Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

(Matthew 9:1-8)

In the Gospel reading for today we hear the account of the healing of the paralytic. Our Lord Jesus Christ had just returned to His home city of Capernaum, and a small group awaited Him and brought to Him a man who was suffering from paralysis. The Gospel tells us that when Jesus saw the faith of the people who brought their loved one before Him, He turned to the paralytic and said: ‘Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven thee.’

Take notice that Jesus first response to the man who was ill was the forgiveness of his sins. He did not immediately command him to take up his bed and walk – this was very much an afterthought, in response to the scribes who looked on with disdain that Christ would have the audacity to forgive sins – a privilege and power ascribed to God alone. Our Lord, the Great Physician of souls, perceived the root cause of this man’s paralysis and infirmity. There was some unresolved sin in this man’s life that was manifesting itself in the infirmity of his body.

Christ our Lord always saw straight to the heart of all matters. His primary concern during His earthly ministry, and His primary concern today for each and every one of us, is to cleanse and heal the brokenness of our souls. The external circumstances of our lives will always have ups and downs, but the essential thing for our well-being in all of life’s circumstances is the health of our soul.

We spend so much of our time worrying about the external circumstances of our life: how we look, what we wear, what kind of car we drive, what kind of house we live in, how do people perceive us… And if this remains the focus of our concerns, we leave our spiritual life uncared for and, no matter what kind of worldly success we might enjoy, we fail miserably in the true meaning of this life given to us by God.

Christ was quite explicit in admonishing the Pharisees of His time, who focused all of their attention on the externals. He said: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.’

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us remember the words of our Lord, Who said we must ‘seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all things will be added unto you’.

What does a life with such heavenly priorities look like? How specifically are we to act if we are seeking first that Kingdom of God, if we are being attentive to first cleanse the inside of our cup so that the outside may be clean too?

I think that we can do no better than to listen to the words of the Holy Apostle Paul which we heard in today’s Epistle reading.

After encouraging us to generously make use of whatever talents God may have gifted us with, he tells us very specifically how we should live if we wish to attend to cleansing our whole being from the inside out.

He exorts us to ‘love without hypocrisy’. What does that mean? It means that our love must be an outpouring from what is in our heart and soul. It is that pure and refreshing water overflowing from a cup which is clean on the inside and out.

Apostle Paul continues… we are to: ‘Abhor what is evil’, and instead we must: ‘Cling to what is good’. This is a conscious spiritual battle and it requires real intention and attention. God grant us the grace and the strength to abhor what is evil and to cling to what is good!       

Next, he tells us that we are to ‘be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another’. This is a 180 degree turnaround from our usual focus and preference on our self. To give preference to another squashes our selfishness. And this is why Christians live in community – whether it is in marriage and family or in a monastery or in a parish or even in the workplace or in school – wherever we are, we have the opportunity to show concern and generous kindness to the person placed in front of us. We must not be ‘lagging in diligence’, we must be ‘fervent in spirit, serving the Lord’.

And now listen to these three things… Apostle Paul encourages us to be ‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer’. If we could make this the prescription for our life, we would do well. To rejoice in hope – what an outlook on life we would have if we could only do so! Uniting ourselves to Christ, we absolutely live in the Presence of hope – a hope which allows us to be of good cheer because He has overcome the world. To be patient in tribulation – as Apostle Paul says earlier in his letter to the Romans: we may even glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. Even though our life may feel like a raft in white water on the river, we can know that God oversees the whole expanse of the river and can see calm waters ahead. So we hold on… building that perseverance and character and hope. And finally, we are to continue steadfastly in prayer – prayer is our lifeline to God. Prayer is not only the reading or reciting of our morning and evening devotions. Prayer is the reaching up of our soul to God. We may do so in praise, in repentance, in gratitude, in desperation, or simply and wordlessly in contemplation and union with the One Whom we love and on Whom we depend.  

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the prescription for cleansing and healing our spirit, soul, and body. Let us focus on that priority of cleansing ourselves from the inside out. If the inside is clean and healthy, that which pours out of it will be good. Our love will be without hypocrisy and Christ our Lord will proclaim to us: ‘Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven thee.’ And from that absolution of sins, may we no longer be paralyzed in our sins, but free to rejoice in hope, to be patient in tribulation, and to continue steadfastly in prayer!