Is it astounding, amazing, marvelous that a local boy, “the carpenter’s son,” might speak gracious words?  Of course, we know more than they did about this suddenly notorious neighbor of theirs. Could it be that those who claim to profess faith in, and to follow this One – as Christ-ians are likewise missioned to use the gift of speech grace-fully?

What are gracious words?  Words that build up, never tear apart or put down. Words that are good, loving and truthful. Words that create bonds of unity and promote peace and harmony, not foment division.Words that nurture and enhance life – reverent words that are gentle with those who are broken and weak, and, at the same time, that challenge those, in their arrogance, who would mistreat or misuse others. Words that call all people to awareness in order to choose a better, fuller life. Words that flow from communion with the Spirit of God. This is the only form of speech, spoken or written,  worthy of believers in the One who is the Word of God.   Luke 4:22

What paralyzes us? Stops us cold? Prevents us from acting freely as we would really prefer to act? 

In Jesus’ time infirmity, sickness, disability – any form of neediness was generally taken as a clear sign that a person was not in God’s good graces. (This way of thinking persists to today.) There must be sin, not keeping the law, some uncleanness at work. Labeled, “sinner” (and labels attached by society have tremendous power and can become embodied) there is now shame for one’s self, one’s family, one’s tribe. Labels can be sinisterly effective. When internalized we become what we are told we are: Outcast, Object of pity, Worthless, Dis-graced. Our health declines. Or we become paralyzed, unable to move, no longer able to function on our own. To whom or to what do we give authority to paralyze or dis-able us?

A person who was paralyzed is carried to Jesus by four men who refused to be put off by the crowd packing the space where Jesus was teaching. They lift the person on the stretcher up onto the roof and make a hole large enough to lower the person and stretcher down directly in front of Jesus. Imagine bits of debris dropping on the people below. Seeing their faith, the gospels report, Jesus responds. The paralyzed person is brought by his or her community into Jesus’ presence, undaunted by the challenges this entails. How often are we unable to come to God to ask for what we need on our own? In how many ways does our family or community carry us when our individual faith is weakened or paralyzed?

Those who bear the paralyzed person believe that Jesus can help, the he has power from God to heal. They also believe in the goodness of the person on the stretcher. Somehow they have experienced this goodness. Despite the labels applied, this person is “worthy” of being healed and liberated. They care.

But Jesus does not begin by lifting the person who was paralyzed to walk. He addresses what lies beneath the surface – that which aggravates the paralysis –  affirming and assuring the one who lies before him: “There is nothing in you or about you that prevents God from seeing you as anything other than beloved – your sins are forgiven – both a command and a fact. There is truth here for all of us.

Knowing, believing, feeling that this is true the person is able to respond to Jesus’ second command, “Stand up, pick up the stretcher that no longer defines you and go home with those and to those who believe in you.          Luke 5:17-26

How often Jesus observed that people who didn’t (and don’t?) count much are the ones who have the inside track on God’s ways! For example, children. They (like women) were considered property, and as almost useless until they grew enough to help the family in some concrete way – sons by learning and participating in the family’s work, daughters when a profitable marriage was able to be arranged.

It’s not the wise, the learned, the clever or those who think they have successfully figured life out who are leaning into the Kingdom of God. It’s not even the well-to-do or the healthy who are first in line. What a shock if they discover that they’re not even close! 

Jesus encourages and invites us to become like children. They “get it”. What is to be childlike? What qualities does a child innately possess that puts them at the forefront? Children generally are open, simple, trusting, still able to wonder at the world and to dream about what it might yet become.

Many children, though innocent are not naive. Just by living they pick up the basics of how things “work”. Even when they are deceived, they sense what is fair and what is not. It’s true that they are quite powerless to do much, but just maybe, doing things is not as high on God’s agenda as it is on ours.

Could it be that we who consider ourselves wise or in the know complicate things too much? Have we lost spontaneity, trust, awareness of how awesome it is simply to be alive?  Have fears, ego or illusions closed us in our own self-made universe?

The season of Advent invites us to be (or to become again) like children waiting for Christmas, believing in unimaginable possibilities, dreaming of a world where God’s graciousness is unhindered by our grownup act – where we can be surprised again by beauty, goodness and love in our midst.        (Luke 10:21)

At the beginning of the 19th chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is passing through Jericho. It’s not his destination and he senses that his hour is near. No time to stop now. The slow, steady ascent to Jerusalem still lies ahead. 

The chief tax collector for the area, wealthy and despised, is a little man named Zacchaeus. He has a very comfortable life, in terms of having things, thanks to his collaboration with the Roman oppressors. It’s a job. Somebody will do it. So why not him? 

Zacchaeus, who needs to be up on all the news, hears that this “Jesus”  and his entourage is in town. This is a spectacle that Zacchaeus does not want to miss. He’s heard all kinds of differing reports – even this far south of Galilee – so that he just has to see Jesus for himself. 

The crowd is too big and Zacchaeus too small. He cannot see. He knows the town and runs ahead on the route Jesus must take and climbs a sycamore tree. 

Jesus, and the crowd with him, stops. Jesus looks up, sees Zacchaeus out on a limb and calls to him,”Zacchaeus, come down. I need to stay with you today.” Zacchaeus looks into Jesus’ eyes and sees himself reflected there in a whole new way. Is this who he truly is?

Zacchaeus, overjoyed, quickly climbs down and wholeheartedly welcomes Jesus into his home. The crowd reacts, murmuring angrily that this holy “prophet” would consent to receive hospitality from a public sinner. Zacchaeus, standing tall, responds by offering half of what he owns to the poor and to repay any he has cheated fourfold. What has happened?

Jesus saw what was in Zacchaeus’s heart and knew that the way in was to ask him for help. This request coming from need opened Zacchaeus to healing and liberation. Zacchaeus did see Jesus. Jesus interrupted his urgent journey. Zacchaeus received a new sense of himself and of his life.

What are we willing to do to see Jesus?  How does the crowd obscure our vision of what is true and good? What do we need to let go of in order to welcome Jesus into the intimacy of our heart?

Jesus is looking over Jerusalem. His hour is at hand. Yet at this moment he is feeling no excitement, no anxiety, no dread. Jesus’ heart is aching. He weeps.

You came to offer us a new, a different way of seeing, of living, of treating one another – an alternative to the painfully inadequate well-worn paths we habitually tend to follow. You lay before us shalom – an all-encompassing, all-inclusive peace – and we prefer to put on another layer of armor.This one more technologically advanced than the last, bolstering our illusion of security. After all. it’s us against them. We do not recognize, nor can we read, the signs of the times.

You warn us. Yet we go about our business as usual, convincing ourselves that we are happy in our denial. The kind of response you propose, the kind of change you ask of us is too much, opening the way to terrible suffering for many: devastation, destruction, death.

For you, the consequences of our refusal to radically change are all too clear. Today the whole world is Jerusalem. You look over it. You weep.