‘Seeing the faith of the friends’ of the paralytic who ‘move a tile roof’, Luke records Jesus saying to the paralytic, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” These words, alone, now cause an immediate change of events. Looking closer, the Pharisees and scribes, who had come from “every village in Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem” to see a ‘miracle worker’, ‘healer’, ‘teacher’ now question, “who is this who is speaking blasphemies?” (Luke 5:21)
To begin with ‘blasphemias’ stands alone in translation and can be found in it’s original form, even without root variations in most languages. It is used to denote ‘abusive speech’; ‘word of evil sound’; and came to be known as ‘the strongest form of personal mockery and calumniation’. It always refers finally to god. It takes on the sense of ‘mistaking the true nature of god’; ‘violating god’ and ‘doubting the power of god’. In the Old Testament it has the sense of ‘disputing God’s saving power’; ‘desecrating His name’.
The Rabbis, the scribes and the Pharisees were informed by the Leviticus 24:13ff text: “He who blashphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him; the sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death”. Israel was even warned of blaspheming the gods of the other nations, lest the foreigner disregard the power of Yahweh. Isaiah recounts Hezekiah’s distress as he ‘rent his clothes and covered himself with a sack cloth and went into the temple, saying, “This day is a day of trouble and of blasphemy; children have come to birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth.” When Jesus said to the paralytic, “Man, your sins are forgiven you”, the scribes and Pharisees asked “Who is this who is speaking blasphemies?”
When I saw the first meme from what Marjorie Taylor Greene had said concerning The death of Pope Francis, my immediate response was more doubt about who exactly this woman even thinks she is. I do know that demons cannot even stand in the face of a Holy Man. And then Donald Trump was photographed ‘asleep’ during his visit to the Vatican for the Funeral services of Pope Francis.
‘Abusive speech’; ‘word of evil sound’ —‘the strongest form of personal mockery and calumniation’. It always refers finally to godliness (or lack thereof). ‘Mistaking the true nature of god’; ‘violating god’ and ‘doubting the power of god’. A sense of ‘disputing God’s saving power’; ‘desecrating His name’.
I have been stuck all week on Howard Thurman’s words in 1938 to the Tennessee State University Class of 1938. “There must be transformation of the Negro church. The Negro people have lost step with the masses. We have divided ourselves into a number of various classes. …There is no class system in the Philosophy of Christ. …The masses of this world need security, need peace, need justice, need brotherhood. The Church can give it if we transform it.” Church folk need to, no “better GET REAL” about EVIL and Where it comes from!!!
I am reminded of how quickly the Family Reunion, the Family Holiday Dinner and various other purposeful Family and Church gatherings take a change of events. Members are gathered in a kindred spirit of love, fellowship, renewal.. and one person, (drunk or otherwise) will turn it around, upside down.. turn it out! Same person. Every time!
The Pharisees and scribes, who had come from “every village in Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem”, surely came the distance to share in a very purposeful gathering of kindred spirits to see, to hear, to be touched by this ‘miracle worker’, ‘healer’, ‘teacher’. He very simply said to the paralytic, (on a note that was so very personal in Luke— wasn’t even talking to THEM), “Man, your sins are forgiven YOU.” A ‘change of events’! A capital crime! Punishable by death! The response of those present— “We have seen strange things today”.
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