Lectionary Reflections  |  Health, Hunger & Housing

Perceiving with Compassion
 By Michael Hopkins
Thursday, February 16, 2006
 

Lectionary Reflections for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany (B)

Readings for Epiphany 7B, February 19, 2006
  • Isaiah 43:18-25
  • Psalm 41
  • 2 Corinthians 1:18-22
  • Mark 2:1-12
Do you not perceive it?

... even liberals got caught with their blinders on by Katrina. We have a massive "perception problem."
Well, frankly, no, we do not. "Liberal" folk love to shake their heads these days and wonder out loud how it is possible that so many people in our country do not see "what is going on." Vast numbers of us seem perfectly content to believe everything the current administration tells us even after it is long known to have been a lie. Fears about "gay marriage" cause some (many?) to vote against their own economic self-interest. And even liberals got caught with their blinders on by Katrina. We have a massive "perception problem."

The Gospel reading seems to be about this problem as well. Illness perceived as "defect" or "moral failure" produces marginal if not expendable persons. It is relatively easy for us to feel culturally superior to those of Jesus' day in our attitudes toward disease, but the sense of "defectiveness" or "uncleanness" related to illness remains pervasive among us. It is helpful for our understanding of just what is going on in this story of the healing of the paralytic not only to remember the fine line between sin and illness in Jesus' day, but also the deep sense of the word for sin used here: "missing the mark," "error," and "defectiveness." Then there is the word used for forgiveness used here, which has the sense of "sent away" or "released." In the Greek of Jesus' day the word was most often used as a legal term, meaning the release of someone from a legal obligation.

Jesus perceived that the man was both socially and physically bound. Where others saw defect, he saw the need for freedom.
This allows us several interesting alternative translations for Jesus' words in Mark 2:5. Try, "Son, you are released from your defect," or "Your defects are removed." Or better yet, "Son, your defects mean nothing to me." The point here is that one standard interpretation of this story -- that Jesus perceived that the paralytic was in need of forgiveness before he could be healed -- misses the point altogether. Jesus perceived that the man was both socially and physically bound. Where others saw defect, he saw the need for freedom. So did the man's friends who went to extraordinary measures to bring him to Jesus.

God in the passage from Isaiah is unwilling to accept the way things are; neither is Jesus in the Gospel. Those who burden God with their sins in Isaiah and the scribes who know only the law as descriptive (and prescriptive) of "how things are supposed to be" in the Gospel both exemplify our perception problem. And our perception problem turns quickly into our action problem. We see need, perceive defect, and react not with the impulse of compassion, but instead with "there but for the grace of God go I," one of those cultural sayings that masks itself as Scripture.

Learning to see and perceive and act with compassion rather than self-interest remains the heart and soul of discipleship
We do have a massive perception problem. It is neither a conservative or a liberal problem; it is a human one. Learning to see and perceive and act with compassion rather than self-interest remains the heart and soul of discipleship in our day as it was in Jesus' own.


The Rev. Michael W. Hopkins is rector of the Episcopal Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene in Rochester, N.Y. He is past president of Integrity USA, and is a contributing editor to The Witness. Michael may be reached by email at MWHopkins@rochester.rr.com.