Hagelin 14B pg. 1
Preamble: as I preached three weeks back – and as you saw in the bulletin handout – Jesus had no biological siblings. They are likely cousins. There is no Hebrew or Aramaic word for cousin; and close kin were commonly called brothers & sisters. A few extra copies of that bulletin handout are to be found there if you missed it. Enough said. Let’s talk movies...Action movies to be precise.
As a kid and teenager you could say I was an action film junky, and my favorite action hero was none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Before I began college I had gone back and watched every movie Arnold had ever starred in, from his first film Hercules in New York (in which his Austrian accent was so thick he had to be dubbed), to his first blockbuster Conan the Barbarian, then Arnold’s smash hits: Terminator, Commando, Predator, True Lies, etc. Now, with the possible exception of the first two Terminator movies, none of these are cinematically noteworthy. In High School I was also kind of a film buff and enjoyed critically acclaimed films, so how could I enjoy Raw Deal or The Running Man?
Well as a parallel: I am kind of a foodie, but still love Kraft Mac n Cheese despite its blandness and nutritional worthlessness. But again, why is it perversely satisfying to watch Commando, and get a kick out of Arnold taking down over 100 bad guys in a single scene, all without getting a scratch?
Maybe it’s my inherent immaturity. Maybe it’s the simple joy of watching car chases and oil tanker explosions? Maybe it’s the easy to follow plot lines, or clear division of good guys and bad guys.
All those may be factors, but I think the main draw is the simplicity of power, violence or brawn solving problems neatly and effectively.
When we think about Christ’s miracles, we might conceive of Jesus coming onto the scene like Arnold but less violent. Instead of Arnold shooting another terminator and taunting him “hasta la vista, baby.” We might imagine Jesus arriving on the scene – skipping the corny one-liners – but nonetheless using a shock and awe campaign of sheer power to cure people.
II. Come to me… Hagelin 14B pg. 2
Today’s Gospel gives us an insight into the fact that it doesn’t really happen that way. Jesus is not an oversized, bigger-than-life superhero Who uses brute strength. As we saw last week, the little girl was raised from the dead after her dad came and begged Jesus; and the woman who was cured of the hemorrhage when she touched his cloak sought out the Lord Jesus believing she could be cured.
The bad guys in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies need not seek out or cooperate with the bullet or explosion that comes their way to be effected by it. The Lord Jesus, however, does not operate by power or force. The Lord Jesus always proposes and never imposes. Christ is a skilled and patient physician, not an action hero.
Which gives us a clue into what we heard in today’s Gospel, that “he was not able to perform any mighty deeds there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying hands on them.”? Why only a few cures? Because only a few sick people came to Him, and the rest stayed away.
III. Relationship
If you come to Jesus, you will not always get what you ask for, but you will always get more than you expect. As I implied in last week’s reflection, Jesus turned to find the woman who touched his cloak because He didn’t want her cure to be magical, but relational. For us too - everything is mediated through relationship, Sacrament and community. There is no pure grace without strings attached. The life of grace is not a mail-order CD club. You have to go to the Source, or His designated proxy (the Church and Sacraments)
You cannot thrive in isolation (from the Sacraments, from the community), which is to say from relationship with Jesus in and through the Sacraments and community – it’s all relational, and not at all magical.
IV. Thorn in my flesh
And, as we are talking about relationship and the life of grace; just as Jesus is no action hero, so too WE are not Arnold Schwarzenegger either. And we have to admit that. Again, the main draw of action films (for me) is the simplicity of FORCE solving problems neatly and Hagelin 14B pg. 3 effectively. We are – in the end – powerless to fix ourselves, or other people or the world’s problems; as much as we would like to. Luckily, we have a Savior who will not fix as much as heal – or He will work through weakness; which brings us to our second reading and Saint Paul, and the thorn in his flesh.
What was the thorn in his flesh? This has been debated for 2000 years. We don’t know. It could have been an enemy such as Alexander the Coppersmith Paul names in his letter to Timothy. It could have been a speech impediment he hints at elsewhere. It could have been an illness; or it could have been or a habitual sin or temptation to pride, lust, or wrath. We don’t know.
But we all have thorns in our flesh. They are annoying, but good insofar as they keep us dependent on the Lord.
If your main thorn is a sin, then know that the reason the Lord leaves it with you is that you have not allowed Jesus to live in you to a degree as to have purified you – your sin is a symptom of your remaining independent from Jesus, and is a blessing of sorts because it keeps reminding you of your need for God, and that you have not yet turned your life over to Him. If your main thorn is a form of suffering or illness; difficult child or troubled family life; unfulfilling job or struggle in school, that too can help you surrender your life to the Lord Jesus.
It is, however, NOT wrong to ask that our thorns be taken away But we have to end that with “thy will be done.”. Paul does not apologize for asking for his thorn to be removed; rather he related:
Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” The very need to ask for help, brings Paul into deeper relationship with the Lord Jesus; and as Paul teaches elsewhere (and the Christian tradition is unanimous about); deeper communion with Jesus occurs in suffering and trial. Period. Note: I did not say suffering Hagelin 14B pg. 4 necessarily brings deeper communion with God….but that deeper communion with God happens primarily in suffering and trial.
You cannot meet Christ if you are overly comfortable, if you don’t go to Him and need and weakness. And He can’t work through you if you don’t recognize your own spiritual poverty; the own fragility of your life. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
I have said to you before that the question is NOT whether you are strong enough, but weak enough to be a Saint. As long as we act like the strong action stars of our own universe, masquerading as competent, self-sufficient, self-made women and men, who can use power or control or violence to fix ourselves our manage our own small universes; we will not encounter Jesus deeply.
And if we are honest, we all do this in different ways. On the 4th of July I watched my nephew, JP, a toddler, throw a tantrum insisting that he feed himself and not be spoon fed. And I realized that I am like that in my relationship with the Lord sometimes – insisting on doing it myself self, even though (figuratively speaking) I am not actually capable of getting more than 60% of the food in my mouth, and is liable to poke myself in the eye with my spoon. That little toddler in me wants to be the Arnold Schwarzenegger of my own life.
V. Conclusion
To conclude: Jesus does not operate through force, but we lack the competence and strength to act on our OWN POWER to change others, to change complicated world problems, or to fix ourselves or become holy. Jesus can. If you are willing to pray to more deeply let the Lord be Lord, and be content with being a beloved son or daughter, I invite you to perhaps close your eyes, and say the following prayer in your heart silently as I pray it aloud:
“Lord Jesus, I want you to be Lord of my life. Help me trust….let me never tire of asking for your help, but may I not insist on my thorns being taken away, or sin healed, before I let you close, or choose to serve you. Help me to know that “your grace is sufficient for [me], for {your} power is made perfect in {my} weakness.” Amen.