15.1: Justice & Reconciliation
Biblical Texts

Read Mark 2:1-12 The Paralysed Man

This is the story of the paralysed man. Jesus cured the paralysis by declaring that the man’s sins were forgiven. It is, therefore possible that he was suffering from hysterical paralysis, in which the mind causes the body to be paralysed. In this man’s case it is likely that a terrible sense of guilt caused the problem. Jesus’ word cut deep into the man’s soul and restored him, breaking the chains of sin and guilt. When the scribes were shocked that Jesus claimed to forgive sins, he showed that God was with him by declaring the man healed. The great thing about Jesus was that he could get to the heart of any matter.

Christians Read a message into this story. It is that sin is never fun in the long run. It looks attractive, but always damages you. It affects your personality more than your body. Personality can be ruined by sin. Only by bringing Christ into your life can you repair the damage done by your sins.

This is the great story of the Prodigal Son. To understand this story you should see that the lad had hit rock bottom. The Jewish religion puts a great store by loyalty to God, nation and family. It is a matter of vital importance to a Jew that the family inheritance be kept intact. They did not eat pig meat. Pious Jews of Jesus’ day did not even eat with foreigners. The boy abandoned his family and nation and lived outside God’s law, having parties, presumably with foreigners and sleeping with foreign women. He wasted his inheritance and was reduced to feeding pigs. He could not have sunk lower. Yet the father, God, allows him back. The message here is that even the worst sins can be forgiven. The father is so rich that he can afford to be madly generous to the boy. The implication here is that God has an infinite wealth of love for his people. The boy returns to the true wealth, the love of God, abandoning the false attractions of sin.

The eldest son missed the point entirely. He should have realised that the time to celebrate was when his brother returned.

This is the story of the centurion’s servant. The centurion seemed to be a good person who displayed so much faith in Christ that he was convinced that Christ only needed to say a word for a cure to happen. Christ publicly acknowledged the greatness of his faith and said that he had not met faith in Israel as great as this. Here we have Jesus breaking the constraints of nationalism. Many Jews considered that non-Jews, Gentiles, were inferior, even if they were good people. Jesus is saying that anyone of any race can reach the highest standards in God’s service. This breaks the chains of prejudice and challenges people to see the worth of people of races other than their own.

This is a small letter, but vitally important, so you should Read it carefully. Onesimus was a runaway slave of a man called Philemon. It seems that after Onesimus had run away Philemon became a Christian and by coincidence Paul met Onesimus, who was probably down on his luck. The life of a runaway slave in the Roman world was hard, such slaves were always on the run, and death was the penalty for escape. Paul says that Onesimus had not been much use to Philemon, so it seems that he was not a very able person. But Paul asked Philemon to take him back, not as a slave but as a Christian brother.

The importance of this passage is that it breaks new ground in master-servant relations. Slavery has no place in the Christian community. The master is being urged to be generous to a rather inadequate worker. True Christian fellowship overrides the formal relationships between master and servant, employer and employee. All are one in Jesus Christ.

The Catholic Church has always taught that both employers and employees have rights and must be justly treated. The Church teaches that workers must never be regarded as just pieces of machinery, but as persons in their own right. Workers must not attempt to cheat their employers.

This is an attack on snobbery. James is adamant that in the church rich and poor must be treated alike. People should not be given more respect merely because they have money. James has a message for our time. Just because a person has money, good looks, power, popularity and so on, it does not mean that they are entitled to a degree of respect that people not so well-endowed are entitled to. We should value people for what is inside them, their character, their goodness, not for superficial things such as money.