholic papers kind
of thing. Though I
still regret the stupidity of those people who stamped on the Third Rite, the
most powerful ritual in our armory at the time, which maps in a kind of way
onto our Gospel: healing to the depths,
supplied within and sustained by a communal surround of faith.
But the Eucharist also lights it up, eh,
whatever the rules and laws may say, from the ‘I confess’ onwards, Lord have
mercy, Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world have mercy on us, hear
our prayer. This is my body, given up
for you, the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which shall be shed for you
and for all, so that sins may be forgiven, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us, Look not on our sins but on our faith and the
faith of your church, our communal faith – seeing their faith, the Gospel text
says. Lamb of God, you take away the
sins of the world, this is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the
world. Lord I am not worthy to receive
you, but only say the word and I shall be healed, or only say the word and my
soul shall be healed.
They are not in competition, though, they
light up the same Yes.
I’m sure God’s attitude is, the more the merrier. I’m sure Christ also, like those very
creative stretcher bearers, in getting under our roof, is well prepared to go
through the ceiling if He can’t get in through the front door! Whatever works, whatever it takes, to provide
this deep healing to us, healing to the depths, so that we can take full
advantage of this New Deed, this Divine Yes, to participate fully in the
Banquet that he comes to put on.
I’d like to finish with a poem which sums
it up, also making the connection with the Eucharist. It’s from George Herbert, entitled ‘Love’ , first line “Love
bade me welcome” (Google on “George Herbert Love” for
copy).