Seventh Sunday after Pentecost; The Holy Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon; Our Holy Father Clement the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Okhrid.
Romans 15:1-7; 2 Timothy 2:1-10; Matthew 9:27-35; John 15:17-16:2.
Read Matthew 9:27-35
The behavior of the two blind men in today’s gospel can easily elicit a face-palm. Jesus waited until they were with him in private before healing them. He “sternly charged them, ‘See that no one knows it.’ But they went away and spread his fame through all that district.”
Progressive revelation in scripture and tradition takes time. Even the incarnation did not do away with that. Jesus was doing his work of revealing himself to the world in such a way that it wouldn’t culminate too quickly so that he would have the time it took for the personal formation of the Apostles for their foundational ministry. Both necessarily proceeded at the rate of human understanding, acceptance, deepening challenge, and acts of faith. The work of weeding out the conflicted commitments of the human will is not instantaneous. We know that from our journey of confession and communion.
We get a glimpse of how events could quickly accelerate. “The crowds marveled… and Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity.” Opposition from the Pharisees increased. Just as with the Apostles, though, Jesus cares about protecting time for our ongoing formation, even as events accelerate all around us.