6th August Trinity 2010, Be Opened

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6^th August Trinity

August 29, 2010

Mark 7:31-37

Deep inside the ear is a fluid filled chamber. In it, little hairs stand up like reeds, swaying to the motion of the water as sound waves enter. This movement under water is translated to us as sound.

In today’s reading, water is the hidden background element in this healing— the paradisal Sea of Galilee, the sea where the healing takes place; the fluid-filled chambers of the deaf man’s ears, the moisture from Christ’s own mouth. The watery element in the man’s ears, in his soul, had grown stagnant, flat. Christ recharges it with the fiery sound of His word—Be opened! Christ’s fire-word brings the waters into movement, opens hearing, frees speech.

We too have become deaf, deaf to the speaking of the spirit. Everywhere, noise drowns out spirit-word. In defense, we close our ears.

In the Act of Consecration of Man, the communion service, we hear Christ ask that we take, along with the bread and watered wine, His body and His blood. This is an awesome, and even terrifying thought. Yet hidden in communion resounds His eternal healing, strengthening Word—Be opened!

For, in the words of David Whyte,

It is not enough to know.

It is not enough to follow

the inward road conversing in secret.

...You must go to the place

where everything waits;

there, when you finally rest,

even one word will do,

one word....

And now we are truly afraid

to find the great silence

asking so little.

One word, one word only.[1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] "It is Not Enough" from Where Many Rivers Meet by David Whyte.