Pentecost 13

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Pentecost 13
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 10,200 - Parish Picnic


TEXT: Mark 7:31-37 - They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

See also: Isaiah 35:4-7a - Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

ISSUE: - This Sunday is a special one, in that it is the Parish Picnic and the installation of our Sunday School Teachers. The passage from Mark is like a fulfillment of Isaiah’s hope for the messianic age and the return from exile. Jesus opens the ears of the deaf man, enabling him not only to hear but to speak. It is an event of hope and restoration whereby the mercy, love and compassion of God is revealed. A man gets new meaning. The work of the Sunday School teacher is Christ-like work. It helps those who have not heard, or whose spiritual listening powers are limited to hear the message of Jesus Christ, and to be able themselves to verbalize, understand, and proclaim it.
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Here’s a wonderful story of Jesus healing a man who is deaf. It is a fulfillment story that is something of a response to the lesson from Isaiah. Isaiah was addressing a time when the spiritual level of the Israelites was in decline. They were in exile in Babylon. Isaiah proclaimed, or prophesied of a time when God’s people would be redeemed and returned to their homeland. It would be a time of great restoration. The eyes of the blind would be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. The lame would leap like the deer, and the dumb or speechless would speak again. It would be as if the desert would come into bloom, when God restored his people.
The people who knew Jesus saw him as a healer, that is, one who could restore a new spiritedness to people, and give meaning to their lives that had been cut-off, deafened to the proclamation that God is love, and human beings have dignity and worth. The people bring to Jesus a man who is deaf. Of course, people who are deaf usually cannot speak or at least have some kind of speech impediment that comes from not being able to hear. You can’t hear; you usually can’t speak. In the story Jesus takes the man aside, spits, and touches the man’s tongue. Spittle was a part of the folk healing process of the time. Spitting was believed to divert evil spirits, or the evil eye. Jesus then says in the Aramaic, “Ephphatha,” which means “Be opened.” Mark keeps the Aramaic word “Ephphatha,” because that was the word with the power of healing. The man is immediately able to hear, as well as then able to speak.
In this time, there was little concern with how did Jesus do that. Only modern people are concerned about the science behind the healing. The people of this time simply rejoiced in the healing, the miracle, the spirituality of the occasion, and saw that Jesus was giving new meaning and hope to a man’s life that had previously been an expendable person of no use, and unworthy by virtue of his impediment to enter the Jerusalem Temple. It was a sign that God had come to his people to restore, redeem, and reclaim the least, last, and lost. It is a sign of the new age.
Just a little later in Mark’s gospel (8:22f) is another story of Jesus healing a blind man, and again Jesus uses the spittle and touches the man’s eyes. And the man is able to see. You see here how Mark is telling how the blind are seeing, and the deaf are hearing, and the tongue of the speechless sings for joy. An expendable people who have been ostracized and excommunicated have come to be restored through Jesus Christ to hear, to see, to experience, and to proclaim the fact that God does indeed come to them with his mercy, compassion, and love. While Jesus seems to want this news contained at least for the moment, the crowds proclaim this messianic moment or event. Their spiritual desert is coming into bloom.
The Epistle of James today addresses the issue that the discipleship of Christ is not merely to be hearers of the word, but to be doers of the word. Today at this picnic we want to give thanks and to make note of some people who do their part in this parish to enable our children and young people to hear the message of God’s redeeming love and presence. These people are our Sunday School teachers and youth leaders. They do their part throughout the year to help children, who might be otherwise preoccupied or distracted to hear the message of the great, wonderful, and miraculous story of God coming to his people in Jesus Christ. Many of our people have participated in the Sunday School for a number of years, and I wish that many more of you could see the significant outlay of energy and effort that has gone into some of our recent Bible School Programs. We should all be extraordinarily grateful for their work, their commitment, their devotion.
What I have also seen happening, is that some of our young people, through the witness of the adult teachers, have also through the learning process been very helpful with helping ministries with the younger children. You see how it works. Each of us in our teaching ministries, enable others like our children to hear the message of God’s love in Christ. Through that witness many of these youngsters go on to carry the message themselves: the tongues of the once speechless sing for joy.
Today, we wish to honor those who have had a part in the teaching ministry of this parish. We also want to declare the importance of that teaching ministry by clearly making us all aware that it is an important ministry of helping our children and youth to hear the Gospel, of bestowing upon our children their intrinsic worth in the life of the parish so that they may also carry on the message of God’s redeeming love revealed through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.