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.
6th August Trinity
 |
| Quartz Geode |
August 31, 2014
Mark 7: 31 – 37
Gem hunters look for a certain kind of rock formation, for
certain round ball-shaped stones. These spheres are called thunder eggs.
Cracked open, they have colored layers inside, and sometimes a hollow space
filled with beautiful crystals.
In today’s reading, a deaf man is brought to Christ by his
friends. Being hard of hearing makes it difficult to both hear and to speak.
One of the unfortunate results of being deaf is that one becomes closed off
from interacting with others. Christ softens the rock-hardness of the man’s
hearing , his tongue, with His own life-giving moisture. And like a gem hunter
opening the thunder egg, his words strike emphatically – Ephphata – Be opened!
Christ also speaks to us today – be opened. For we have
become hard of hearing, hard of heart. Yet we can be opened; we can become
actively receptive. We can receive and bear the One who is himself the Word of
God, the Logos. And we can actively bring him forth, sending him out to others
on the stream of our own words. In the words of e.e. cummings we can jubilate:
i thank You God for most this
amazing
day: for the leaping greenly
spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything
which is natural which is
infinite which is yes
….how should tasting touching
hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely
being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake
and
now the eyes of my eyes are
opened)[1]
