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In 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, the apostle Paul speaks of someone who was "taken to heaven" … and who "heard things that should not be said (to mortals , and) that no mortal is allowed to repeat, … considering the exceptional nature of revelations (concerning Heaven). "
We know from Paul's later writing that "Someone" was probably the great apostle himself. However, Paul warns us against bragging about an exceptional experience or knowledge of Heaven, lest we be considered wise or wise beyond our true ability and be held accountable beyond our abilities and that our interlocutors forget all kindness in us. us, but from the ever-sufficient grace of God.
The great apostle addresses the efficacy of this grace (unmerited favor) with a glittering logic. The apostle is endowed with a "thorn in the flesh" – as all of us, with obvious imperfection. This imperfection, this obvious lack, reminds us that to reach our positive goals, we need more: the infallible presence of God in our lives, his saving grace.
In other words, Paul, as each of us intends to be righteous but imperfect and unable to overcome his "splinter in the flesh". He praises the affirmation of Jesus that the divine power and grace that comes from the Lord Jesus Christ overcomes our weaknesses.
Despite our "spines" of imperfection, Faced with any legitimate challenge, we must only remember that God is there, with God's all-powerful potential to do all that is right in nature that we can not not to do.
Paul observes that in all situations: "weaknesses, insults, persecutions, and calamities" visited on other righteous disciples – we imperfect sinners are made strong by the divine presence in our lives, not acquired by us but always at our disposal by our sincere faith.
I speak of the presence that is rightly called "the saving grace of God". So, indeed, when we are weak … God, the strongest in complementarity, can always count on him to fill the void
Chapter 6 of the Gospel according to Mark opens with a reminder that even the best Any of us should expect to be underestimated in our hometown by people whose idea of us neglects the effects of our continued growth – physically, intellectually, in character, personality. and the ability – traceable to the pbadage of time and the new experience and, of course, the will of God.
From this narrative in Mark 6, and on the other in Luke 4, the reaction of the people of the synagogue of Nazareth who knew Jesus when ", the astonishment was mixed with offense to the Assumed impertinence of Jesus in his "special" claims.
The account of Mark warns us against the badumption that far from home, Jesus or any of us would have matured in the world. The combined image of his parents and Iblings who stayed at home, and Luke's narrative focuses on the definition of Jesus himself as the evolved fulfillment of the Messianic vision set forth in Isaiah chapter 61. Remember you: "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord anointed me … and sent me" 61: 1-3).
In d & # 39; Other words, there is an exhortation, and perhaps consolation, for misunderstandings and also for those who might misunderstand and thus miss the opportunity of this inter particular action with the divinely matured (that is,
This lesson of Mark 6 and Luke 4 brings us back to the wisdom of 1 Samuel 16: 7, where God excoriates men and women, just as we today, for the tendency to do When evaluating another person for any purpose whatsoever, we must take care to proceed according to piety and "look at the heart" as "Heart" has been understood in biblical times: all those things that we do not see, such as cognition and intent, manifested right or wrong and the unique essence of the person, differentiating it from someone's d & # 39; # 39; other.
The faithful of the synagogue of Nazareth knew the extraordinary wisdom of Jesus preached throughout Galilee and his extraordinary capacity for healing, and they were the recipients of countless other people, recipients of the message that Jesus proclaimed wherever he went: the Good News of God's great love for humanity, of the mercy of God and the endless salvation of God. They knew these things, and even experienced them, but they were captivated by images of what they had seen (or thought to see) many years before, or by how much Jesus looked like his mother or as one or more of his brothers and sisters or baduming that Jesus would otherwise be like the men of his age in Nazareth.
The Apostle Paul reminded us that Jesus instructed: "My grace is sufficient for you because my complementary power is perfect in weakness." Also, as the evangelist Mark tells us: Jesus proclaimed: "The prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own parents, and in their own house." Amen.
– The Rev. Wesley S. Williams, K.St.J., former Deputy Dean of the Bishop of St. Thomas and St. John in the Episcopal Diocese of the Virgin Islands and Vicar of Nazareth by the Episcopal Church of the Sea of St. Thomas, is now Priest Scholar Cathedral and member of the Council of the Dean and Rota Service at Washin National Cathedral of Gton
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