Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

“They will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead!”

The first reading today from 1Sam 8 reminds me of a reality still very much present today, as it was in the prophet Samuel’s day, where people refuse to believe plain evidence and truth lying before them in favor of what they simply want to believe. This phenomenon is what we call denial and it has always plagued humanity. People easily deny reality that conflicts with their preferred ways of seeing. What is true and what we decide to believe, quite often have little if anything to do with one another. There are classic examples of denial. One of the most common is people who are in serious addictions denying that they have a problem. Another is people dying from a serious illness denying that they are even sick. Married couples routinely deny that there is anything seriously problematic about their marriage when it is quite plain to all around them. Parents often deny that their children are in any possible trouble until disaster strikes. Many people today routinely continue to deny climate change from human activity even though the overwhelming evidence for it clearly mounts every day. That is because in order to escape denial we must make changes and face realities that are clearly quite deeply painful. It is so much easier to simply engage in denial.

What are you in denial about? One way to test denial is to see how strongly you react against certain statements. The more vehemently you react to someone challenging you on any issue, is directly linked to the greater likelihood that you are in denial about it in some way. Any form of denial is a refusal to be open to and aware of the truth that there is precious little that we should be absolutely, irrevocably and utterly sure about without even the remotest possibility whatsoever that we could in any way be mistaken. Even our belief in God is hardly an absolute if by that belief we imply that we somehow know everything (let alone anything) about God. Being open to the possibility of being wrong (another way of saying that we stay teachable) is to be humble and meek (like Jesus, Mt 11:29). It is always our pride and arrogance that keep us in denial; that we somehow know better than everyone else. It is a very difficult prison to get out of once we have placed ourselves there, as the people of Israel in today’s passage would soon discover. If you think you’re absolutely sure of virtually any of your understandings, think again. The Pharisees (those blind guides) were absolutely sure that Jesus was not the Messiah and no amount of evidence to the contrary could change their minds. They even taunted Jesus dying on the cross to come down and then they would believe in him. Yet it’s quite doubtful that even that would have convinced them (especially given their reaction to Jesus’ healing in today’s Gospel passage).

The early miracle of Jesus’ healing of the paralyzed man lowered to him through the roof in today’s Gospel passage from Mk 2, teaches us a great truth. We all need the help of others to survive. Without his four friends who worked so hard to get him before Jesus, the paralyzed man could not have found healing that day and the people there would have missed a great sign. We should never attempt to go it alone. “Rugged individualism” is a myth and a dead end. Always be ready to ask for help in any and all ways. To believe that you don’t need any help is another great example of denial, not to mention unrepentant pride and arrogance. The only thing that will happen to you if you refuse to seek help is that you will fall, “And great indeed was the fall of that house!”