Homilies on Matthew, Homily 29

“And He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city. And look, they brought Him a paralyzed man lying on a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralyzed man, ‘Son, take courage; your sins are forgiven.’” By His own city here he means Capernaum. For Bethlehem was the city where He was born; Nazareth, where He grew up; and Capernaum, where He lived continually. This paralyzed man, however, was different from the one described in John. That man lay at the pool, but this one was at Capernaum; that man had suffered from his illness for thirty-eight years, but nothing like that is mentioned about this one. The other man had no one to look after him, but this one had people to care for him, who also picked him up and carried him. To this man He says, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” but to the other He says, “Do you want to be made well?” He healed the other on a Sabbath, but this one on a different day, since otherwise the Jews would have accused Him of this too. In this man's case they were silent, but in the other's they persistently persecuted Him. I have said this for a reason: so that no one will think there is a discrepancy because they suspect that these were one and the same paralyzed man. But please notice our Lord's humility and gentleness. Even before this He had sent the crowds away from Him. And when the people at Gadara sent Him away, He did not resist but withdrew, though He did not go very far. Again He got into the boat and crossed over, although He could have crossed on foot. For He did not want to perform miracles all the time, so that He would not undermine the doctrine of His incarnation. Now Matthew says that “they brought him,” but the others say that they also broke open the roof and lowered him down. They placed the sick man before Christ without saying anything, leaving everything to Him. For although at first He Himself went around and did not require so much faith from those who came to Him, in this case they both approached Him and were required to have faith themselves. For it says, “Seeing their faith”—that is, the faith of those who had lowered the man down. He does not always require faith only from the sick, as, for example, when they are insane or their disease has otherwise left them unable to act for themselves. Or rather, in this case the sick man also shared in their faith, for he would not have allowed himself to be lowered down unless he had believed. Since they had shown such great faith, He also shows His own power, forgiving the man's sins with full authority and making it clear in every way that He is equal in honor to Him who begot Him. Notice how He indicated this from the beginning: through His teaching, when He taught them as one who had authority; through the leper, when He said, “I will; be clean”; through the centurion, when, after the centurion said, “Only speak the word, and my servant will be healed,” He marveled at him and praised him above everyone else; through the sea, when He restrained it with just a word; and through the demons, when they acknowledged Him as their judge and He cast them out with great authority. Here again, in another and greater way, He compels His very enemies to acknowledge His equality in honor and makes it clear through their own mouths. To show His indifference to honor (for a large crowd of spectators stood blocking the entrance, which was why they lowered the man down from above), He did not immediately rush to heal the visible body, but took the opportunity they gave Him. He first healed what is invisible, the soul, by forgiving the man's sins. This saved the man but brought no great glory to Himself. Instead, they themselves, agitated by their malice and wanting to attack Him, made what had happened conspicuous even against their will. In fact, in His abundant wisdom, He used their envy to reveal the miracle. When they raised an outcry and said, “This man blasphemes; who can forgive sins but God alone?” let us see what He says. Did He actually dispel their suspicion? If He were not equal, He should have said, “Why attribute something to Me that does not belong to Me? I am far from having this power.” But He said none of these things. Quite the opposite: He both affirmed and confirmed it, through His own words and through the miracle He performed. Thus, since saying certain things about Himself clearly offended His listeners, He confirms what He had to say about Himself through others. And what is truly marvelous is that He does so not only through His friends but also through His enemies; this shows the excellence of His wisdom. Through His friends, on the one hand, when He said, “I will; be clean,” and when He said, “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel”; but now through His enemies. For because they had said, “No one can forgive sins but God alone,” He added, “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins on the earth (then He says to the paralyzed man), Get up, pick up your bed, and go to your house.” And not only here, but again on another occasion, when they said, “We are not stoning You for a good work, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a man, make Yourself God,” He did not reject this opinion then either. Instead, He confirmed it again, saying, “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, even if you do not believe Me, believe the works.” 2. In this case He also reveals another sign, and no small one, of His own Godhead and His equality in honor with the Father. For while they said, “Releasing people from sins belongs to God alone,” He not only releases people from sins but, even before this, gives another demonstration in something that belongs to God alone: revealing the secrets of the heart. For they had not even spoken their thoughts aloud. For it says, “Look, some of the scribes said to themselves, ‘This man blasphemes.’ And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts?’” But to see that knowing people's secrets belongs to God alone, listen to what the prophet says: “You alone, You and no other, know the hearts”; and again, “God tests the hearts and kidneys.” Jeremiah also says, “The heart is deep beyond all things, and it is man, and who will know him?” And, “Man will look at the face, but God at the heart.” Many passages show that knowing what is in the mind belongs to God alone. Thus, indicating that He is God, equal to Him who begot Him, He reveals and makes clear the opinion they were debating within themselves (for they did not dare speak their minds for fear of the crowd). In this too He shows His great gentleness. For He says, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” And yet, if anyone had cause to be displeased, it was the sick man, who should have been displeased at being completely deceived and should have said, “I came to have one thing healed, and You cure something else? How is it clear that my sins are forgiven?” But as it is, he says no such thing and entrusts himself to the healer's power. These men, however, are nosy and envious, plotting against the good done to others. So He rebukes them, but with complete gentleness. “If you disbelieve,” He says, “what came before, and consider My statement a boast, look: I add another thing to it, the revelation of your secrets, and after that still another.” What is this? Restoring strength to the paralyzed man's body. And when He spoke to the paralyzed man, He spoke without clearly revealing His own authority, for He did not say, “I forgive your sins,” but, “Your sins are forgiven.” Yet when they force the issue, He reveals His authority more clearly, saying, “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.” Do you see how willing He was to be regarded as equal to the Father? He did not say, “The Son of Man needs someone else,” or, “He has given Him authority,” but, “He has authority.” Nor does He say this out of a love of honor, but “to convince you,” as He puts it, “that I do not blaspheme by making Myself equal with God.” Thus He always wants to offer clear and indisputable proof, as when He says, “Go, show yourself to the priest”; when He points to Peter's mother-in-law serving them; and when He allows the pigs to plunge headlong down. He does the same here too. First, as a sure sign that the man's sins have been forgiven, He restores strength to his body; and as proof of that, He has him carry his bed, so that what happened cannot be thought mere imagination. And He does not do this until He has asked them a question. “For which is easier,” He says, “to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Pick up your bed and go to your house’?” What He means is this: “Which seems easier to you: to put a body that has fallen apart back together, or to release a soul from its sins? Clearly, to put a body back together. For removing sins is greater than healing the body by as much as the soul is better than the body. But because one is unseen and the other visible, I add what, though a lesser thing, is more open to the senses, so that through it the greater and unseen thing may also be proved.” Thus, through His works, He already anticipates the revelation of what John had said: that “He takes away the sins of the world.” Then, after raising him up, He sends him to his house. Here again He shows that He does not boast and that the event was no mere illusion, for He makes the same people witnesses both of the man's illness and of his health. “For I wanted,” He says, “through your suffering to heal those too who seem healthy but are sick in mind. But since they are unwilling, go home to heal those who are there.” Do you see how He identifies Him as the Creator of both souls and bodies? He therefore heals the paralysis in each of the two substances and makes the invisible evident through what can be seen. Nevertheless, they still crawl along the earth. “For when the crowds saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who,” it says, “had given such power to men.” For the flesh was a stumbling block to them. But He did not rebuke them; He continued through His works to awaken them and lift their thoughts higher. For at that point it was no small thing for Him to be thought greater than all men, as one who had come from God. Had they firmly established these things in their minds, they would have gone on, step by step, to recognize that He was indeed the Son of God. But they did not keep a clear hold on these things, and so they could not come near Him either. For they said again, “This man is not from God”; “How is this man from God?” They kept harping on these things, putting them forward as cover for their own passions. 3. Many people do the same thing now: thinking they are avenging God, they indulge their own passions, when they should handle everything with moderation. For even the God of all, who has the power to hurl His thunderbolt at those who blaspheme Him, makes the sun rise, sends the rain, and provides them with everything else in abundance. We ought to imitate Him and therefore appeal to people, advise them, and admonish them gently, without getting angry or turning ourselves into wild beasts. For their blasphemy does God no harm at all that should make you angry; instead, the one who blasphemed has wounded himself. So groan and mourn, for this calamity deserves tears. And nothing can heal the wounded man so well as gentleness—gentleness, I say, which is mightier than any force. See, for example, how He Himself, the one who is insulted, speaks with us in both the Old Testament and the New. In the one He says, “My people, what have I done to you?” In the other, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” Paul too commands, “Gently instruct those who are opposed.” And again, when Christ's disciples came to Him asking for fire to come down from heaven, He sternly rebuked them, saying, “You do not know what kind of spirit you have.” And here again He did not say, “You cursed people and sorcerers! You envious people and enemies of people's salvation!” but, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” You see, we must use gentleness to root out the disease. For someone who has become better through fear of other people will quickly return to wickedness. For this reason He also commanded that the weeds be left, allowing an appointed day for repentance. Indeed, many of them actually repented and became good after being bad—for example, Paul, the Tax Collector, and the Thief. Though they really were weeds, they turned into good wheat. Although this cannot happen with seeds, it is both possible and easy with the human will. For our will is not bound by the limits of nature but has freedom of choice as its privilege. Accordingly, when you see an enemy of the truth, attend to him, care for him, and lead him back to virtue by displaying an excellent life, using “speech that cannot be condemned,” giving him attention and tender care, and trying every means of helping him change, in imitation of the best physicians. For they do not use only one method of treatment. When they see that a wound does not respond to the first remedy, they add another, and then still another; sometimes they use the knife, and sometimes they bandage it. You too, then, as a physician of souls, should put every kind of treatment into practice according to Christ's laws, so that you may receive the reward both for saving yourself and for benefiting others, doing everything to God's glory and so being glorified yourself as well. “For those who glorify Me,” He says, “I will glorify; and those who despise Me will be despised.” Let us, I say, do everything to His glory, so that we may receive that blessed share. May God grant that we all receive it, through the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.