Saturday, July 31, 2021

"DIDN'T" OR "COULDN'T?"

 

"Did Not" vs "Could Not"

Yesterday's gospel at mass was the familiar story about Jesus in his home town preaching to people who knew his family, who'd gone to synagogue school with him years ago, or had ordered things from the carpenter shop run by his father and him. (Mt. 13:) Matthew ends the episode with "And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith (Mt. 13:58)." 

"Wait! Is that what the verse actually says?" I asked myself. Half a minute later I was reading the original Greek text and there it was, in plain Greek: "He did not work many mighty deeds there..." Hmm. I still felt something was missing. So I looked up the same episode in the gospel of Mark (Mk 6:1-6), and there I found the verse "So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there" (v.5).   

Now I felt better -- I hadn't been imagining things. So I began reflecting on the difference between Matthew's "he did not" and Mark's "he could not" do his mighty deeds. Interestingly, both writers use the Greek word dynamis, "mighty deeds" as a synonym for "miracles." But the noun dynamis itself simply means "power" (as in "For thine is the kingdom and the power...") So here we have a  picture of Jesus, the Powerful One, who, according to Mark, is powerless to do his works of power; Mark tells us that he is "not able" to do the powerful miraculous things he wants to do for the people in his town. 

I started asking myself, "Are there things that make it difficult or even impossible for Jesus to work his works of power in my own life?" I made a quick list of some pretty impressive impediments that I put in the way when Jesus wants to work wonders in my life, when he wishes to transform me into my true self, a totally new person. The first obstacle on the list was fear. 

Sheltering in Place

In today's world, most office buildings and schools have mandatory instructional sessions concerning "active shooter" situations. One of the basic responses is to hide -- get into a room, close and lock the door and then stack furniture against the door as a barricade. Then get down low and stay away from the door. 

This scene is an accurate image of some people's way of being in the world: their goal is self-protection. Nobody gets in. That way they can't get hurt, they're invulnerable. In psychological terms you could say that they are avoiding "intimacy." This is, of course not a very life-giving kind of existence because we are not made for isolation but for love. We're made in the image of a God who is love itself, a Trinitarian God, i.e.a God who is relationship. And this God created you and me in that same image and likeness. Piling up furniture at the door is a fine strategy in an active shooter situation, but it's not a great model as a way of living.

Remember that famous painting of Jesus knocking at the door of ones heart? Picture him standing there, his arms loaded with gifts he's bringing to the person who lives there. But what if, on the other side of the door that person is frantically shoving the sofa, armchairs, lamps, and end tables against that door as a protective barricade?

"Don't Be Afraid"

On the list of things that keep Jesus from working miracles in my life, the first one was fear. Fear of letting go of all those protections that I've built up over the years, those external, visible, measurable activities and attitudes that define me for most people. What would happen if I let go of my "external" self, letting all those things drop away? That's scary! I would be left vulnerable, with no familiar shields to hide behind. "And the Lord was unable to work any mighty deeds there."  

But, as I looked at all those externals that I use to define my public self (teaching, celebrating mass, writing books and blogposts, and so forth), I realized that my closest friends and family members, people who really love me, they don't love me because of any of those externals. They just love me. When I let my guard down and share with someone who I really am deep inside (the Latin word for deep inside is intimus, which gives us our English "intimacy") then I'm doing exactly what Jesus needs in order to work wonders for me: I'm leaving myself open for a deep, personal, trusting relationship of intimacy with him. I'm buying into the paschal mystery, in which everything, including sin and all kinds of evil, are, like Christ's crucifixion and death, transformed into salvation and new life.


Prayers and masses, sacrifices and acts of obedience to the divine commandments cannot and do not take the place of surrendering myself into the Lord's loving embrace, of trusting that everything that happens in my life, whether pleasant or unpleasant, is somehow part of the Lord's loving plan for me. It's always about love. 

Little by little I've been removing the pieces of furniture that are blocking the door. The next time He knocks I hope I'll be able to say "Come in, Lord!"




1 comment:

  1. Thank you for the timely reminder about removing the barriers. My question would be: What happens when life itself appears to create the barriers? (E.g. you are constrained by "duties of your state in life", additional obligations (care-taking, serving as executor of an estate), circumstances that remove you almost physically from the launch pad for relationships of friendship (childlessness when all other couples where you work have children), etc.) It feels to me sometimes as if God is placing the obstacles in the way.

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