OPENING UP TO NEW LIFE
Mark 7:24-37
I heard a story the other day about a little boy who was adopted at about six months old. His name was Matthew. Matthew was small and sickly for his age. It appeared that he had been neglected and might have some health and growth problems. As he grew, it took him much longer than normal before he began to speak and walk, and he didn’t do either very well. Matthew seldom smiled or laughed; and he seemed to be living in a world all of his own.
When Matthew was about 3 to 4 years old, his parents took him to a specialist on the advice of their pediatrician. It was discovered that his speech and personality problems were related to poor vision and limited hearing ability. He was fitted with a hearing aid and glasses, and once he got used to these devices, his speech began to improve and his personality began to develop. For the first time since he was born a he could see and hear and a whole new world opened up to him.
Something similar happened in the Gospel today. They brought a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech to Jesus. Jesus took him aside away from the crowd dealt with him individually in his need. He put his fingers in his ears and spat on his tongue and cried “Ephatha .. be opened”. The man’s ears were opened his tongue released and he began to speak plainly, probably for the first time in his life. A whole new world was opened up to him. I am certain that every area of his life was affected.
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Jesus tells people who witnessed the healing of this man not to tell others about it. I have heard many theories about this. I have heard, for example, that if he told them not to tell others, knowing human nature, they would most surely tell others. But I really think that he didn’t want them to tell others about their healing because he didn’t want people coming to him just to be healed of their physical, or mental illnesses…but he wanted people to realize that the reign of God that they had been waiting for centuries was at hand, was near, was happening now, and that meant that we, and all of humankind are being called to wholeness in the fullest possible way. Another words, there was a much deeper meaning for Jesus’ actions that the actual healing of this man.
I believe that Jesus wanted people to walk with him, to face the good times and the bad times with him, to face the tragedy of the cross and the glory of the resurrection with him, to know the new life and have a whole new world open up to them. The healing was just a sign of that new life open to all of us.
So this Gospel is for all of us. We often hear the term ” seeing is believing”, but in the realm of faith it is the other way around, “believing is seeing.” For when we truly believe in Christ and give ourselves over to Christ, we see things that we didn’t see before. We see God acting where we were not aware of God’s activity before. We see opportunities that weren’t there before. We see needs that must be responded to that we were not aware of. We become aware of a power and strength that we did not know before. Yes believing is seeing, and hearing, and being able to open our mouths, and responding to the world in a strength beyond our own, the way that God sees, hears, and responds to it. It is an experience of the world opening up to us in a way that we could scarcely imagine.
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I have found that the quest for wholeness in the reign of God is a lifetime pursuit. I know that I have needed that kind of healing all my life, a healing from what I can only call a fear of people. It is a common malady in our society I grew up painfully shy. When I was in school I dreaded having anything to say, even to answer a question. If I knew I had to give a presentation in class it was extreme torture. I carried that shyness and embarrassment around for years. It has taken much prayer by myself and others , much sharing at intimate levels, sacramental help including the laying on of hands, and forgiveness to bring me a certain amount of freedom from the fear that has plagued me. At the same time it has opened up a new world to me. It has opened my ears and released my tongue and given me a ministry of the teaching, preaching, leading small groups, meeting with individuals, counseling and generally doing what I believe God want me to do in this world. Complete freedom has not come – the kind of freedom I believe belongs to the children of God. The release from what holds me back continues daily.
I realize that I still have a long way to go. I am still under construction. I still go through much agony and anxiety before certain events, and seeing certain people, and before and after services. I find myself being abrupt with people when I am focused on something and am interrupted. I continue to pray for wholeness.
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You might say, “I had a profound experience of Christ in my life years ago so I don’t need the touch of Christ that we see in the Gospel today – the touch to open my ears and release my tongue”
That may be so but what I have noticed is that so many people in the church today including clergy have had that kind of experience of Christ opening us up to a new understanding of the world and our lives at one time, but over the years, and sometimes months, they have grown blind, and deaf again, and they have been trying to rely on our own strength and abilities, and the world has become dull and unexciting … more or less a burden … than opportunity. They are keeping on, in order to keep on keeping on, and have lost sight of why they are keeping on keeping on.
So to some degree or another, most of us need to hear this Gospel today and experience the power of it. The power of it for me is that even though God may seem afar off, if we trust in God, Christ will surely in his time, reveal himself to us again, and take us aside as he did this deaf man, and touch us in some way, and open up for us the world in a different light, and see our role and our purpose in it with a new power. The world will open up to us in a way that we were not able to experience it before.
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I wish to refer to another healing story where Jesus heals a blind man. It is found in Chapter 8 of Mark’s Gospel just after the story we had today. Jesus touches him and the blind man only sees a little. He says that men look like trees walking. Then Jesus touches him a second time, and he sees clearly. The world opens up to him.
It is that second touch that I know that some us seek today.
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