What a mess!

God is with us in the chaos

It’s an often-told, familiar story: the friends of the paralytic bring him to see Jesus. The crowd is too big for him to get in the door, so they “open up the roof” to lower down the paralytic on a mat. Jesus forgives the man’s sins, heals him, and sends him on his way.

The story is usually told from the point of view of the paralytic or the friends.

But imagine being in the room when the friends “open up the roof.” Underneath that hole (which couldn’t have been small) dust, pieces of the roof, and who knows what else are falling on you.

Once the man picks up his mat and walks, who’s supposed to clean up the debris? Did the friends stick around to pick up, or did they go out to celebrate with the cured paralytic?

Most depictions of the healing of the paralytic portray a sanitized version of the miracle, without the mess inside the house (JESUS MAFA. Jesus heals a paralyzed man, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library)

And what about the people living in the house? They’ve got to close up the roof. [Some commentaries suggest that this was actually Jesus’ house in Capernaum, or at least the place he lived when he was there. If so, then Jesus himself was stuck with the repairs.]

We repeatedly hear these stories 2,000 years later and can lose a sense of the dirty details. Faith can be messy. If you’re looking to your faith to provide order, comfort, and solace, you can find some of that in Christianity. But you’re just as likely to find gray areas, ambiguity, opposition, and conflict.

Catholicism doesn’t always provide easy answers to the issues that plague our fallen world.

At the same time, we believe that this world is only a temporary address while we’re en route to our permanent home. Our present reality is a tent on the journey, not a mansion with foundations.

While we’re in this world, we need to do everything we can to improve it. But if our efforts are unsuccessful, it doesn’t mean we should despair. As St. Teresa of Calcutta said, “God did not call me to be successful. He called me to be faithful. “

Let’s not hesitate to open up the roof, to shake things up, to go to great lengths to seek the love of Jesus. But once we’ve done that, let’s make sure we stick around to clean up, so that we’re providing a good witness and not leaving a mess for others.