The Entire Thought

Cautious About Miracles

Jesus was never crazy about miracles. They’re too ambiguous. They mean different things to different people. You feed a bunch of hungry people, for instance. Some of them think it is a sign of the Eucharist, some of them think you are a nice guy, some of them think you should feed them all the time, some of them think you are the savior to free them from Roman domination that keeps them poor and hungry. All that from feeding a few people one day.
Another problem with miracles is that they are unpredictable; they may have consequences far beyond their intent. Jesus cured a blind man. The man was very grateful, until he realized that there were a lot of bad things better unseen, that he had to find a job though all he knew how to do was beg; that after 30 years of being totally dependent, he now had to shift for himself.
Or that young man he raised from the dead to make his mother stop crying. She was ecstatic. But he never forgave Jesus. After going through all the pain and horror involved in the difficult
process of dying, he now had to live with the knowledge that he would one day endure it all again.
Jesus never really trusted miracles because they have a life of their own. Once you do them, they take off in random directions beyond your control. And you can’t keep making other miracles to control the first one, otherwise the order of the universe is destroyed. Life would become erratic,
unreasonable, meaningless, unreal. And we finally must be able to trust reality.
And yet, Jesus performed miracles, even more than you read about. For many reasons—so many that sometimes he wasn’t quite sure himself. But sometimes the reason was obvious. He fed people because they were hungry. He felt sorry for the leper in today’s Gospel. He was angry at some Pharisees who refused to help someone in trouble. And maybe he did it because he could do it.
The same way some of us climb the Alps or swim the Channel just because it’s there. And we help someone because we feel sorry for them, even though they may then hurt someone else. And we give money to a panhandler because it’s easier than refusing, even though we know our help might be unappreciated and misused. Anytime we have any kind of power — and doing good is power—we also have the burden of possible mistakes. Mature people take that risk, otherwise too much good would go undone.
Scientific people tend to disbelieve miracles because they think miracles are outside the laws of nature. Ordinary people tend to believe in miracles for much the same reason: They think miracles break the laws of nature. Both of these opinions start out from a false view of reality. God did not
create the universe and then step back and let it go its own way. No, God remains involved in
creation at every point. Everything that happens, happens because God operates according to the nature God created. If God chooses to make a miracle, what looks like a major outside intervention to us is just a minor internal adjustment to God. Reality still works, just in ways we can’t see.
Nevertheless, Jesus was very cautious about miracles. Even though he still does them, for the same reasons he used to do them.



Fr. James Smith
Celebration, February 15, 2009

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