Another of Jesus' healings is of a man who is paralyzed (Matthew 9:1-8). The man's friends brought him to Jesus on a mat. Now we don't know how long the man had been paralyzed or why he was paralyzed. Was he born that way or was he hurt in an accident? How old is he? Is he married? We are not told. The encounter is a little strange because the first thing Jesus says to the man is, "Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven." His friends didn't bring him there to have his sins forgiven; they brought him to be healed. Evidently Jesus thought it more important to forgive his sins than to heal him physically (recall Matthew 5:27-30). Nevertheless Jesus heals him physically also. Jesus attends to the full person - body and soul. For reflection: Jesus is interested in the whole person. When I pray with someone for healing, am I listening to Holy Spirit for guidance about praying for the whole person? Who have I seen in the last few days who needs prayer for healing? Let us pray. Jesus, you set an example that is not easy to follow. People don't bring friends to me for healing. I have to be brave enough to step up and ask if they would like prayer. Even though people seldom say "No", it still takes courage on my part. Strengthen me with more courage, please.
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How many miracles did Jesus perform while he was on earth? Lots, but we don't know precisely now many. John says toward the end of his Gospel that Jesus did many miracles that are not recorded, but that John wrote his gospel so that we might believe that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing have life in his name." (John 20:31) Let's spend some time looking at a few over the coming weeks. More than once Jesus healed lepers. At that time lepers were shunned from society because leprosy was contagious. So being healed of leprosy was a life changing event. The man approaches Jesus on his knees, begging to be healed. "If you are willing, Lord, you can make me clean." Jesus replied, "I am willing. Be clean!" There is no doubt in the leper's mind that Jesus can heal him. The doubt is in whether or not Jesus would want to heal him. Jesus' response is to assure the man that he does indeed want to heal him. (This healing is recorded in Matthew 8:1-4, Mark 1:40-45 and Luke 5:12-16.) There was no medical cure for leprosy until the 1990s. For reflection: Jesus does indeed want to heal me. What do I want healed today? Will I believe more strongly in Jesus if I am healed? Will someone else believe in Jesus if I am healed? Let us pray. Jesus, because you healed a man instantaneously of a disease for which there was no known cure, I ask for your healing. I need to be healed of _____. Like the man with leprosy, I will tell others what you have done for me. What do we get by forgiving and loving others? What's in it for us? Jesus actually answers those questions. "I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:44-45a). In 6:14-15 Jesus goes on to say, "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." If we go beyond loving those who love us (Matthew 5:46), we can participate in the divine forgiveness that God the Father offers, be true sons of the Father, and have our sins forgiven also. Those promises would be incentive enough, but forgiving others sets us free from the judgments we have made (Matthew 7:1-2) and brings spiritual and (often)physical healing to our bodies. For reflection: What lingering unforgiveness can I get rid of this week, before Easter? Let us pray. "My prayer is not for them alone (the apostles). I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (John 17:20-21). The teachings of Jesus recorded in Matthew 5 are certainly counter-cultural. They were counter-cultural then; they are counter-cultural now. That's because we have never really put his teachings into practice. "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44) has never been easy. It may even be the hardest. In October 2006 a man killed a number of girls in an Amish school in Pennsylvania. Then he killed himself. Some of those families buried their daughter one day and attended the funeral of the killer the next. A year later they were still helping to support the man's widow and his three children. "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." This radical forgiveness stopped the community from being torn apart. The Amish live a counter-cultural life and they chose to follow the counter-cultural command of Jesus. Like the Rwandan people we spoke of on Friday, they took the road less traveled. They chose love rather than hatred and forgiveness rather than revenge. For reflection: "Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals - one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, 'Father, forgiven them, for they do not know what they are doing'" (Luke 23:32-34). Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. The Rwandan genocide began 20 years ago this week. There was already a civil war going on, but now there was a government-ordered mass killing of civilians of all ages, even babies. Those being killed could offer little to no resistance. It was a horrible time. What has happened since? The new government realized that they could not put half the population on trial for war crimes. So they chose, for the most part, to emulate the truth and justice commissions of South Africa. Neighbors faced neighbors with the facts of the murders. The guilty were asked to repent; the innocent were asked to forgive. It is hard to imagine even one of those meetings. Yet with one million people killed, how many of the face-offs had to be held? What if the Rwandans had followed an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (Matthew 5:38-42) instead of repentance and forgiveness? Who would be left? For reflection: From what do I need to repent? Whom do I need to forgive? Let us pray. "If today you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts" (Psalm 95:8). Let me hear your voice today, Lord. Grant me the grace of repentance and forgiveness. Jesus' next teaching in Matthew (5:38-42) is about retaliation or vengeance and is often misquoted and misused. Jesus was not condoning "eye for eye, and tooth for tooth", he was condemning it. He was continuing to point out in his teachings that the 10 commandments were a minimum. "Thou shalt not kill" was to be interpreted broadly. Taking an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth might not kill someone but it would do grievous harm, and, therefore, should not be done. The urge to get back at someone is strong within us. The bigger the wrong done to us the more we want to retaliate. We want to make them hurt and suffer as much as we do. But Jesus said to let it go. Instead, do to others what you would want them to do to you. This maxim, he said, sums up the Law and the Prophets - the entire teaching of the Old Testament (Matthew 7:12). Is this easy to do? Is it natural? No, it is supernatural. We need God's grace to do it. For reflection: Who am I holding a grudge against today? Let us pray. "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). Jesus, I need your grace to see the truth of this situation. I need your grace to see this person, who has hurt me so badly, as you do. Help me to see them through your eyes. We have been looking at Matthew 5:11-30 since March 5, the beginning of Lent. We have been using these verses as a protracted examination of conscience in preparation for Easter which is April 20 this year. The purpose of the examination of conscience is to confess our sins to God and be set free from all the things that hold us back from progressing in our relationship with Jesus. Jesus said that he came to set the captives free and I think we should take him up on that offer. With two weeks until Easter, let's look at what Jesus said about swearing (Matthew 5:33-37). Taking the Lord's name in vain, as we used to call it, has become so common that there is now an abbreviation for it: OMG. And you hear and see it everywhere. In fact, I saw it used in a novel I was reading and "God" was spelled "god". I'm not sure if that was better or worse. But this use of God's name has no relationship to praising God. For reflection: Has any kind of swearing slipped into my speech? Let us pray. "'I am ruined! for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.' "Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, 'See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.'" (Isaiah 6:5-8) We return to images and the effect they can have on us. Images are used to draw our attention, to lure us in to a story, to get us to buy something. There's a reason why beautiful people are posed in ads for cars and cigarettes. The advertising industry knows that sex sells. University researchers on memory have demonstrated that we are still affected days later after we have seen certain images even if we don't remember having seen the picture. Subconsciously we are influenced by what we have seen. Because of these studies on memory, I've wondered how responsible we are for what we do based on what we have seen. If a picture we don't even remember can influence a particular choice days later, was that choice made with free will? Or were we so influenced that free will did not apply? I don't know, but I do know that we have a choice about what we look at in the first place. We can avoid looking at advertising, internet sites and movies that lead us into sin through what is portrayed. Avoiding sin means not putting ourselves in a position to see things that lead our minds and bodies astray (see Matthew 5:27-30). For reflection: Where and when have I been deliberately looking at temptation? Where and when have I accidently been led into temptation? How can I avoid these? Let us pray. Jesus, I am guilty of looking at things I shouldn't. Renew a clean heart and a right spirit within me. Do not look on my sins or take your Holy Spirit away from me. Instead, grant me a willing spirit to help me. (based on Psalm 51) In the Newseum in Washington, DC there is a display of iconic news photographs from the last 50 years or so. They are gritty, black-and-white, moments forever frozen. Most are unforgettable and immediately take you back to the time and place where you first saw them. Your stomach clenches as war, famine and upheaval come roaring back into your mind. Along with the photos are a few words describing the time and place, plus a short biography of the photographer who won a prestigious award for the photograph. I was stunned by how many of these photographers had committed suicide. They were unable to get the images out of their heads. They could not help the people they immortalized. The war, or the famine, or the genocide were not their fault but they could not escape what they had seen and felt helpless to change. I mention this today because I want to bring out the power of images and the impact on our lives of what we see. It can be difficult to guard our eyes, being careful of what we see and let enter our minds. But it is necessary. Images are hard to forget whether they are in print, TV, movies or the internet. Where can images lead us? They can lead us to good or evil. Jesus knew this problem when he said, "(A)nyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:27-28). Adultery and lust are old issues made worse today by visual images that leave little of the human body uncovered. So we must be careful about what we look at for we are responsible for what we do because of it. For reflection: What response do I make to news photos? Do I pray for the people involved? Send aid to the afflicted? What response do I make to other images in the media? Do they lead me to good or to evil? Let us pray. Today, Jesus, the people of Chile have suffered an earthquake. What response should I make? (My apologies, faithful readers, for not posting on Monday. I've been sick but I am recovering now. Thank you for your prayers.) One more reflection on settling our differences quickly from Matthew 5:25-26. Although these verses are about avoiding being thrown into debtor's prison, they follow along with what Jesus has been teaching. The previous verses (21-24) have been about having right relationships with others and therefore with God primarily by avoiding anger and hatred and not holding things against one another. I think one interpretation of the difference in the scenarios between 21-24 and 25-26 is the difference between subjective and objective wrong. Many of our arguments and disagreements with people are subjective. By this I mean that an outsider might have trouble discerning who is at fault, either because there is fault on both sides or because the two sides disagree on exactly what happened. These arguments drag on and on because each one thinks the other should apologize first. In 21-24, Jesus is saying, "Get over it. Be the bigger person and go apologize." In verses 25-26 there is a more objective wrong. One person borrowed a certain amount of money which is not in dispute. The borrower is objectively wrong for not repaying the money on time. Therefore the borrower should work things out before they come to a head or pay the consequences. The conclusion from these verses is, I think, that no matter whether you are in the wrong or not take the first step in working things out. It is more important to be at peace than to be right. If you are not at peace with others, you are not at peace with God. |
AliceI started this website and blog on May 1, 2012. I am a Catholic who has been in ministry for many years. I first developed what I would call a close relationship with Jesus in the early 1970s. Ever since then I have been praying with people for healing and other needs. It is because I have seen so many of these prayers answered that I am so bold as to offer to pray for you individually through this website and phone line. Archives
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