February 21, 1009
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle B
There’s a new Friday the 13th horror movie out now, the 12th in the series that started over 30 years ago. We seem to have a fascination with horror films, don’t we? We just can’t seem to get enough of them. When I was growing up I used to love watching horror movies…as long as the monsters were too big to fit into the house. I guess I’ve seen every Godzilla and King Kong movie made, but I was terrified of Dracula and Frankenstein and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, because they were the size of a man and therefore could fit in the house to get me.
That’s why I hate slasher films like Friday the 13th, because Jason’s always in the house, lurking in the shadows trying to get me. And the slasher films are especially terrifying because the monster isn’t some improbable creature from outer space but another human being who could plausibly exist. We all know of real human monsters, don’t we? The more our fears seem plausible the worse they are.
It seems that in all horror films there’s a scene where the soon-to-be-victim freezes in terror when she sees the monster or the killer for the first time. We’ve known all along what’s going to happen, don’t we, and we practically shout at the screen, “Look Out, he’s right behind you!” What an idiot! Why doesn’t she run away? Why does she just stand there like a deer in the headlights? And then if she does run she always falls down so the killer can catch up. It looks kind of silly, doesn’t it? We’d do things differently if it were us, wouldn’t we? We wouldn’t just stand there, paralyzed.
We are paralyzed by fear of the unknown, aren’t we? We crave certainty. We want to know what the future holds. Will I lose my job? Will I get sick? When and how will I die? We worry about what’s lurking on the other side of the door, or under the bed. We worry about so many things that we tend to want to stay on our mats and do nothing. We don’t want to take any risks for fear that we may fail or get hurt, and so we do nothing. It’s safer here on our mats.
We don’t know who the paralytic in today’s gospel was. We don’t know how long he’d been stricken or if he had asked to be taken to Jesus or if his friends just picked him up and brought him there. He probably spent all day every day lying on that mat, begging for alms to survive. After awhile that mat became the only security he had. It would be risky to get off it, even for the hope of a cure. He was not just physically paralyzed, he was spiritually paralyzed.
We were not created to be paralyzed. We were created to be whole. Physical paralysis is unnatural. It is a defect in the body. We were originally intended to be perfect. In Genesis we read that in the cool of the evening Adam and Eve walked side by side with God. They were so godlike themselves that they physically walked alongside him. Paralyzed people cannot walk. What paralyzed Adam and Eve, made them unable to walk further with God, was their sin. They became paralyzed by their separateness from their God. And that separateness is unnatural, because sin is unnatural.
Jesus knew that the paralyzed man’s real problem wasn’t his illness; it was his sin. Jesus knew that the one thing that kept him from true healing, not just the physical kind, was that he was a sinner. Sin is what causes our fear. Sin is what causes us to be separated from the only one who can give us peace. Sin is what clouds our vision so we cannot recognize the only one whom we can really trust. Jesus wanted the paralytic to not be afraid anymore.
Getting out of paralysis takes trust. And perseverance. And help from our friends. But first we need to be right with our God and with one another. Before anyone can get up off his mat and walk he must be forgiven. And that fear may be the greatest one of all, the fear that we will ask for forgiveness and not receive it. The time we put our hearts at greatest risk is when we open ourselves up for forgiveness.
We’ve all had that fear of the unknown, haven’t we? When we ask someone to forgive us and we don’t know how they’ll react. It may be hardest when we ask of those closest to us, those we’ve had a very long relationship with, because we anticipate what he or she will do. Sometimes we fear to ask for forgiveness because we think we’ll be rejected. Sometimes we fear to ask because we’ve asked before and been turned away. Like the paralytic, there was no way in through the front door and there was no one there to help us tear up the roof to get in. Each time we experience that rejection makes it harder and harder to go back. And so it’s less painful to just stay on our mats. Paralyzed.
We don’t have Jesus here performing miracles anymore. We ask for forgiveness of God and have no proof that it’s been given. The paralyzed man had to trust that Jesus could cure him physically. Then he had to trust that Jesus in fact could forgive his sins. He had to take the first step, even with the help of others, towards Jesus and forgiveness. He had to choose to not be paralyzed anymore, to walk once more with God. And he needed proof of that forgiveness just as the scribes needed proof. The proof was in his physical healing. What is easier to believe, that your sins are forgiven or that you are physically healed?
All we have is the word of Jesus. We have to trust that we are forgiven. We have to trust that no matter how often we go to God for forgiveness we shall be forgiven. We have to persevere. No matter how many times we sin, we have to keep going back to Jesus. And if there’s no way to get in through the front door we have to tear out the very roof. And if it takes an army of friends and family, even if it takes an entire Church, to help us, so be it. Because what we risk if we don’t persevere is much greater than our physical existence here on Earth. Our inaction can cause us permanent paralysis.
What does Jesus tell the paralytic to do after he heals him? Go home. Go back out into the world and take Jesus’ proof with him, proof that he was forgiven and healed. He doesn’t tell him to leave everything and follow him, as he had Peter, James and John. He told him to be a witness to him in his everyday life, beginning at home.
The last words you will hear this evening will be me sending you forth into the world in peace to love and serve the Lord. We come here to Mass every week so that we can be nourished at this table for our work once we leave here. The very word “Missa” means “sent” in Latin. Every Mass is about being sent. Take our witness back home. Pick up our mats and go back home. Take our comfort zones with us, but take that first step back in trust.
Tomorrow night we will be celebrating the Rite of Sending for our catechumens and candidates. They have undertaken months of prayerful preparation to be received into the Church, and now the bishop calls upon us, those who know them, to testify on their behalf that they are ready for the next stage of their journey. Next week they will meet at the cathedral along with hundreds of people just like them, and the bishop will give his blessing upon them. But first they must be sent. By us.
Just as we are sent out into the world tonight, we are sending these friends of ours out into a new life in Christ. Every one of them is suffering from some sort of paralysis, some sort of fear of the unknown. Just like the rest of us. And like us, they cannot be made whole all by themselves. Like the friends of the paralytic, we are called to bring them to Jesus.
Either through the front door or through the roof!
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