From today’s daily office lectionary readings (selections from Mark 6:1-6):
And [Jesus]… comes into his native country… and when the Sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue; and many who heard were astonished… and they were scandalized by him. And Jesus said to them: “A prophet is not dishonored except in his native country and among his own kin and in his household.” And he could not perform any feat of power there… and he was amazed at their lack of faith.
It’s hard to avoid the connection between the dishonor and lack of faith displayed by Jesus’s hometown and Jesus’s inability to perform any “feat of power” there. In other places, Jesus blesses those he has healed by saying “Your faith has made you well.” Clearly there is some kind of alchemy between God’s power and human faith.
This makes people nervous, because it’s rife with potential for harmful misinterpretation. The connection between healing and faith has been used by some to blame people for their own maladies, which is so deeply crippling for the soul. But if, in our efforts to move away from this kind of harm, we disconnect our faith from God’s power, we’re left with no one to blame for suffering and evil except God. And this is truly toxic for our faith.
Better to learn to live in the uncomfortable subtleties and tensions and mysteries of this connection than to dismiss it out of hand, I think.
