They brought to Jesus a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself, away from the crowd. Jesus put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; he then looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him: “Ephphatha” – that is, “Be opened!” Mark 7: 31-37
Today’s three readings from Isaiah, James and Mark combine neatly to describe the reign of God present in our world and what is required of us to live authentically in the reign of God.
Isaiah leads off with a word of encouragement and reassurance: “Fear not” – a message subsequently repeated frequently by Jesus. Isaiah forecasts that, when the reign of God is ushered in, the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the halt and lame will dance for joy and the earth itself will be reinvigorated with dried-up springs flowing again and deserts turned into fertile land. His injunction to fear not is very appropriate for us as we look at ourselves gripped by fear at the relentless war-mongering going on in the Ukraine, in the Middle East and in parts of Africa; when we fear that our half-hearted efforts to address climate change will lead to the destruction of our common home. Is our fear the consequence of our blindness and deafness to the cry of the earth and the needs of our sisters and brothers who are victims of indiscriminate bombing and senseless struggle for power and domination?
James, ever consistent in stressing that the only true expression of belief and faith in God is to be found in action for justice and outreach to widows, orphans and rejected and lonely strangers, presents the members of his community with the hypothetical story of a congregation’s treatment of two very different visitors to their synagogue. One visitor is a wealthy man, dripping with gold and attired as a model of sartorial elegance. The second is a shabbily dressed fellow reeking with the smell of body odour and the filth of the streets. The former is treated like royalty and given the best seat in the synagogue, while the latter is ushered out of sight and told he can sit on the floor. James uses his story of the contrasting welcomes extended to the two synagogue visitors as an object lesson to the members of his own community who were apparently rating the importance of members by the stylishness of their clothes. He accuses them of playing favourites and, in the same breath, asserts that God has always favoured the poor simply because their faith has always been in God, the one who never ceases to care for them. Accordingly, James urges his people to adopt the mind of God by giving preference to the poor and stopping their pandering to the very comfortable fashion plates in their community. Effectively, James says to his community: “If you want to persist in playing favourites, give your favour to the poor, the widows, the orphans and the despised foreigners.
This second reading paves the way for us to engage with the gospel-reading in which we hear Jesus saying to the man whose profound deafness results in his inability to speak: “Ephphatha. – Be opened! or literally, “Be released!” To be participants in this story, we need to hear Jesus saying to each one of us: “Be released from whatever imprisons you and prevents you from being the disciple I have invited you to be!”
To be genuine, authentic witnesses to Jesus and the reign of God he ushered into our world, we need to be released from whatever is blinding us from seeing the injustice burdening the poor around us, whatever is deafening us from hearing the cry of our world in need and whatever is crippling us from getting involved in working and advocating for a truly just society. It may well be that one of the most influential impediments from which we need to be released is the comfort of our lifestyle. Added to that are the prejudices that we have collected over decades, and which come to the surface when we least expect it. They may be views that people who receive government unemployment benefits are too lazy for their own good; it may be intolerance of refugees who are given visas to remain in our country, and whose cultural practices we dislike. Whatever our prejudices, we recognise them within ourselves and are slow to let go of them. Today’s gospel-reading invites us to do a self-assessment of the prejudices we hold tight and from which we need to be released in order to become witnesses to the reign of God.
Perhaps the most credible witnesses to the reign of God in our Church and in our society at large are those who have recognised prevailing injustices and have dedicated themselves to conscientising others to get involved in remedying them. They are also those who are alert to the cry of our earth and have taken practical steps to recycle waste, to preserve power and water, to contribute towards providing clean water and healthy sanitation to their sisters and brothers in other parts of our world who are still deprived of such.
Finally, there is a sentence towards the end of today’s gospel-reading that is worthy of note. After describing how Jesus had healed the deaf man who had been led to him, Mark notes: “Jesus ordered the crowd to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it.” Mark was making the point that we can all see and hear things without fully understanding them. The crowd had heard the profoundly deaf man speak after Jesus had healed him. They had witnessed a powerful miracle. Like us, they realised that a person with no ability to hear from birth, could not speak. Speech is learned through listening and repeating what is heard. The crowd witnessed a miracle but saw Jesus only as a wonder worker. They concluded that they knew all about him. However, they had not understood that they had been in the presence of the Messiah, God’s anointed. Up to this point in Mark’s Gospel, ironically, the only one who had recognised Jesus for who he really was happened to be a demon that had taken possession of a man who was sitting in front of Jesus in the synagogue in Capernaum. The demon caused a disturbance by shouting: “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.” (Mark 1: 24) The crowd then and the crowd in today’s gospel-reading were amazed but sadly lacking in understanding. Jesus had come to show the world something of the compassion, love and mercy of God and reveal that the people in front of him, in their turn, if they opened themselves to God’s Spirit, could reflect the mercy, love and compassion of God to those around them. They heard his message but were deaf to its meaning. Neither could they see that God could work through things as ordinary as human touch and spittle. How well do we hear and understand that message, and act on it?
