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Without it, who knows if Paul would have remained open to the Lord’s will? Who knows if he would have become a selfless giver and a tireless worker in the vineyard? The wound of Paul that wasn’t taken away became FOR Paul a prophetic voice on his own faith journey.
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Whatever it was, God said no to Paul’s plea.īut the “No” of God became exactly what He used to make Paul an apostle, an evangelizer, a humble follower and a saint. An addiction? An attraction? A physical ailment? Paul’s raw honesty as he writes to the Church at Corinth that he was plagued by “a thorn in the flesh” which he begged God three times to take from him. God uses who and what we least expect to reach us and teach us.Īnd sometimes, that “prophet” might in fact be our own brokenness. In fact, one of his greatest prophets was a woman from a hated neighboring city with a bizarre faith tradition who had lived sinfully for decades with a revolving door of men who had such a transformative encounter with Jesus that she went running to the rest of the village to shout: “I have met the Messiah.”
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How often do we tune-out the neighbor or the stranger who might have something of God to speak to us and to the times in which we live?īecause let’s face it – the prophets God uses never look like we expect them to.Īs Jesus wanted it to be, those who proclaimed the Good News on his behalf were uneducated fishermen and barely-tolerated government workers they were the ones society had no time for the sick and the paralyzed. Now, I’m sure you hear often (and perhaps even think to yourself): if Jesus walked among us now, I would never miss the blessing.Īnd yet, I wonder: how often do we miss the prophets who walk among us? There’s no way!Īnd because they failed to see that God had truly come to them, they missed the blessing, the healing and the opportunity to grow in faith and in love. Now, all of a sudden, they are hearing that Jesus (Yeshua) was healing lepers in other villages he was sharing meals with prostitutes and tax collectors he was claiming to be the Son of God. Here was this genuinely nice young man who spent his days quietly working alongside his father … who was so good to his sweet Mother … and who just seemed to radiate peace. Really stop and think what that must have been like for the local Nazoreans: I can’t help but think that Jesus’ neighbors thought the same thing of the carpenter who lived among them. His neighbors wrote him off as eccentric and/or mentally ill. Jim saw himself as a prophet in touch with the Divine. He looked like Jesus in blue jeans and a stained lawn care tee-shirt, but whenever he would corner you – at Church … in Wawa … on the street – he would always talk about gathering shopping carts from the local Kmart and filling them with lumber and water for the day when we forever lose electricity. 14 th Sunday OT B Homily – Blinded by the LightĮveryone in my hometown tried to steer clear of Jim.