Doubling Down

Walk it Back or Double Down.

Those two phrases seem to sum up our options.

Our next step after making an outrageously extreme statement.

A statement that sounds obviously false or clearly crazy.

We can walk it back to something more plausible or defensible.

But if we really believe it—or if we’re crazy—we can double down.

Those phrases seem to have gained recent popularity.
I don’t think I’d heard them used that way before this election cycle.

But now we hear them a thousand times a day.

Well, maybe I should walk that back.

Now we hear them almost every day.

Not only regarding our own U.S. elections, but elsewhere.

Like with the victorious Brexit “Leave” proponents.

Walking back the grand benefits they claimed exit would bring.

In today’s Gospel,
The scribes perceive an outrageously extreme statement.

Jesus telling the paralytic Your sins are forgiven.

The scribes take offense at his words.

They’re thinking, Who does this guy think he is?

This is blasphemy!

Jesus tells them that he knows their thoughts.

That mind-reading alone could have given them some clue of his power.

But they could dismiss that as just a lucky guess.

It’s not too surprising that they’d be thinking blasphemy.

So Jesus does more.

He doubles down, asking:

Which is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven” or “Rise and walk”?

Neither statement could be effective 

Unless it summoned the power of God.

Any fake healer could easily say the words, Your sins are forgiven.

And no one could prove or disprove that those words were effective.

But a fake healer would not so easily dare to say, Rise and walk.

The lack of true power and authority behind those words

Would be immediately evident to all.

So, the physical healing would be the more impressive act.

But which would be the greater gift?

The physical healing is certainly great.

It’s amazing, it’s immediate, it gives new life and happiness.

But what if we had to choose between the two gifts—

What if we wanted both but could have only one of them?

Physical healing or God’s forgiveness.

That question brings to mind a prayer from St Ignatius.

Take Lord and receive,

All my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire free will.

All that I have and call my own.

You have given it all to me, Lord.

To you I return it.

All of it is yours.

Take it and do with it what you will.

Give me only your love and your grace.

That is enough for me.

Give me only your love and your grace.

He extends that deep Fatherly love and he never walks it back.

He doubles down with his abundant and extreme forgiveness.

We already have all that.

What more could we possibly need?

Thursday, 13th Week of Ordinary Time

Mt 9:1-8   Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Who Do You Say I Am?

Who do you say that I am?

That question comes up in our Gospel a number of times every year.

And it always makes me pause and consider my answer.

And my answer is always like Peter’s.

I say he’s the Christ of God—the anointed one.

But I go even further.

With the help of statements Peter had not yet heard.

Or not yet understood.

Before Abraham was I AM.

If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.

The Father and I are one.

With the Resurrection

And with all the Church has distilled for me from the Gospel.

I say that Jesus is not only the Christ of God, he is God.

But then I have to ask,

What am I doing about that?

Am I living like I know that?

Every day?

We have the teachings of Jesus, the guidance of God Himself.

He didn’t deny it when Peter said he was the Christ.

In fact, in Matthew’s account he highly praised Peter for that insight.

He said Peter could know that only because God had revealed it to him.

As he said elsewhere:

No one knows the Son except the Father.

And no one knows the Father except the Son,

And anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him.

In this account from Luke he actually scolds or warns the disciples.

Saying they should tell no one.

He didn’t want people to start rejoicing in their misconception

Of what it meant to have the Christ, the Messiah, with them.

He was here to suffer.

And what suffering it was!

As they ask in the song Jesus Christ Superstar:

Did you know your messy death would be a record breaker?

By that suffering and death and abandonment he shows us

What he’s willing to endure for us.

And he also gives us something to compare our own suffering to.

Few if any could claim their suffering is greater than his.

And if he had to suffer, why would we be spared?

He gives us courage to pick up our comparatively light cross—daily.

And follow him.

While I’m quoting Broadway lyrics I should also mention Godspell.

A note on our daily work.

Day by day, day by day,

Oh Dear Lord, three things I pray.

To see thee more clearly,

Love thee more dearly,

Follow thee more nearly.

Day by day.

We all have some cross time in our days.

But for most of us, the bulk of our daily work is quite the opposite.

It’s joy.

Today we have a special day of rejoicing—Fathers Day.

We can rejoice at being fathers.

Or at having fathers, or at having had fathers.

Or having a spouse who is a father.

Or certainly at having a God who asks us to call Him Father.

The chief commandments that Jesus gave us for daily life are also joyful.

Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

There’s an article in the current AARP magazine.

A few of you might be old enough to get that.

I think it starts coming when you turn thirty.

If you’re younger than that you surely know how to search for it online.

It’s about finding happiness.

And it confirms from a secular and scientific perspective,

What we already know from Jesus’ teaching.

If you want to be happy—

Go out and help someone.

Don’t focus on yourself.

Be a servant.

Those two commandments—all ten commandments,

Are not stumbling blocks to hold us down or trip us up.

They’re the recipe for happiness in this life and the next.

We know all that.

But it’s good to step back from time-to-time and check on ourselves.

To remind ourselves just who it is we’re following.

It’s surprisingly easy sometimes to lose sight of who He really is.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lk 9:18-24   Read this Scripture @usccb.org