sB – 23^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: 10 September 2006
Proverbs 22: 1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125
James 2: 1-10, 14-17; ** MARK 7: 31 –37 **

A Sermon by John C. Bush, Interim Pastor
First Presbyterian Church
Birmingham, Alabama

Dealing with differences is one of the most complicated and challenging tasks a society can face. In the tense climate we have lived in since the events of September 11, 2001, and the complications introduced by the war in Iraq, the challenge of dealing with difference can be tough indeed. "How to interact with and accept people who hold different views from me?"

We live in a world and a culture where the scope of diversity seems to be expanding almost exponentially. Consequently, we are responding constantly to people and circumstances that may challenge us, our preconceptions and our comfortable ways of doing things.

Not the least of those is our relationship with and understanding of our Middle Eastern neighbors – Muslim, Christian and Jewish – as we meet them here in the Birmingham area and around the world. The situations in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine present particular challenges requiring that we rise to new levels of understanding and willingness to learn new patterns of relating. And it isn’t entirely inappropriate that we consider the challenge of learning such new ways on this day – Rally Day – as our church begins a new program year of Christian continuing education.

"Ephphatha" [ef-FAH-tah] said Jesus, according to the Gospel reading today. He was talking to a man who had a profound hearing and speech impediment. "Ephphatha" is a word from Jesus’ own native tongue, Aramaic – a language distantly related to Hebrew and which, though almost dead, still survives in the local dialects of a few Palestinian, Syrian, Kurdish and Chaldean communities.

You may remember this story from Sunday School as "The Healing of the Deaf Man." But the word heal doesn’t appear anywhere in it. We are not actually told that the man heard or said anything. In the end, Jesus even admonishes those who saw what happened not to talk about it. Ironic, isn’t it? Jesus apparently gave this person the ability to speak and hear, but doesn’t want anyone to speak of it or hear about it.

What Jesus does with the man, however, is an object lesson for us in how we should deal with the "outsider." Because, you see, his approach to this person is scandalous in itself. In the world Jesus lived in, people thought that if person to be deaf, blind or disabled in some way, that was a sign of divine punishment -- a case of bad people getting what they deserved, even if no one knew what the supposed offence might have been. People with disabilities were to be shunned and avoided. Physical contact with them would lead to becoming ritually unclean and unacceptable yourself. So it seems likely that this man had a pretty good understanding of where he stood in the scheme of things. Having been rejected all of his life, he would have learned a long time ago that life was more pleasant for him if he could just avoid contact with other people.

But notice how Jesus reacts to him. He takes him aside for a personal encounter. He touches him, and communicates by touch just what he intends to do. He puts his fingers in the man’s ears; he places his own wet finger on the man’s tongue. The fact that the man allowed such contact may have been a miracle unto itself. A remarkable crossing of well-established social and religious boundaries. A breaking down of firmly established barriers. In the familiar words of Robert Frost:

And listen to what Jesus says to him. Not be healed; not hear; not listen; not speak. He says Ephphatha. Which means something like open up. Or be set free, be liberated. Perhaps for the very first time in his life this man was experiencing acceptance, being treated with respect and dignity as a person. And the effect was to change his life. The fact that he can now hear and speak is almost irrelevant. He is accepted in spite of himself.

Of course Jesus could have simply given him his speech and hearing. What he gave him instead is what he gives to us as well – and asks us to give to others. Acceptance, embracing him as a person, affirming his humanity. Which is what the Lord does for us. It is also what the Lord expects us to do with others. To reach out to the outsider; to welcome those whom the society rejects; to include those who are otherwise excluded. To practice our own liberation by assisting in the liberation of others. "Ephphatha!" Be open!

There is no more succinct summary of the gospel of Jesus Christ than that – and it is a truth that has been comprehended and affirmed by hurting and rejected people everywhere. Among black slaves on Alabama plantations, and their descendants north and south in the long, on-going march toward freedom and equality. It was recognized among victims of apartheid in South Africa. In the poor campasinos of Latin America. In situations of social and cultural rejection or oppression this good news has played and is playing its liberating role. Ephphatha.

But you don’t have to be economically poor or politically oppressed to hear Jesus’ words of liberation. From the bonds of what addiction, in what destructive relationships, in the pursuit of what unworthy goals do you need to hear your own "Ephphatha?" From what moral quandary, from what ethical bind, from what spiritual confusion do you need a renewing source of encouragement, empowerment and liberation? Ephphatha.

Notice that while this word from Jesus is liberating, freeing in its power, but it is not coercive. Its effect is to open up the future to new possibilities, to make alternatives available, to give a person choices. As one with a speech and hearing disability, this poor man had no real alternatives in his culture. His future was restricted. And now he has the ability to hear and speak. But that doesn’t mean he must, or will. The circumstances of his life are no longer restricted by external restrictions imposed on him by those who reject him. Now he has the freedom to choose. He may become a follower of Jesus, or he may not. After all, it is true of us all: we hear what we want to hear; we choose from among competing voices the ones we will listen to.

As a child, our son was susceptible to severe ear infections, and as an adult he still has a slight hearing loss. But when he was little it was not always clear to his parents whether he was having a hearing problem or a listening problem. In his case, as in ours, it was sometimes one and sometimes the other. Ephphatha; be liberated, but don’t expect your newfound freedom to solve all your problems. What it really means is that you will have hard choices and tough decisions to make, some of which you never had to worry about before. That is one of the realities about freedom: you must choose how you will use it.

Jesus, too, had a choice that day. He could have sanctioned, or at least passively affirmed, society’s judgment on this man – simply by passing him by as everyone else did. Refusing to get involved. Letting the moment pass, and getting on with other pressing matters. But he chose to get involved. He stopped; he touched; he welcomed a stranger and an outcast, and in doing so he gave us an example of how to deal with people who are different from us – and particularly with those whom the society isolates, rejects or discriminates against.

Ephphatha. There is a strong emphasis in the scriptures on the liberating, freeing and healing words and works of Jesus. By those words and actions we too can be changed, reshaped, forgiven, freed, kept sane, saved. God uses different means for healing and wholeness today, but God still wishes for us to hear and speak, to be free and to have options for living in wholeness and joy. Ephphatha.

[COPYRIGHT 2006, John C. Bush

NOW TO THE GOD OF ALL GRACE
WHO CALLS YOU TO SHARE
GOD’S ETERNAL GLORY
IN UNION WITH CHRIST:
TO GOD BE PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING,
IN THE CHURCH AND IN CHRIST JESUS,
FROM THIS DAY FORWARD
AND FOREVER MORE. AMEN.