23^rd Sunday in O.T. (B); 9-5-2021

Is 35:4-7a.  Ps 146.  Jas 2:1-5.  Mk 7:31-37

Deacon Jim McFadden

            In this Sunday’s Gospel passage (Mk 7:31-37),  we have the episode of the miraculous healing by Jesus of a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment.  As always, we start with the surface, literal description of what happened and then move to the deeper spiritual meaning of the account.  Jesus is, indeed, performing a physical miracle.  He was a healer, a miracle worker, which is one reason why people paid so much attention to him.  So, this story undoubtedly reflects a real event in the ministry of Jesus.

            At the same time, taking the guidance of St. Thomas Aquinas regarding the spiritual dimension of Scripture,  Jesus’ actions should be also read symbolically as to uncover a deeper meaning.  What insight do we come to when we try to decipher the spiritual significance of the story?

            They bring him a man who is deaf and dumb.  While both are physical ailments, they have a spiritual dimension as well.  ‘Deafness’ is a spiritual issue.  All throughout the Bible we hear this great metaphor of God’s speech: e.g., God says, “Let there be light and there is light.”  The Psalmist says that “We can hear the word of God” as we look around Creation.  We can “hear” the word of God in the orderliness of the universe.  Then God speaks to us in a very direct way to the prophets who are his spokespersons, to the Patriarchs, to the great liberator, Moses, and, most perfectly to the Word of God who became flesh in Jesus.  In short, his Word shapes us!

            The question is: do we allow the Word to shape us?  For that to happen, we need to be hearers of the Word.  We need to be listeners of God’s Word.  What’s our problem spiritually?  WE DON’T LISTEN!  We are deaf.  We’ve lost the capacity to discern it.

            Why don’t we hear it?  One reason is that there are so many voices, so many sounds competing for our attention.  Just think of TV, commercials, and the Internet.  Think of the myriad sounds that compete for our attention.  We just get used to the wall of “white noise” that comes at us 24/7.  In fact, we become dependent upon that noise, even addicted to it.

            That is why Jesus took the man aside, far from the crowd and the attendant noise.  Being one-on-one with the man, Jesus can address him without interference.  How important is this gesture!  One reason we can’t hear is that we spend too much time in the crowd—the noisy, busy voices of so many, the received conventional wisdom of any society, the cultural and political silos that we inhabit.  All of that makes us deaf to God’s word and so we have to be moved away.  We have to be introduced to a new environment, a new milieu where we’re able to hear the word of God clearly.  As the Psalmist says, “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps 46:11).  Jesus is leading us away from the crowd and into the life of the Church, which has a new way of thinking, seeing, imagining, and hearing.

            When they had been drawn aside, Jesus put his fingers in the deaf man’s ears and touched his tongue with his saliva.  What is Jesus doing?  Pope Francis believes this gesture refers to the Incarnation (cf. Homily, Good is done without ostentation, September 9, 2018).  The Son of God has been inserted into our human reality in the person of Jesus.  The Word of God became man in Jesus of Nazareth.  Being human, God can now understand another human being’s distressing condition and intervenes with a gesture that is reflects his own humanity: he puts his spit on the man’s tongue! 

            At the same time, Jesus wanted us to understand that this miracle occurred because of his union with the Father.  For this reason he looked up to heaven and groaned with his fingers in the man’s ears.  What is Jesus doing?  He’s setting up a kind of spiritual, ‘electric’ current.  Linking himself to the power of his Father, he plugs himself into the deaf man thereby running power from the Father through his Son.  And, then Jesus says in his original Aramaic, “Ephphatha,” that is, “be opened” (Mk 7:34b).  “Be opened” to the Word, who is Jesus.  Immediately, the man was healed: his ears were opened, his tongue was released.  For him the healing was an “opening” to God, his neighbor, and Creation.

            What happened to the man is meant to happen to us.  We’ve spent so much of our life closed, caved in upon ourselves, listening to our own voice or the voice of the crowd.  Now is the time to come in Christ to be open to the transformative power of the Word of God.  How do we do that?  By renewing a deeper interior prayer life, to reflect upon sacred Scripture and Tradition, to “fully, consciously, and actively” participate in the Sacraments, and to live Matthew 25 as we serve the poor. 

            When we hear Jesus say Ephphatha to us, we learn that our deafness and speech impediment have been cured.  We don’t speak clearly because we can’t hear the Word of God.  But, when we do hear clearly, we begin to speak  clearly. What’s key to becoming a disciple of Christ, which necessarily entails to be an evangelist?  It’s to listen! It’s to become plugged into Jesus Christ and through him to the Father.  Through our rich interior life, through the proclamation of the Word through the Eucharist, we begin to hear God’s speech and then we can speak clearly, articulately, and confidently. 

            Stay with these readings, brothers and sisters.  Stay plugged into Jesus and then you will speak. Amen.