Uncovering and opening "synagogues": unusual crossroads of Tenderness

(Lk 5:17-26)

Paralysis and punishment: different Tenderness [introduction].

The episode testifies to the harsh clash between the synagogue and the first fraternities of Faith, where without prior conditions of ritual or legal purity all were invited to share the table and the breaking of bread.

On the Lord's ideal delegation, a fraternal practice [unknown to others] of mutual forgiveness and even cancellation of contracted debts, even to the communion of goods, was already in force in the early churches.

Realities capable of putting any person back on their feet and moving forward, even the wretched - starting with their conscience (vv.18.23), stifled by a religion that accentuated a sense of unworthiness.

According to popular belief, conditions of penury or misfortune were a punishment.

Jesus, on the other hand, is the One who restores a horizon of authenticity to believing, new awareness and hope to the person suffering from paralysis - that is, unable to go towards God and towards men.

"I say to you, rise and take up your bed and go to your house" (Lk 5:24; cf. Mt 9:6; Mk 2:11).

Starting from what we are - that is, already resourceful, beyond all appearances - we live by Faith the same state as the "Son of Man" (v.24).

Such is the requirement of the 'Risen' in the Lord: those who manifest the Person in fullness - in the divine condition.

In Christ we can free ourselves from the constraints that made us live horizontal, prone and ankylosed.

Recovering dignity, we can now stand upright and promote life; thus return to the House that is truly ours [Lk 9:24-25; cf. Mt 9:6-7; Mk 2:10-12].

For the experts, the forgiveness announced by the Lord is not only an offence against their supposed prestige and spiritual rank, but a sacrilege and blasphemy.

After all, how to appeal to the masses - on the part of these destructive leaders - if not by intimidating them and making them feel inadequate, sterile, incapable, unempowered, with no way out?

The whole life of the people was conditioned by obsessions of impurity and sin.

Instead, the Master reveals that the divine propensity is only to forgive in order to enhance - and the attitude of - the man of Faith, to be born again and to help do so.

Indeed, the Father's gratuitousness is seen in the action of expectation and understanding exercised by the most authentic men of God: those capable of chiselling healthy environments.

Not only by their own virtue, but because tolerance introduces new, unknown forces; different powers, which overturn situations.

They allow other energies to pass through, creative and regenerating to the unhealthy - conversely deadly, unfortunately, where one does not promote oneself.

Only Jesus is the One who makes visible and manifest the healing that seemed mission impossible. And before it is physical, making us flourish again from the fears of false morality or devotion, of common or à la page thinking that imposes absurd curbs on autonomy.

The young Rabbi's proposal does not drown us under a heap of impersonal arrogance. It heals the blocked, puts them back in the race.

"Jesus has the power not only to heal the sick body, but also to forgive sins; and indeed, physical healing is a sign of the spiritual healing that his forgiveness produces. Indeed, sin is a kind of paralysis of the spirit from which only the power of God's merciful love can free us, enabling us to get back up and get back on the path of good" (Pope Benedict, Angelus 22 February 2009).

The Lord's 'brothers' [cf. parallel passages Mt 9:1-8; Mk 2:1-12] do all they can to lead the needy to the Master.

Often, however, they find themselves before a crowd of hijackers of the Sacred that does not allow for a face-to-face, authentic, personal, immediate relationship.

Critical impetus and love for the full life needs of all of us in need must then overcome the 'cultural', ethical, doctrinal and ritualistic sense of belonging - which only flatters or reiterates.

Unfortunately, no sign of joy from the authorities [Mt 9:3; Mk 2:6-8; Lk 5:21] - but people are enthusiastic [Mt 9:8; Mk 2:12; Lk 5:26]. Why?

Another kind of world

Jesus teaches and heals. He does not proclaim the God of religions, but a Father - an attractive figure, who does not threaten, nor punish, but welcomes, dialogues, forgives, makes grow.

The opposite of what was conveyed by the official guides, linked to the idea of an archaic, suspicious and prejudiced divinity, which discriminated between friend and foe.

The Father expresses himself in non-oppressive forms, in the manner of the family and inter-human covenant: he does not enjoy the perfect, sterilised and pure - or 'up-to-date'. He offers his Love to all without requirements.

For imperfection is not an expression of guilt, but a condition - and in any case sin is not an absolute force (v.21).It is this awareness that gives rise to liberated people and a new order: 'to forge bonds of unity, of common projects, of shared hopes' [Fratelli Tutti, n.287].

The Lord's co-workers bring to Him all the paralytics, that is, those who are stuck and continue to lie in their stretchers [where perhaps those of common opinion have laid them down].

These are people who in life seem neither to be going in the direction of the true God, nor are they going to others. Nor can they meet themselves.

Only personal contact with Christ can release these vegetating corpses from their depressing pond.

The friends of God "come bringing to him a paralytic borne by four" (Mk 2:3): they come from everywhere, from the four cardinal points; from very different, even opposite origins - which you would not expect.

They expose themselves to lead the needy to the Master, but sometimes they find themselves in front of an impermeable crowd [precisely, of hijackers of the Sacred] that does not allow for a direct, glowing, sincere, face-to-face personal relationship.

They do not let us 'enter' - instead we want to put ourselves before Him (vv.18-19): sometimes we are like blackmailed by levies and subjected to procedures, otherwise you do not pass; you are out.

Paraphrasing Pope Francis's third encyclical again, we could say that even in the selective or hierarchical access paths of Faith "the lack of dialogue means that no one, in individual sectors, is concerned with the common good, but rather with obtaining the advantages that power procures, or, at best, with imposing one's own way of thinking" [no.202].

What to do? A dismantling action, without diplomatic negotiations or requesting permission - an overthrow of proximities, pyramids and gateways, completely emancipated from reverential fears!

A work very pleasing to the Father... and which the Son values as an expression of Faith (v.20)!

Faith that thinks and believes in "an open world where there is room for everyone, which includes the weakest and respects different cultures" [FT n.155].

Some insufferable 'synagogues' conversely advocate 'a binary division' [FT No.156] that attempts to classify.

There are exclusive, refractory cliques and clubs which claim to appropriate poor Jesus... backwards.

Hence their congregations or 'synagogues' or 'houses of prayer' must be uncovered and thrown wide open (v.19) - with extreme decisiveness.

Such "seats" turn God's presence on earth upside down and disrupt the lives of the derelicts, who have real urgencies - not interest in cultivating unintelligible formulas, cultic purities, or other sophistications.

No more proper compliments, mirrors for fashionable larks, and 'proper' customary procedures!

Only in the concreteness of the incarnate Faith does man regenerate and discover his own divine powers - which are then the humanising ones: to put himself and his brothers and sisters back on their feet.

With Christ, one advances without any more regulated authorisations and to be implored at times by scandalous dummies that make life pale.

So, let us note that there are no steps taken, but only unusual initiative overcomes the pond of devout structures taken hostage by regulars or disembodied thinkers.

Where one would only have to queue up, wait one's turn, be content... put up with ready-made organisational charts, and doze off, or disperse.

The critical impetus and love for the full, discerning life needs of all of us in need must overcome the sense of feigned collective compactness. 

It must outclass all 'cultural', moral, doctrinal and ritualistic affiliations - which it only makes up and reiterates.

Thus, no sign of joy from the authorities (v.21) who only draw negative diagnoses - while the people are enthusiastic (v.26).

It is obvious that the customary and the 'new' unchurched judge Jesus to be a blasphemer: they have been uneducated 'in this fear and distrust' [FT no.152].

They do not love humanity, but rather their worldview, their doctrines, their codes, their milestones; a few beautiful rubrics - from exclusively external holiness. All papier-mâché.

They do not protect people, but only their self-interested connections, correct protocols and acquired positions; possibly the latest news of thought for their own benefit. Ropes that get in the way of our development.

In short, we are called upon to choose in a very unusual way, compared to the cliché of avant-garde or bacchettona preaching - which has never been able to reconcile esteem... with imperfection, error, diversity.

According to the Gospels, there is another, decisive crossroads: the path of the defence of the privileges of a caste that gags God in the name of God, or the path of the impelling, universal desire to live fully, to the full.

To this we are called, as opposed to conformist ways: to choose in an unusual, profound and decisive way, to reconcile de-centred uniqueness, truth, imperfection, our exceptionalism.

Otherwise, the soul rebels. It wants to be with Jesus up front, not behind the throng, albeit of believers - démodé or glamour.

The passage from the Synoptics makes it clear that the problem of the 'paralytic' is not his discomfort, his sense of oppression, his apparent misfortune.

These are not the breaks in his relationship with life and with God.

On the contrary, the impediment becomes a paradoxical reason to seek 'therapy', and vis-à-vis.

Unthinkable - perhaps insulting - for the outline.

The eccentric configurations, considered miserable, in fact contain secret doors, immense virtues, and the cure itself.

Indeed, they guide towards a new existence. They urge, and 'oblige' us to an immediate relationship with our Lord. Almost to seek His likeness.

Breathing in the common thought and tracing the trajectories of others, even those considered "intimate to God", the stiffening would have remained.

No unpredictable Salvation would have broken through.

In short, according to the Gospels there is only one non-negotiable, crossroads, decisive value: the desire to live fully, in a truly integrated way; in the first person.

Unusual crossroads of Tenderness and Faith.

To internalise and live the message:

What arouses your sense of admiration for the Power of God? Are you excited by physical or inner miracles?

Where do you most frequently hear, "My son, your sins are forgiven [...] Rise up and walk"? Do the others seem healthy and spiritual environments to you?

What kind are your works of faith? In sectors?

Marked by successful steps and negotiations with the distrustful installed (so that they are accepted and mistaken for Tenderness)?