Week 12 Friday (Year 1)

Readings: Genesis 17:1,9-10,15-22; Psalm 128; Matthew 8:1-4

Having delivered the great Sermon, Jesus comes down from the mountain and a new phase of his ministry begins. Matthew 5-7 was the first phase, in which he was shown to us as a teacher, standing in the line of the Law and the Prophets, repeating the wisdom and the demands of the covenant, aligning himself with the most radical interpretations of the Law as the Prophets before him had done. The people are already amazed, not so much at the content of the Sermon as at the authority with which Jesus spoke it.

The next phase of his ministry is one of healings and exorcisms. He is not just a teacher, he is an agent in the spiritual and moral engagement about which he was preaching. As time goes by we will see that he is in fact the Agent in that engagement. Leprosy, paralysis, fever - no illness of body can withstand his healing power. We will hear also of exorcisms and spiritual healings for no illness of mind or affliction by demons can withstand his liberating power.

In all of this he does the Father's will. The temptations recounted in Matthew 4 show us that Jesus is totally obedient to what the Father wants. But notice that Jesus is also obedient to those who ask his help. 'If you choose, you can make me clean', the leper says to him. 'I do choose', Jesus replies, 'be made clean'. It is as if Jesus agrees to align his will with that of the leper: he chooses to want what the leper wants.

We will hear of a similar situation in tomorrow's gospel reading. Jesus offers to come to heal a centurion's servant, the centurion says, 'Lord, I am not worthy to have you in my house', and so Jesus says, 'OK, let it be done according to your faith', and the servant is healed. It is as if, once again, Jesus chooses to align his will with that of the centurion, not just as regards the healing itself but even as regards the circumstances of the healing, which he agrees to do from a distance.

In the following chapter, Matthew 9, we will find it said explicitly that 'Jesus followed' a synagogue leader who asked him to come and heal his daughter (Matthew 9:19). We are used to hearing Jesus calling others to follow him: it is interesting, to say the least, to hear of him following others.

Jesus is obedient to his love and must follow where that love draws him. So he does the Father's will for he loves the Father above all. But here we see him following the will of those who turn to him in need. His availability to people and his acquiescence to their requests can be understood as showing Jesus practising what he had just preached: if a person asks you to go one mile, go two with him. More deeply such actions reveal his love for the people who turn to him: how can Love not love the ones who are infinitely loved by Love when they turn to Love for help?

It is the root of his power and of the authority with which he speaks. It might seem like a recipe for impotence, to be in this way at everyone's beck and call. But chosen out of love - 'I do choose, be made clean' - it becomes supreme freedom. It is also a new kind of power, the power of infinite love, of boundless compassion, of unfailing tenderness. Why are we so afraid to profess the same obedience, to the Father and to one another? To align our wills simply with the wills of those who look to us for help? The only explanation is that we do not yet truly love them.