Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. When we hear the Gospel passage today, we hear about two, maybe three, individuals or groups: the paralyzed man and his friends; the scribes; and our Lord. For today’s homily I’d like to focus on those three as we meditate upon the Word of God, and seek what the Lord is saying to us.
Think of his friends, too. In this passage we don’t have any sense of who wanted to see Christ. Did the paralyze man hear about this itinerant rabbi who healed people? Did the friends have some experience of the Savior, and then want to bring their paralyzed man to see if Christ would heal him? We don’t know. But we do know that, whoever desired it, or desired it more, the friends brought the paralyzed man to Jesus. They did what he could not. They became one of the causes of his healing.
I preach about friends on a pretty regular basis, partly because of what a treasure friends are. I have used the quote of St. Thomas Aquinas: “There is nothing on earth more to be prized than true friendship. Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.” I think the Angelic Doctor here is not talking about a mere acquaintance, someone you know and with whom you enjoy spending time, but especially a true friend, someone who helps you to grow in virtue. Any friend who brings us to Christ is a friend worth having. Any friend who can rejoice with us and commiserate with us, but who directs both back to God and His Divine Plan supports us in our desire to be saints.
Do your friends bring you to our Lord, or do they pull you away from Him? Can they help you find healing, the healing that you desire and even maybe the healing of which you are not even fully aware? Friendship is a great means of spreading the Gospel. It may not happen all at once, and sometimes trying to force the issue of faith can strain a friendship. But do we share Jesus with our friends? One of the things I enjoy doing as a Michigan State Police chaplain is sharing my faith with others. And the conversations come quite easily because they know I’m a priest. But your friends should be able to ask you about the Lord, too, and should presume that you know Him, because you are His friends. Conversion may take place over a long period of time. Or maybe it won’t happen at all, as people have free will and can walk away from the Lord, even if He invites them to follow Him. But do we participate in sharing our faith with others, and bringing them to Christ?
The third group is the scribes. They are not the favorites in almost any Gospel passage. And we can see why. Our Savior heals the paralyzed man, and what is their response? Not, “That’s wonderful!” or “Praise God!” Nope. They accuse Him of blasphemy. To be fair, if Christ isn’t God, then it is blasphemy. But if Christ isn’t God, or at least a great prophet of God, could He heal a paralyzed man? The scribes immediately accuse Christ of one of the worst sins. Their hearts are closed to the work of God.
We can also sometimes be like the scribes. If something good happens, we get suspicious if the person doesn’t fit into our categories, or doesn’t have the same expression of faith that we do. We set ourselves up as judge of what God can do, and what He cannot do. To be fair, St. John the Apostle was in that same group once. In Mark, chapter nine, John says, “‘Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.’” You can almost imagine the Savior cocking his head to the side with a quizzical look. I mean, what was the other option? Letting the people continue with their demonic possessions? Maybe John should have thought it through a little more. Christ does answer John, saying, “‘Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.’”
Lastly, we have the Person of Jesus. Liberal Scripture scholars will often pedal this nonsense that He never claimed to be God. They must have missed this passage. And a lot of others. Here, and elsewhere, our Lord takes as His own that which was proper to the Lord, the way that the Jews would refer to God. In this passage, He forgives sins. The scribes are right in asserting that only God can forgive sins. But that’s exactly our Lord’s point. He reveals Himself as God through the forgiveness of the paralytic’s sins. This was the first and primary miracle that the Lord worked for the paralytic. But, as a sign that He can forgive sins, Christ also heals the man and allows him to walk.
Do we accept that God is God and we are not? I know that seems like it has an obvious answer, but how many times do we, whether directly or indirectly, say to God, “I can handle this. Let me take care of this one. I know what’s best here.” Pride always lurks, seeking to have us put ourselves in the place of God, just as the devil tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. We put ourselves, or some other material good, in place of God, and set up our little altars to worship our will or our possessions. But that’s not respecting who God reveals Himself to be. Our approach should always be, “Thy will be done.”
As you go home today, think about who you identify with the most in this passage. Is it the paralytic? Is it his friends? Is it, and be honest here, the scribes? Most likely, we go back and forth among the three. For those times when you’re like the paralytic, ask God to heal you, especially your spiritual paralysis. For those times when you’re like the friends, ask God to identify for you those whom you can bring to Him for healing. For those times when you’re like the scribes, ask God to heal the hardness and blindness of your hearts so that you can recognize God’s work, even when it happens in ways you’re not expecting. Have faith that you can be healed, no matter who you are, by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
