THE WORD
Is 35: 1–10 / Lk 5: 17–26
One day as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with him for healing. And some men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed; they were trying to bring him in and set (him) in his presence. But not finding a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of Jesus.
When he saw their faith, he said, “As for you, your sins are forgiven.” Then the scribes and Pharisees began to ask themselves, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who but God alone can forgive sins?”
Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them in reply, “What are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’ he said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.” He stood up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God.
IN OTHER WORDS
There are people, and there will always be people, who will see the bad rather than the good side of things. There will be those who will criticize anything and everything that I do whatever real merits I or my work may have. They probably are just jealous, so they will look for and find fault here and there and everywhere.
If I try to please them, I will never succeed. I will try to weigh what they say but I may not waste my time aching for their approval. Let me rather recognize the positive things happening around me, the beautiful things that other people are doing. In time, I hope the nasty ones will learn the good in their own way, in their own time.
The Pharisees and teachers of the Law in today’s Gospel episode look at Jesus. They seem to be doing so sincerely, trying to see the good in what Jesus is doing. And yet they also seem to be alert to possible wrongdoing. Though He would address them eventually, Jesus sees something else first: their faith. Whose faith? That of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law? Oh no. The faith, rather, of those who carried the paralytic all over town to be healed by Jesus, but not finding a way to Jesus through the door, let their companion down through the roof – right down to where Jesus was.
I imagine the process. They leave the paralytic on the ground. They climb up the roof, they undo the tiles, and when there is a big enough hole on the roof, come down to the ground and lift their friend on the stretcher up the roof and down the opening to where Jesus was sitting inside the house. I imagine this must have been a rather large hole the paralytic’s friends made – the length of a man’s body lying down in a stretcher. But they do what they have to do and make that laborious but loving gesture to have their paralytic friend delivered right in front of Jesus.
It was their faith that Jesus first saw. And because of their faith – not even that of the paralytic, if he had faith at all – he said “As for you, your sins are forgiven.” Who does Jesus mean by “you”? The paralytic? Perhaps. But more probably, Jesus meant those who were on the roof who had just lowered their friend on the stretcher. It was their faith that Jesus saw, so it must have been their sins that were forgiven.
Only a short while later does Jesus directly address the paralytic himself and heal him, making him able to walk. To his credit, too, the healed paralytic goes home, glorifying God.
What do I learn from this? That by our faith and love, we help one another and ourselves. As John Donne once wrote, “No man is an island. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” And a song continues, “Each man’s joy is joy to me, each man’s grief is my own. So, I will defend each man as my brother, each man as my friend.”
Oh, Jesus, did the people on the roof put the tiles back on? I hope they did.
- Fr. Roderick Salazar, SVD (CKMS, QC)
The Word in other words 2015
An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.
