Rise, Pick up Our Mats and Go Home

January 13, Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Heb 4: 1-5. 11, Ps 77, 3 at 4bk. 6k-7. 8, Mk 2:1-12

Why is it that we people like to complain and enjoy finding fault in others?

In the Gospel, some of the scribes were whining about Jesus. “Why does this man speak that way?  He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?”

This is how are too, with God. Sometimes we question him, as if he is answerable to us. We even challenge Him when things are too much for us. And yet we just sit there on our mats, doing nothing but complain.

For all we know, He has been telling us to “rise, pick up our mats and go home.” But because of our selfishness and blindness and because we are too busy complaining, we do not even hear God speaking to us.

Complaining and whining makes us blind to the truth that is right in front of us: Jesus’ love for us. Just like the scribes, they are not there to hear Jesus’ teachings. They were simply there to find fault in Jesus. Just like us, we want to find fault in everything, even in God, because we ourselves cannot accept our own faults.

It is said in today’s Psalm, “do not forget the works of the Lord!” Maybe the reason why we whine is because we forget that the Lord has done great things for us. We do not count our blessings; we always see what we do not have. It is the same how we treat our family, our neighbors. We like to see what is wrong with them and we gossip about it. When they do good, we still find ways to destroy that goodness.

Perhaps it is time to quit just sitting on our own “mats”, complaining. Let’s do something!

The next time the Lord tells us to “rise, pick up our mats and go home”, may we rise to occasion and find ways to serve Him through others, instead of bringing them down. He wants us to pick up our mats by getting rid of bad habits, bad people in our lives, and the wrong things we have done. He is telling us to go home to our communities and make a difference. He wants us to go home to our families and love them.