Daily Devotion for Lent 2019 - Day 13

Scripture Reading: Matthew 9:2-38 (NRSV)

Is there a connection between sin and sickness?

For people living in first century Judea, this certainly seemed to be the case.

Similar to the leper asking to be made clean, Jesus forgives the paralytic of his sins.

In contrast to the spirit of mercy, the scribes thought ill of Jesus for this action.

Jesus then states that the evil in the room is not in the paralytic or in the friends who brought him before Jesus or even in Jesus for taking this authority.  The evil was in the hearts of those who thought ill of Jesus for making a declaration of forgiveness.

Jesus then doubles down on the restoration of human beings as he calls a tax collector to be a disciple.  He quotes from Hosea which reminds the people of God's deep mercy in the midst of their unfaithfulness.  Hosea was the prophet who married a prostitute as a sign-act to remind Israel of God's faithful devotion to them even in the midst of their idolatry.

We all need resurrection.

But we may be the ones Jesus needs to awaken.

Jesus is challenging the fabric of society.  All societies have caste systems.  Some are overt like in India but most are less obvious.  When those lines get blurred, people get nervous.  And so we see the Pharisees declare that his powers are demonic rather than divine.  When we feel our social structures threatened, we move to assume that God is not happy about it.  However, if Jesus is breaking these down, we may need to reexamine our own assumptions about insiders and outsiders.

This is necessary for us because Jesus calls us in the last section to begin to go out into the world.

The harvest may be riper than ever.

God, may it begin with me.


Prayer for the day:

God, we may be blind to your grace.
It is often easy enough to see in our lives, but...
we may not identify it as readily in others.
Jesus, open our eyes.
And as we begin to see, 
may you also loosen our tongues that we might witness to the world.
Amen.


Photo by Pedro Ribiero Simões via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.