Monday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

“Stretch Out Your Hand” (Luke 6:10b)
 
Faith often requires an uncomfortable & vulnerable response to God’s Word. When we think about taking a “leap of faith” we may not think it will require us to feel weak or afraid, but sometimes it does. Today in the Gospel of St. Luke we hear the story of the man with a withered hand healed on the Sabbath in public by Jesus. This man has had a hard life in a Hebrew faith community that often judged physical challenges, especially bodily deformity, as a punishment from God because of sin, either the individual's or someone in his or her family's sin. This fact is important because what Jesus asked the man with the withered hand to do was to stand in front of everyone who has ever judged him and "stretch out" his withered hand.

Jesus called the man to be vulnerable and leap out in faith in order to be healed. In fact most of Jesus' healings recounted in the Gospel required the one in need of healing to make some act of faith that was uncomfortable at best and deeply vulnerable at other times. The reason these healings are recounted is to show each of us what Jesus' pattern leading to healing is for anyone. Healing in every case is deeper than physical healing. Each encounter with Jesus, the healer, is a purifying and cleansing of the soul. The call to the man with the withered hand was to "Stretch out your hand." What is the call for you and me? 

I believe every human suffers from the effects of sin, both original sin that has been washed away in Baptism, and personal sin that can be our own or others who have sinned against us. There is also a kind of spiritual genetics that affects every human being. What has happened in our families, our immediate families, and perhaps even generations past, can affect our emotional life of mental health, our physical genetics, addictions that may be hereditary can all be something that we, of no fault of our own, may need to be brought to Jesus so we can receive healing. If you sense there are things in your life that need spiritual healing, then I would encourage you to bring them to Jesus in prayer. When Jesus asks the man with the withered hand to "Stretch out your hand," he is asking us all to do the same. What is the weakness, spiritual or emotional wound, that Jesus is saying to you: "Stretch it out." Be vulnerable, make an act of faith, bring it into the light.