The Question: Why do you harbor evil thoughts? (Mt 9:4)
The Setting.
This question arises in Matthew’s Gospel. Our Lord is 
visiting His home town, and the townspeople bring a paralytic to Him for healing. Of course, the town’s leading religious figures are there to make sure everything is being done properly: As if these healings took place regularly (well, healings with Jesus did, but not anyone else. Look at Matthew 8!). Incidentally, St. Matthew is near-by. He doesn’t know that our Lord is going to call him yet. Maybe the scribes are there to check on Matthew too. So the paralytic is there, probably scared out of his wits.Typical of our Lord, He focuses His attention on the one in need, as follows:
At that, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This Man is blaspheming.” Jesus knew what they were thinking, and said, ‘Why do you harbor evil thoughts?’”
In today’s parlance, perhaps on a social medial site, or youtube, if you showed a video of this clip, you might see someone post a comment that such as:
“OK, let me get this straight: Jesus is going to heal this guy, and the up-tight dudes are accusing Him of blasphemy? I don’t get it! And on top of that, Jesus is reading their thoughts? Maybe they ought to back off and let The Guy do His thing!”
Let God be God.
That’s right. They are worried that Jesus might break the rules. The scribes are not worried about the paralytic, at all.
What I find interesting is that the scribes are murmuring between themselves, but our Lord calls them out on their gossip and collusion. I’m not sure whether He is really reading their thoughts, or simply making an educated guess as to their conspiracy. Scripture doesn’t say. After all, this is not His first encounter with those who would do Him harm.
Still, I love that He doesn’t ignore the scribes’ activity. In fact, He challenges them: Christ then turns, challenges them with another question (next post), and heals the paralytic to prove that He is the Son of Man. The scribes scurried off, no doubt, or if they said anything they were drowned out by the reaction of the crowd.
Joseph fleeing Potiphar’s Wife
Now to us. When our Lord asks us, ‘Why do you harbor evil thoughts?’, what is your response? On its face, this is a simple question with a simple answer. We all do harbor evil thoughts.
Evil thoughts can run from simple anger to the panoply of sins out there (in here). Do we engage the thoughts? Do we entertain evil? Do we relish the visual image that our imagination brings to our minds? Why do we do this? Maybe for pleasure, maybe for regret, maybe out of habit.
I know I do it. I do it because as a sinner, I have many experiences and thoughts that touch evil, rumbling around in my head, and sometimes these bubble up at the most awkward moments. Even during prayer or Mass. Really. So for me, it’s a temptation that arises, perhaps as a recollection. All I can do is pray it away or try to refocus. This is where reading good, faith-based materials help. It’s hard to let go of our favorite sins. It’s easy to give these up, but more difficult to erase these from our memory.
Therefore, my answer to our Lord is: I don’t have any good reason to hold on to that thought. I should blot it out as He does (see Ps 103:12) and let Him make my sins whiter than snow (Is 1:18).
One final thought: I wonder what would have happened if the Scribes and Pharisees would have answered Christ with some repentant answer. Such as, “We are sorry, Jesus, please forgive us for our accusation: please heal this suffering man.” I wonder what our Lord’s response would have been then?
The “St. Michael Prayer” is also a favorite way to deal with this moment when Christ is looking at me and asking this tough question.There are many versions of this prayer, my favorite is below:
St. Michael Prayer
“St. Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.
And do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Hosts,
By the Power of God,
Cast into Hell, Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world
Seeking the Ruin of Souls. Amen.
I do think it is a good habit to consider that we too need to be confronted by love himself, lest we remain in our sin. The word “harbor” is an interesting image; that of boats being tethered close to the shores of our heart. Good post Tim! One criticism though: the picture of Potifer’s wife seems to indicate that she was no hottie and that perhaps it was her, um…less than beauteous aura that propelled the righteous Joseph out the back door! 🙂
Thanks Dan! I always appreciate your word pictures. I’m always moved by Christ’s questions to us. The post I’m working on now is from Thomas a’Kempis’ book 2, ch 12, which is a sober meditation for Holy Week. But in it, Jesus asks the question: “Will you lay down your life for me?” at Jn 13:38. Fortunately, I’m not trying to answer that one today, only the meditation on the courage of our Lord taking up the Cross in the Second Station. Thanks for your comment brother. Re: Potifar’s wife – I agree with you and think she was NOT attractive and that put a little more fire under Joseph’s step!
WOW! Thanks for sharing this. Now I need to commit to memory St. Michael’s Prayer. (doing it now) This seems as relevant today as ever. Thanks for getting my brain headed back into the path of following Jesus’ footprints.
Tom, St. Michael prayer is powerful. I frequently invoke God’s messengers’ help in times of oppression from my evil thoughts. I’m sure they get tired of hearing from me!