THE POWER OF GOD AND HUMAN WEAKNESS.
July 7, 2024.
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – B.
“So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart
from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at
their lack of faith.” Mk 6:5
A Corsican proverb says: “Have faith and God will provide.”
A Portuguese proverb adds: “Faith has no eyes; he who asks to see has no
faith.”
Humans are weak, frail, prone to sin, and rebellious. We
often let our weaknesses and rebellious minds take over our inner goodness.
God, however, shows his love and power at work in us. He can transform our
stories and make of our weakness, the place where his grace operates. The only
thing God’s grace requires to be at work in us is a firm faith in him. Without
faith, no miracle is possible and God’s power inoperative.
Today, again, like the two precedent Sundays, we continue
meditating and speaking about God's power. Previously, it was about his power
over the forces of nature. Then his power to heal and bring back to life.
Today, it is about God's power to make weak, rebellious, and frail instruments,
his great prophets, and Apostles.
In the first reading, we hear about the dialog between God
and Ezekiel. The Lord sent him to bring his word to the rebellious house of
Israel and invite them to conversion. A simple man like any other, the Lord
called him, empowered him, and made him his messenger to his people. What the
Prophet accomplished and all the powerful and fearless words he proclaimed were
all due to God's power at work in him. For, the Spirit of God has the power to
transform our weaknesses.
St. Paul, in the second reading, emphasizes that point. When
the Apostle was more concerned about his incapacities and frailty, the Lord
assured him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in
weakness.” Filled with that assurance, the Apostle can proclaim:
"Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then
I am strong." That is a great act of faith in God's power at work in one's
life. He no longer relies on himself but on God at work in him, and he stands
firm in his faith.
As Christians, we should all reach this awareness. That
God's grace and power supplies to our human weaknesses and frailties. Nothing
should stop us or discourage us from pursuing our goal and doing good, not even
the apparent rejections. The Lord Jesus himself faced rejection as we read in
the Gospel. When he came to his native place, his own people refused to put their
trust and faith in him because they thought they knew him: "Is he not the
carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and
Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?”
The human weakness of the people of Nazareth did not deter
Jesus. Though he did not perform so many signs there because of their unbelief,
he still cured a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
This sad episode of Jesus' mission in Nazareth comes to prove what we said in our meditation last Sunday. Faith is the key that opens us to miracles and to experience God's grace and power. Without faith, nothing great can be done. The saddest human weakness that can hinder God's power to operate in us is the lack of faith. With faith all things are possible. It is because of and through his faith that Paul made this great assertion: "For when I am weak, then I am strong." We too can reach that affirmation of self through faith in Jesus.
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