Unwilling to See Grace

[A reflection on the readings for Mass for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, which may be read here.]

"And He could do no deed of power there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and cured them. And He was amazed at their unbelief." (Mk. 6.5-6)

The Gospels are full of stories of miracles and powerful deliverance, and in many cases we are told that it is the belief or faith of the person at the centre of the story with Jesus that makes all the difference. Here, however, we read a story of no miracles to speak of, no powerful deliverances except for a few isolated healings; in the poverty of wonders the Evangelist points out what is not in short supply: unbelief.

We are not talking beaten-down resignation, or simple unknowing waiting to be surprised by a miracle, but active, derisive and decisive unwillingness to trust that something great would happen at the hands of Jesus. They got no miracle even though they said they wanted one, because they had already made up their mind that Joseph and Mary's son could not deliver. They really did not want that sign after all, because that would have meant the man who skinned his knee as a child, went through adolescence in front of them (and everyone remembers that awkward stage), who sat beside them on the Sabbath in synagogue, would be something more than what they had already decided. So Jesus did a few things for the people who actually wanted to be well, who wanted an encounter with Grace.

How often do we block encounters with God and the wonders of His Grace because of our lack of trust and belief? How much does our casual familiarity with the stories and our carefully cultivated blindness to the spiritual get in the way of a restorative transformation? Perhaps we see no Grace because we do not want to see it; it is all around us, and our blindness does not perceive it. Perhaps if we open our eyes expecting and wanting to see the power of God, then like the scales falling from St. Paul's eyes the night of our blindness will pass away and we will be confronted with God's Grace.