Be Opened!

Proper 18B; Isaiah 35:4-8; Mark 7:24-37; St. Paul’s, 9/9/2018

Jim Melnyk, “Be Opened!”

Some of you may remember hearing this meaningful tale once told in the tradition of Hasidic Judaism: “Once upon a time a rabbi sat with his followers.  He asked them a question: ‘How can you tell when the night has ended and the day begun?’  One student replied, ‘Is it when look at a tree in the distance and can tell whether it’s an olive tree or a fig tree?’  The rabbi shook his head, no.  Another student asked, ‘Is it when you look at an animal at a distance and can tell whether it’s a sheep or a dog?’  The rabbi replied, ‘No.’

‘Then tell us plainly,’ they demanded.  ‘How can one tell the night has ended and the day begun?’  After a few moments of silence the rabbi answered, ‘When you can look into the eyes of another human being and know that person to be your sister or your brother.  Until you can do that, it is still night’ (The Tales of the Hasidim, edited by Martin Buber).    

Throughout his ministry, Jesus sought to bring his fellow human beings into the brightness of a new dawn.  In a world struggling with political corruption and intrigue, with Roman oppression and religious apathy, Jesus comes upon the scene with fire in his eyes and the love of God in his heart.  He challenges the systems controlled by people who cannot, or will not, look into the eyes of their fellow human beings and see a sister or brother looking back at them.  Is today any different from then?  Perhaps the actors have changed – but all too many of the same parts are still in the play. 

In a move that would have been scandalous to many, Jesus travels to places like Tyre and Sidon, or to the Decapolis – havens of Greek culture on the edge of a Jewish world – and he brings healing and hope to the people he meets.  Today we might suggest places with different names – names like Compton, or Little Havana, or Hell’s Kitchen or simply just the wrong side of the tracks.        

Which brings us to the second half of today’s gospel lesson.  Returning from the region of Tyre – where, incidentally, Jesus was bested by a Gentile woman in a theological debate we read about just a few verses earlier – Jesus is approached by several people from the region.  They have a friend with them who is deaf and who cannot speak clearly – most likely because of his hearing problem.  Having heard about Jesus and the many ways he has brought healing and wholeness in people’s lives, they bring their friend and beg Jesus to heal him. 

Now, we have no real way of knowing if the young man in need of healing is a Gentile or a Jew, but Mark goes out of his way to remind us they are still in the Decapolis – a center of Greco-Roman culture in the area that is modern day Syria and Jordan.  The inference can be made rather easily that Jesus has been presented with a second Gentile in need of his aid.  I believe we’re also meant to infer that the debate between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman shaped his resolve to the point that he is willing to aid this young man without any debate.  Apparently Jesus has rethought his mission on the fly – and the bold faith statement by this young man’s friends is quite enough to move Jesus to action.

My guess is that it’s as much about the friends’ willingness to put themselves at risk – socially, politically, and religiously – as anything else that speaks to Jesus about their faith.  The rest of the story would be a trending topic on Social Media today: “Faith Healer Spits!  Opens Deaf Man’s Ears!”

But once again, my guess is that it’s more the words – more the prayer that Jesus utters – than anything else he does, that brings healing to the man who stands before him.  Take a moment and close your eyes and imagine the scene Mark sets before us.  Feel the warm sunshine on your face.  Smell the richness of the earth around you.  Listen to the breeze rustling through the nearby fields of grain.  Notice the hint of a late afternoon storm building on the horizon.  And imagine seeing Jesus standing before someone whom all his disciples see as a stranger – yet someone whom Jesus sees as a hopeful brother in dire need.  Jesus takes a deep breath and holds it in for a moment.  A long, emotion-filled sigh escapes his lips.  Jesus turns his eyes toward the heavens and then his eyes fall back upon the young man standing before him.  Ephphatha,” he prays.  “Be opened!”  And for everyone standing in that place, the world is changed forever.

Now, the easy part of this lesson – like the story about the young girl just before – is the healing story itself.  Healing stories were not uncommon early in the first century.  On one level I’m sure Mark and the early Church want us to know that Jesus has the ability to transcend the natural order in miraculous ways. 

Yet, on another level, this story is about the power of God to bring about healing through the witness and care of a faithful community.  This is an important promise for us as we gather together in this space every Sunday morning offering not only our praise for God but our healing prayers for one another as well.

And still, there is more to the lesson than one man’s gift of hearing, or the faithful action by a group of friends.  This story tells us about a call from Jesus to be opened – to open ourselves to the power and presence of God’s love as it breaks upon us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Ephphatha!  Be opened!  The Divine’s call to us from across the ages – God’s call to us today.

What an incredible challenge – to be open.  To risk hearing things we may not want to hear.  To risk seeing things we may not want to see.  To risk doing things that might turn our hearts and our worlds upside down and inside out.  And yet – and yet – isn’t that exactly what Jesus asks of us time and time again? To be open.  To be vulnerable.  To live on the edge of life where the mist and the shadows make it difficult for us to see one another as God has created us to be – sisters and brothers bearing the image and likeness of God in our hearts and on our brows?

How is God challenging you to be open today?  Challenging us?  Where is the deafness crying out in our lives?  How and when have we lost the ability to speak out on behalf of others – on behalf of our own selves?  What obstacles keep our hearts from being opened by the compassion and love of God in Christ?  Where in our lives are we still wrapped in the misty shadows of night?

How is God calling you – calling me – to be opened?  The truth is, there isn’t just one answer waiting out there for us somewhere – as much as we’d like that to be the case.  Each of us is being called by God to enter into the dawn of this new day – but there’s no magic formula to get us there.

Isaiah reminds us that God is always present to lead us out of our own exiles – another way of saying “ephphatha – be opened!”  Isaiah tells a nation in exile that their way home to Jerusalem will become a flowering highway in the desert – that the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, that the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongues of the speechless will sing for joy!

Even more glorious than that – if we were to read one verse further in today’s lesson from Isaiah we would find a promise of universal grace offered up by the God who opens our hearts and souls with the power of love.  Our translation – the NRSV – gives us one option: “A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people, no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.”  But many scholars, looking to the context and the Hebrew text, say something quite different. 

The verse may just as easily be read, “The unclean shall not pass it by!”  Like Jesus, God challenges Israel to live on the edge – to seek the Spirit of God’s redeeming love.

As God’s people we are called to live in the dawn of a new day – being open to God’s call to serve God’s people with compassion and grace – to risk the vulnerability that comes with being open to God’s presence in our lives and in this world.  And how do we know that this new day has dawned upon us?  It’s when we can look into the eyes of every human being we meet and see clearly each person as a fellow human being created in the image and likeness of God – see each person as a sister or a brother looking back at us.