In the academy-award winning 1980 movie “Ordinary People,” directed by Robert Redford, and starring Timothy Hutton, Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland, there is a climactic scene wherein the character “Conrad,” played by Timothy Hutton, explodes during a session with his therapist, played by Judd Hirsch. In this scene, the therapist emotionally pushes Conrad to re-live a critical moment in his life when he lost his brother, and feels that he himself did something “wrong” during the boating accident that took his brother’s life.  Amidst tears and exhaustion, Conrad finally answers the therapist’s question as to what it was that he did “wrong.”  His answer was, “I hung on…”  Paradoxically, the act that actually saved his life was seemingly “wrong” to him because he could not change that fact that he lost his brother.

Sometimes, maybe even most times, we hang on to things we should not – old habits, comfortable complacencies, prejudices, all those things that make life seem more “doable.” We furiously clutch onto that which justifies our biases and unfortunately this almost always leads to blaming other people and things for that which we find dissatisfying or distasteful.  Many times we act out a morality play that misses many times the most important aspect in any given situation.

Something like that is happening in today’s Gospel (MK 3: 1-6):

“Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched Jesus closely to see if he would cure him on the Sabbath… so that they might accuse him. Then he said to the Pharisees, ‘Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”’ But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out and his hand was restored.”

A man is sick, unable to open his hand because it is atrophied. In this withered hand, there is no life.  The hand cannot grasp or let go of anything.  What is it that can save this withered hand?  A compassionate healing touch?  …From WHO?  Again, we have a gospel story that has Jesus in a role of trying to “wake” people up out of their rigid ways of trying to live.    The laws of “right” and “wrong,” appropriate and inappropriate, have taken center stage and once again the livelihood of a person is totally overlooked.  This is what seems to grieve Jesus in this story.  The man is healed, but it is not yet complete – the community remains wounded.  The Pharisees would rather judge the “morality” of Jesus than even notice that there is someone in need of healing.  The big SOMEONE…Everyone!

“Stretch out your hand…”  I wonder who Jesus was looking at when he gave this command.  I can somehow see his eyes going out to all those in this scene.  Inviting in the most passionate way, everyone to just “stretch out your hand…” But who looked back at Jesus?  Who responded?  Who was able to let go of the lifelessness of sterile versions of “morality” and really reach out toward Life – the life that invigorates the withered.

We need each other’s help to “let go” of whatever it is that is contributing to the fixation of our minds and actions, preventing us from seeing compassionately and responding in Love. When we can listen to each other, and by listening, I mean pausing long enough to not react before at least trying to understand what is being said by this person…when we can do this, our withered hands can be enlivened.  The life in our healed hands and hearts will drop seeds of compassion that can grow anywhere.  And then this becomes that which we always can stretch out toward…or “hang on to” like Conrad in the movie Ordinary People.
This type of “hanging on” is always a “reaching out” that characterizes an engagement in honest hope in what may seem quite hopeless. It’s a holding on that is not a “clutching” from paralyzing grief over loss, but a compassionate holding that honors and engenders Life.  It is a solidarity of brokenness that will always take ALL OF US to heal!  It is the strength of vulnerable solidarity that always has the power to stretch and reach out in hope to restore.

Peace

Thomas