Friday January 13, 2006 (Audio) Homily by Fr. Robert Altier First Week in Ordinary Time
Reading (1 Samuel 8:4-7,
10-22a) Gospel (St. Mark 2:1-12)
In the Gospel reading today, we hear about this paralyzed man, and we
recognize that the paralysis of this man was far more spiritual than it was
physical. Although he was obviously afflicted physically and was unable to
walk, nonetheless, as Jesus makes very clear, this had to do with his
sinfulness. When his sins were forgiven, he was able to walk. If we look at our
own selves, of course, we realize what happens to us is that sin causes us to
be paralyzed in a spiritual way. We become blinded to things, but more than
that, we become paralyzed; we are not able to function the way that we ought.
We wind up either doing things we should not, or failing to do the things we
should.
If we couple that, then, with the first reading, we look at the people
who are rejecting God. They come to Samuel with no faith in God at all and beg
him to appoint for them a king. Samuel lays out for them all the problems that
are going to come about if they have a king, and they basically ignore him and
say, “We don’t care. We want a king anyway.” And God said to him, They are
not rejecting you, they are rejecting Me. Now we have to remember that at the time of Samuel
there had not been a prophet for quite some time. So God raises up Samuel, and
now the elders come to him and say, “Your sons aren’t following your example.
Obviously, there isn’t going to be an immediate successor, so give us a king.”
They did not trust that God could raise up someone else. If they could not see
that one of Samuel’s sons was following in his footsteps, then it must not be
that there is anybody who would be able to do this.
Of course, we can see the foolishness of their position, but it is just
plain human, that is, it is humanity afflicted by sin. We cannot think straight
because of sin. We cannot act properly because of sin. It is only when we
recognize that, and have our sins forgiven, that the spiritual paralysis is
lifted so we can see clearly. And we have the exact same point laid before us:
Whom will we follow? We have our king – Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord
of lords; the question is: Are we willing to allow Him to be our king? Most of
us, just like the people of old, because we cannot see Him right now, we will
not accept Him as our king. If we asked the people of ancient Israel if God was
their king, they would all say, “Oh, yes, God is the king of Israel.” Yet here
they are saying, “Appoint for us a king, a king who is going to lead us into
battle” – as if God did not, “a king who is going to rule over us” – as if God
did not. But because they could not see Him and because they could not hear
Him, they simply rejected Him because they wanted something tangible to hang onto.
Once again, the spiritual paralysis and the blindness of sin.
We have Our Lord, and He is King. Now the question is: Is He truly the
king of our lives? Objectively, He is the king of the whole universe. But
subjectively, is He the king of our own individual lives? Are we allowing Him
to be that? Or, from a spiritual perspective, are we lying on a mat like the
paralytic in the Gospel because we are afflicted by sin and we are unable to
function properly in a Christian manner? That is something we all need to take
to prayer. We need to look honestly within ourselves and ask ourselves some
pretty hard questions. But it really comes down to one thing: Whom will you
serve? Who will be your king? That is the question we have to answer. Are we
going to be like Joshua, who challenged the people in that same kind of way and
said, As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord? But we have to understand, as Saint Paul
makes clear in Romans, all of us will serve someone. If it is not God, then
ultimately it is going to be Satan. Satan will present himself in many forms,
whether it is money or self or materialism or whatever it might be; it does not
matter. It is one or the other; the choice is ours. God will not force Himself
on us. He is there and we know the truth, now we have to choose whom we will
serve.
* This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.