But some of the teachers of the Law who were sitting there were debating in their minds,
mutter mutter
toil and trouble
two deuteros
four leviti
there’s one right way
and it’s not yourswe sit and pipe
a top ten tune
and hold up cards
scoring orthos
with a sharp eye
for a misstepthe pressure’s on
now get it right
in front of G*D
and ancestors
jump through those hoops
land securelyO my too bad
you were so close
you only missed
by one day and
a wrong rubric
exit stage left
Having followed a tracking shot with the paralytic and four friends from a distance, to the roof, through the roof, and directly encountering Jesus, we now pull back to the larger scene again.
A brief pan leads us to refocus on a small group of people who have their heads together and whose expressions give away their confusion and anger regarding this business of forgiveness simply being announced.
What was just experienced had no place to land. Are not appropriate vetting and sacrifice helpful tools to assure the community that all is well? Isn’t G*D to be involved with forgiveness? Where is it recorded a Messiah plays a role in forgiveness?
A subsequent zoom into their muttered questions reminds us of how this story is pushed forward with few transitions; mostly jumps.
The original language identifies the heart as the center of this sort of subvocalized questioning to dissect a scene just experienced. Other cultures use other visceral parts in which to ground a source of internal turmoil.
Intellectual and emotional components of our lives have been identified as being in the heart. Some split them into heads and hearts. Others talk about the viscera, liver, stomach, and gall. There are also other components that include such arenas as the psychological and relational.
Expanding those with whom we talk is an important part of healthy living. Echo-chambers are generally restrictive and lead to ever greater divisions. Mutter not. Question out loud. Wonder widely.