Monday of
the 30th Week of Ordinary Time
October 27, 2014 8:30am
Some years ago there was a film
titled A Few Good Men.
In a climactic scene of the
movie, a Navy lawyer played by Tom Cruise is interrogating a Marine Colonel
played by Jack Nicholson.
The lawyer strongly and loudly
demands the truth from the Marine.
And the Marine Colonel thunders
back, “You can’t handle the truth.”
That scene reflects the synagogue
leader in today’s gospel.
He cannot handle the truth
either.
Jesus has miraculously healed a
woman.
But the synagogue leader is not
in awe of what has happened or grateful that this woman is healed.
Instead, he ignores Jesus and
blames the woman for coming to be healed on the Sabbath and tells everyone to
come on the other six days of the week for healing.
According to his logic, healing
requires work and work is not allowed on the Sabbath.
I suppose today he would want
urgent care centers and emergency rooms closed on Sundays!
The real issue here is that he is
so consumed with resentment against Jesus that he has blinded himself to the
truth of things in life.
It is easy to see such extreme
blindness in others.
I am thinking of people like
racial supremacists or Islamic terrorists or extremist of any kind.
But it is not so easy to see
blindness in ourselves.
It is easy to be blind to our own
blindness.
We can let resentment towards
another grow to the point that we see no goodness in the person at all.
Or we can become so fixed on a
particular issue or truth that we make it the only issue or truth and end up
hurting people in the process.
In a reverse sort of way, the
synagogue leader today calls us to search ourselves for blind spots
His unfortunate example calls us
to open our inner selves and our spiritual eyes to the full reality of life and
of God’s work.
