Readings: Ex 2:1-15a; Ps: 69; Mt 11:20-24
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Good evening, everyone…and praise God –
praise Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It’s wonderful to see so many here tonight;
all of you, open to God’s healing presence in your lives. Praise God, too, for
this.
We’re gathered here in Jesus’ name, so we
know He’s with us. Present not only in our presence, but here especially in His
Eucharistic Presence. And where Jesus is, so too is the Father, for they are
One, One with the Holy Spirit.
When we turn to Scripture, we find the Holy
Spirit inspiring, revealing, anointing, and counseling. He does it all. As we
proclaim in the Creed: He’s the “Lord and giver of life.” He is the
fount of Truth and Wisdom, the sanctifier, the source of sacramental grace, the
manifestation of God’s power in the world.
When Jesus rejoiced, He rejoiced in the
Spirit. When He prayed, He prayed filled with the Spirit. And when he healed,
the Spirit acted through Him. And so, tonight, confident that the Holy Spirit
is here among us, present in His power and glory, we turn to Him, the Divine
Healer, for healing is among the Spirit’s greatest works.
God knows how much we all need healing –
healing of body, mind, and spirit; so He sends His Spirit into
the world to heal all who come to Him.
Sacred Scripture, especially in the Gospels
and the Acts of the Apostles, is filled with healings, but they’re all
so very different. All kinds of people come to Jesus – men and women; young and
old; Jews and Gentiles – all seeking His healing touch. He heals them all. Some
come on their own, some are brought to Him by others, by family or friends, and
some are healed at a distance. But for all of them it was through the power of
the Holy Spirit that Jesus healed.
St. Peter confirmed this when preaching to
the centurion Cornelius and his household, he said:
“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all…” (Acts 10:38)Where Jesus is, so too is the Holy Spirit. And together they heal us all. What does this mean to us? Does Jesus offer healing to all of us? Well, yes, He does. But we must understand He offers us multiple kinds of healing.
We humans are pretty complex creatures. God gave us bodies, but as many of
us here have figured out, these bodies just don’t last that long. So, He also
gave us an immortal soul, that divine piece of our humanity that goes on
forever, and carries us into eternity.
And from that we have an intellect and a will, so we can learn what God
wants for us and of us, why we’re here, and then decide what to do about it.
It’s all pretty fantastic, isn’t it? Well, yes, it is, except when we
decide to misuse our intellects by ignoring all that He teaches us; or misuse
our wills by making incredibly wrong decisions. It’s really what Jesus faced in
our passage from Matthew’s Gospel. Our Lord uses some pretty harsh words,
doesn’t He?
“Woe to
you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!”
Yes, indeed, Jesus was upset! There’s no
mistaking it – Jesus was definitely upset. You see,
is wasn’t some impersonal, detached judgment on Jesus’ part. In fact, I think
it was truly personal.
Matthew, writing this Gospel, uses the Greek
word for “woe.” It’s an interesting word. In Greek it’s one of those
onomatopoeic words – words like bark, or cough, or hiss – that sound like the
things they mean. The Greek word for “woe” is οὐαί, a word that sounds
like a lament, a cry of sorrow. And that was intentional. Matthew uses this
word to show us that Jesus, in His humanity, is speaking out of grief.
Chorazin! Bethsaida! Capernaum! These were places Jesus had stayed, places
He’d visited, where He’s ministered to their people – where He healed, taught,
loved – and still, the people didn’t respond.
Yes, Jesus is divine, but He’s also human,
and that kind of rejection surely hurt. It’s hard not to feel the sting of it
all – how Jesus must have felt.
Of course, our initial reaction is to recall
times when it’s happened to us – when we spoke the truth but were summarily
rejected.
I’ll tell you a story. Years ago, I was
director of customer satisfaction and focus for a high-tech firm. It was an
engineering-driven firm, and at a key meeting, the product engineers introduced
a major change to a major product. I realized immediately that our customers
would not be happy. But I was unable to convince our management. One sales
engineer had the courage to agree with me, but his concerns were also rejected.
I’ll never forget what the head of engineering said, “Our customers will like
it because we like it.” Of course, the customers hated it. But no one ever
said, “You know, you were right.” No, they just dug in deeper trying to show
our customers how wrong they were. It didn’t have a happy ending.
About that time, I decided retirement at 59
sounded pretty good, so Diane and I soon headed south to The Villages.
Did you notice, the example that came to my mind
was a situation where I’d been rejected. I never even considered the times I’d rejected
others, or worse, rejected God Himself. The Gospel should lead us to wonder
about ourselves, about our actions, our thoughts and words, and their impact on
others.
Today I find myself asking: Where has Christ
already been present in my own life, and yet I’ve failed even to notice, or
perhaps worse, I noticed but failed to respond? You know that our God does that.
He places others, those in need, in our path, or inserts little slices of grace
into our lives, begging us to recognize and respond.
And when I didn’t respond…maybe in someone I
overlooked – just didn’t consider them all that important, or worthy of my
time? Or perhaps it was a moment of grace I was too busy to recognize, too
self-absorbed, too worried about my own problems, my own suffering, my own need
for healing?
How often and why do we fail even to notice these Godly gifts? Usually we’re just too busy, so tightly wrapped up in our own human issues, that we pay little attention to others and what God is calling us to do. In the grip of suffering, and in our humanity, we turn inward, toward our suffering, hoping, somehow, for healing and relief.
And so we hear this Gospel passage, and mistakenly think it’s all about judgment. But it’s about much more than that. You see, in truth, it’s really an invitation. Jesus, in that paradoxical, counter-intuitive way of His calls us to turn outward, to look beyond ourselves, to turn to Him in faith and to others in love.
Remember the four men in Capernaum who carried the paralytic to Jesus and lowered him through the roof…You can read about it in Mark, chapter 2. How did Mark put it?
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Child, your sins are forgiven.’” [Mk 2:5]
And so, to those here tonight who brought
someone you love for healing, believe me, God thanks and blesses you. Your
faith may well lead to healing. Take a moment. Look to the person sitting in
front of you, beside you, behind you – they’re all here for healing too. Have
you looked to them? Have you prayed for them? After all, if the power of prayer
is so great; should we not be praying for each other, and not simply for
ourselves?
Remember, the faithlessness and selfishness
of so many people in those three cities didn’t stop Jesus. He continued His
work, in the Gospel, throughout the ages, and He continues it here today. He
still shows up, doesn’t He? He’s still present in our lives, in our work, in
our families, in our conversations – yes, even in our sinfulness. He’s present in
all those moments of chaos and fear…and in the moments of stillness, the
moments when we open our minds and hearts to Him.
God knows exactly what we
need, but do we know? What kind of healing do you need? What do I need? We’re
so sure we know, aren’t we?
But like the young paralytic, we likely need spiritual healing first. So, seek the Lord and His amazing grace in the sacraments. Let your soul be healed in Reconciliation, receive the gift of salvation through the Eucharist.
Or as St. Paul said, “It is Christ in you, the hope for glory.” (Col 1:27)
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