A Body Given Up For You

Two weeks ago my nephew lost a leg and a foot in Afghanistan.  He had wanted to serve people in a more substantial way than as a manager of a bar which had been his prior occupation. So he joined the Rangers and became a medic.  He learned to apply tourniquets, and to perform emergency tracheotomies, inject intravenous fluids to keep soldiers alive and get them off the battlefield and into a medical facility. To do this work he had to put himself in harms way. He  played a kind of "catcher in the rye".

This got me thinking.  We had just read over the last couple of months the gospel of Luke. Twice in that gospel Jesus says that those who seek to save their lives will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake will save it.  And so I asked myself, “what does it mean to lose one’s life for His sake?”   In any case, we only have our bodies temporarily and parts of our bodies might be even more temporary.  But what does it mean, to lose one’s body for Him?  Did Chris, my nephew, loose his leg and foot for Him?   He put himself in harms way to provide an essential service to those in his unit who might become casualties of war.  He didn't want to become one himself.  

“This is my body which will be given up for you and for all that sins might be forgiven,” He said, before becoming a casualty of that spiritual war in which we are all combatants.  Love, that much over worked word,  love is about giving up one’s body,  not primarily in sex acts, but in the day to day service offered to those we care about. 

Struggling with the truth

Barbara Nicolosi, the founder of the Act One screenwriting program, has said that one of the primary storytelling principles they teach their students is, "It isn't telling people the truth that saves them; it's getting them to wrestle with the truth that saves them." It seems to me that  Luke (20:9-18) describes Jesus, the master storyteller,  doing just that with the chief priests,  the teachers of the law, and the elders who have come to interrogate him.  After telling the parable of the tenants, Jesus asks them, "What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do to the tenants?" It is a rhetorical question. He doesn't wait for them to answer. "He will come and kill those men, and turn the vineyard over to other tenants."
      When the people heard this, Luke tells us, they cried out, "Surely not!!  Jesus has them struggling with a profound truth embedded in the very scriptures these learned men have studied since their youth, in Psalm 118, but they were unable to discern its real meaning.  Jesus is grateful that his Father hides from the learned what is revealed to children.

Be careful then how you listen...

“Be careful how you listen,” Jesus tells his disciples, “ because whoever has something will be given more, but whoever has nothing will have taken away from him even the little he thinks he has.”

Jesus explained his parable about the seed, “word of God,” to these disciples  “but to the rest it comes by means of parables, so that they may look and not see, and listen but not understand.”  The Church asserts that Jesus, himself,  is the "Word of God," the seed,  the transforming "Revelation of God" hidden from some, revealed to others.

Be careful then how you listen... lest the devil come and take the message away from you, or the time of testing  come and you just won't care enough to endure; or the worries, riches, and pleasures of life will choke off the revelation's meaning for you so it doesn't bear fruit.  Eventually, of course, “everything that is hidden will be brought to light” but only the wise virgins who listened, cared to bring enough oil and will partake in the wedding feast. The foolish, though they belatedly obtained the needed oil,  will knock too late and be locked out.   Be careful then how you listen, Jesus warns his disciples.

the faith of a foot washer

        In John 12, Mary of Bethany washed the  feet of Jesus and anointed his feet with expensive oil,  presumably in gratitude for having raised her brother Lazarus from the dead.   Jesus, the anointed one-- for that is what the designation "Christ" means--accepts this anointing from her  in anticipation of his death and burial.  In John 13, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples revealing the very intimate nature of God's grace.  He instructed them to do for each other what he had done for them. Those who would share the very life of God would need to incarnate the faith that God has in us,  knowing our sinfulness.    Again in Luke 7,  Jesus said to his host, a Pharisee, “Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair... So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love.  But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." The others at table said to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"  But he said to the woman "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

        Jesus had earlier warned his followers that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees they could not enter the kingdom of heaven.  It was not for lack of prayer, or alms giving, or even following the commandments as they understood them, that the scribes and Pharisees could not enter the kingdom, they took great care to do all those things. They did not lack the abundant  love of God for them. He sent his only son to be their revelation, their teacher.  But they lacked the simple faith of this sinful woman  foot washer,  a faith like that faith which God himself has for us,  a faith in sinners-- that we will change our ways over time with his help. The scribes and Pharisees  firmly believed that prostitutes and tax collectors needed God's forgiveness in a way they did not.  They read the scriptures to fit their on prejudices and purposes, but were not open to hearing what the the scriptures really meant.    Jesus,  in the last chapter of Luke's gospel, shares with a couple disciples on their way to Emmaus what the scriptures meant.  

Healing the Paralytic--A Dilemma Explored

February 13, 2011

Ann,

May I pick your brain on a dilemma that I have long wrestled with in the story of the healing of the paralytic?

Let F = forgiving and H = healing.
Let us assume that doing the easier cannot prove that I can do the harder, only the reverse: if I can do the harder, I can do the easier. Even children in the playground often try to outdo each other in feats and accept this assumption as self-evident.

When Jesus asks the Pharisees which is easier, F or H, we are not told what they answered. We are told only what Jesus says: but to prove to you that I can do F, I’ll do H. Sometimes I think the little word “but” holds the clue as to what the Pharisees said, but I can’t quite figure it out.

Here’s the dilemma (or mine, tiny poor Pharisee that I am):

If F is easier, doing H proves that I can do F, but now I am famous mainly for doing H, the harder, i.e., performing a physical miracle, a variety of the 2 miracles (turning a stone into bread and leaping unharmed from the parapet) I rejected in the desert when tempted by Satan. I have played to the crowd. Another way to put it is: if F is easier, what’s the point of proving F? We normally try only to prove things that are difficult, unless we want to say that F is still difficult but easier than H. If F and H are equally difficult, then Jesus is asking a question impossible to answer.

Baby Hope Rose Brintnal

This is Ignatius' new baby wearing Sr. Charlotte's hand crocheted baby blanket and Anne Joseph's hat. Much love and the prayers of John Paul II accompany this gift. Here's hoping for another miracle Like our Mother Foundress' for baby Reesa in the Philippines.

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