Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time B.
February 19, 2006. Our Lady of Grace 5:30, 9:30.
Isaiah 43:18-19, 21-22, 24b-25. Mark 2:1-12.
Joe was an old grump. Beside this he also had severe arthritis
and diabetes and high blood pressure. Joe went to doctors often and took many
pills to cure his aches and pains; Joe had trouble sleeping at night. He
was haunted by troubles from the past, demons that went on haunting him. He
hadn’t been very good to his wife who had died several years back. He was
not very close to his children who seemed to be moving farther and farther away
from him. He knew that the terrors of the night had something to do with
his drinking and his temper when his children were young, but he didn’t want to
think about that now. Telling his children that he was sorry would only
open old wounds he thought to himself. God, too, seemed distant.
While he went to church regularly, at least while his wife was alive, God had
moved as far away from him as he had moved away from any real relationship with
his wife and children. Joe was anxious to take every new medicine
advertised on TV and he visited his doctor often looking for a cure for his
illness. What Joe refused to recognize was that his biggest problems were
spiritual, not physical. Joe had been spiritually and emotionally
handicapped for most of his life. Taking more or better medicine was not
the answer for his deeper problems. Joe was a grumpy, bitter old
man. He had an illness that only the grace of God can cure.
Four men brought a paralyzed man to Jesus looking for a
cure. When Jesus saw their faith he said to the paralyzed man, “Child, your sins
are forgiven.” When the religious leaders in the crowd accused Jesus of
blasphemy saying, “Only God can forgive sins,” Jesus replied, “Which is easier
to say to this paralyzed man, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Rise, pick
up your mat and walk.” Then Jesus said, “So that you may know that the
Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth he turned to the paralyzed
man and said, “Get up, pick up your mat and go home.” And the paralyzed
man picked up his mat and went home.
In 1858 Mary appeared to a young woman at
Recently I did a Fifth Step with someone who is in a Twelve
Step addiction recovery program – from addiction to alcohol, drugs, sex, food,
need for love and acceptance, whatever. All addictions are pretty much
the same. The addicted person uses some chemical substance or adrenalin
producing activity to replace true spiritual health. The problem with an
addiction is that the spirit and the emotions of the addicted person are
literally starved and even replaced by the addiction. In a Fifth Step the
addicted person tells another person the exact nature of his or her spiritual
and emotional weaknesses, faults, sins and actions. The only way to
recovery for any of us, addicted or not, is to admit that the true source of
our happiness and success in life depends more on our spiritual and emotional
health, than on our physical well being alone, as important as physical health
is. Jesus said, “Which is easer to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your
sins are forgiven, or to say rise pick up your mat and
walk?’”
We all know that heath care costs are growing very
rapidly. At least some of the reason is that many wonderful treatments, new
and old, are available to us and we value physical health and vitality and are
living longer, sometimes with replaced body parts. Physical health is a
great blessing. Do we give the same attention and invest the same kind of
resources in our spiritual and emotional health as we do in our physical well
being? Jesus teaches us that forgiveness of our sins and the health of
our spirit, our soul and our personality is the greater and more important
gift. For the grace to deal courageously with the spiritual issues in our lives
we give God thanks and praise.