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 Trinity August
August 30, 2015
Mark 7, 31-37
We can think of our senses as portals into the soul. They
allow the outer world and our inner life to interact. Our sense of hearing
brings things deep inside of us; it is also necessary so that we can speak
properly. Our modern sense of hearing has lost its fineness. We no longer hear
the music of the spheres, the singing of the stars. We are deaf mutes in the
face of the higher worlds. The poet David Wagoner describes this:
When Laurens van der Post one night
In the Kalihari
Desert
He couldn't hear the stars
Singing, they didn't believe him. They looked at him,
Half-smiling. They
examined his face
To see whether he was joking
Or deceiving them.
Then two of those small men
Who plant nothing, who have almost
Nothing to hunt, who live
On almost nothing, and with no one
But themselves, led him away
From the crackling thorn-scrub fire
And stood with him under the night sky
And listened. One of
them whispered,
Do you not hear them now?
And van der Post listened, not wanting
To disbelieve, but had to answer,
No. They walked him
slowly
Like a sick man to the small dim
Circle of firelight and told him
They were terribly sorry,
And he felt even sorrier
For himself and blamed his ancestors
For their strange loss of hearing,
Which was his loss now. ....*
In the gospel reading the man’s lack of hearing and speech
cut him off from his ability to interact with his fellow human beings. This
must have resulted in an enormous sense of isolation. His own inner activity is
severely hindered. And yet this deaf mute has a community of friends who bring
him to Christ.
It is interesting that the first thing Christ does is to
isolate him again – he takes him apart from the crowd. This probably serves to
focus his attention and to emphasize his existence as an individual human
being. Then Christ engages in a series of actions involving the sense of touch.
He touches the man’s ears, his tongue. Then looking up to the heavens, from
whence the life of our senses flow, he speaks the divine word that has the
power to become reality on earth, the fiery word - Be opened!
And the gateways are opened. The man can hear and speak. His
isolation is overcome. At the same time Christ then asks the crowd not to
speak. For we can both speak too little or too much. It is as though Christ is
warning them against uncontrolled speech, which becomes just noise. Be opened,
yet find the middle way.
*David Wagoner, "The Silence of the Stars" in Traveling Light
