7th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sermon – Year B Homily
Key Text: Mk 2:1-5
Faith is seeing a roof, when the door is closed
There was once a man who believed that he was dead. He put himself on the bed and told people round him, “I am dead.” He stopped eating, drinking and going about his normal life. His people were getting worried. Doctors were called in. But none was able to convince the ‘sick’ man that he was not dead. Finally, there came a psychotherapist. The therapist asked the sick man, ‘So, you are dead’? ‘Yes, I am dead.’ ‘Do dead bodies feel pain? The therapist went on. ‘The sick man knew the right answer, ‘No, they don’t!’ And the therapist said, ‘So we are going to perform a test on you. We will know for sure if you are dead or not.’ The therapist took a sharp needle and poked the man very hard. The sick man went, ‘Ah… stop it.” He was in pain. Now the therapist asked him, ‘Did you feel pain?’ ‘Yes, I did.’ ‘So you see, you are not dead.’ The sick man said, ‘Doctor, I have learnt one thing new today. That, even dead people feel pain!’
Some management specialists have defined ‘insanity’ as doing the same things over and over again always expecting different results.
My experience of counselling has taught me that people who are most difficult to accompany towards growth are people who do not see alternatives. They are constantly bogged down by problems because they focus on impossibilities. When the counsellor proposes an alternative, these people would come up with a very good argument why it is will work!
Our Christian faith, on the other hand, should help us to focus on possibilities. Yes, I think, faith is the willingness to see alternatives. In fact when we pray, things may not change overnight. But prayer does help us see possibilities where previously we saw only impossibilities.
In today’s Gospel, we have a powerful story of faith. Jesus was in a house in Capernaum– may be Peter’s – preaching to the people (Mk 2:1-5). There was no more room. The door was blocked. There came four men carrying a paralytic, they could not get the man to Jesus through the crowd. It was apparently a situation of impossibility. They were blocked, but they refused to be stuck. “They stripped the roof over the place where Jesus was; and when they had made an opening, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic lay. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘My child, your sins are forgiven.’” Often while working miracles Jesus demands faith. On this occasion, ‘seeing their faith’, Jesus cures the paralytic. The four men not only had faith that Jesus could heal the man; they also had charity in bringing the paralytic to Jesus. And above all their faith gave rise to hope. They saw a way in. They saw an alternative. They saw the roof.
We have many such stories in the Gospels.
In John 5:1-9 we come across a sick man lying near the pool ofBethesdafor 38 years. John tells us that Jesus knew that the sick man was in this condition for a long time. But when Jesus asks him, do you want to be well again? The man is not able to see a way forward. He is too focused on the impossibility: “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed; and while I am still on the way, someone else gets down there before me.” He sees only one way he could be healed: by getting into the pool. He has been blocked by this dis-empowering vision for 38 years. Jesus helps him see an alternative, a simple trust in a higher power: “Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around.” So that’s it. It works. The man is healed, not only of his illness, but of his inability to see alternatives. When Jesus meets him later in the temple, he warns him, “Now you are well again, do not sin any more, or something worse may happen to you” (v.14). What could have been the sin of this man who lay in the same place for 38 years? His sin perhaps was his inability to see alternatives. His lack of faith! He was stuck on his journey.
Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was (Lk 19:1-10). He became aware of his thirst for God. He went searching. But he had two problems. First, he was short. This problem was part of his person; perhaps, a personal weakness. Second, “because of the crowd.” This difficulty rose from his environment. But Zacchaeus was not bogged down by these impossibilities. He saw a way out. He saw an alternative. He saw the sycamore tree. There he encounters Jesus. Rather, Jesus encounters him. And Jesus tells Zacchaeus at the end of the day, “Today salvation has come to this house”, because Zacchaeus could see an alternative. Zacchaeus saw the tree, encountered Jesus, ate with him and was ‘justified’.
These stories, including the one in the gospel of today, could have at least two implications for our lives:
One, in our daily lives: in dealing with people, in finding solutions to the problems of our ordinary lives. Perhaps we are too much focussed on problems. And we continue to generate too much negative energy around us, making our own lives and that of others around us, miserable. May our Christian faith help us focus on possibilities!
But this could be even more meaningful in our spiritual journey, our faith journey. May be, we have too many questions than answers. We want to believe. But all that we see are reasons why not to believe. We want to experience God in the person of Jesus, but it all seems so remote. Perhaps, we are victims of our own personal choices and bogged down by our environment. Our accessibility to Jesus may be blocked by our busy schedule, by our trivial commitments, by our trifling disappointments.
May we see the tree! May we see the roof!