Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
“Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say ‘Rise and walk’?”
If a paralytic approached me and asked me to make it possible for them to walk, I would know I was sunk. No can do. I can help you revise your paper, maybe. But enable you to walk? That is, as they say, way above my pay grade.
But which is easier? And why is Jesus charged in our Gospel reading today as a blasphemer?
I’ll answer those questions with a story.
I really wanted to become Catholic. I wanted so badly to have other folks who knew a lot more than me teach me how to worship, how to read the Bible, how to follow Jesus. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to figure all that out for myself.
Bill and I thought about becoming Catholic for a number of years. We were members of a Baptist church. Our pastor was amazing—preached the Gospel every Sunday. But, like Luther, we wanted the body and blood. So, both being divorced, we took our chances and met with a Catholic priest. He was warm and welcoming and clearly wanted to help us realize our hopes.
But we had a problem—namely, that while Bill had every good reason to seek and receive an annulment of his first marriage, he couldn’t do it. Given the process for annulment for someone not baptized into the Catholic Church (the ex-spouse has to be alerted regarding your intentions) that was just going to (in our estimation) be too hard on our two eldest daughters.
We thought that was the end of it for us and the Catholic Church.
To our surprise, we were later encouraged by our dear friend, Sandra Yocum, to talk to Father Satish. As anyone who has ever taken their prayers to Father Satish knows well, he channels Jesus!
According to the Bible commentary that I consulted this afternoon on our Gospel reading from the book of Matthew, that’s the vocation of the Church. Channel Jesus.
With Father Satish’s encouragement, Bill and I signed up for RCIA. We were super excited. Along the way we learned a great deal about the Catholic Church and what it aims to be about and, just for fun, what the ambo is. For someone like me, who was raised “unchurched,” to be able to say that the “ambo” is where the Word of God is proclaimed is a major accomplishment.
It was all looking good. We loved Sunday after Sunday of RCIA, and homilies, and dismissal. Soon enough, Easter vigil was just around the corner.
And then . . .trouble. Father Satish notified our RCIA class that in preparation for becoming members of the Catholic Church, it was important that we submit to the Rite of Reconciliation.
Aw, geeze. Really? How about Bill and I just up our tithe instead? Wouldn’t that work? Nope.
It took some time, but I finally screwed up my courage, made my appointment with Father Satish, and started making my list. I was in my fifties, so my list of sins wasn’t short. Moreover, I got my BA from the University of Wisconsin. Can we say “party school”? Like I said, my list wasn’t short.
I met Father Satish in his office. Tutu was an angel. She received me enthusiastically, almost as if I belonged in the Church.
I made my way through my list. It was painful. I cried. Thankfully, this was not Father Satish’s first rodeo. He had plenty of tissues!
And then, after I had exhausted my list, he said it— “child, your sins are forgiven. Your sins are to God like a tiny drop of water released into the ocean.”
What?
No wonder Jesus was accused of blasphemy. No wonder he was crucified. He was preaching theo-logos. So different from anthro-logos. Anthro-logos is all about the rule of man—black and white, right and wrong, good people and bad. And then there is theo-logos. Altogether different.
God was made incarnate in the Virgin Mary and became man. That’s theo-logos. Anthro-logos struggles to embrace that.
I get why people were freaked out over Jesus. Like those who accused him of blasphemy, we want to imagine that we are the faithful. The good people. The righteous. And that others are not.
But Jesus is relentless on the point. You who think you are righteous—get behind me.
I’m still working to believe that my sins are, for God, a mere drop of water in the ocean.
Jesus isn’t a blasphemer. He fulfills God’s promise—to love us no matter how long our list. The logic of God is not the logic of man.
Love. Grace. Forgiveness. Our culture knows too little about theo-logos.
I’ll die in peace if I finally internalize what Jesus offers: “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.” Now, “rise and walk!” Amen and amen!
—Susan Trollinger