23rd Sunday of the Year

Some years ago, I was facilitating a gathering, a young man, who was deaf, shared his experience of being invisible, not listened to or noticed in church. He said that if any medication were available to cure deafness, he would refuse it. He had always been deaf, and was at home in that community and culture. He did not feel he needed to be ‘fixed’ or cured. 

We could ask the same question about the man in the gospel today. Was this the case as Jesus and the deaf man walked away from the crowd? In Mark's Gospel, Jesus occasionally goes apart with another to portray an intimacy of encounter. Jesus wanted to know what the man wanted. Was it for speech and hearing or for understanding? The Ephphatha challenges us to welcome the deaf, the mute, the blind, and those with physical and/or developmental disabilities as they/as we are. The Gospel again reverses the tendency of the normate and privileged to exclude people who have been ‘othered’: no one is unwelcome in the Beloved Community. The Vatican declaration Dignitas Infinita (“Infinite Dignity”) makes clear that we are all wonderful – disable or not. We all have infinite values and worth. The gospel offers a new interpretation for care rather than cure, for appreciation rather than disrespect, and love the burdened, bowed low, and oppressed.The Beloved Community, God’s reign, breaks down the barriers of friend and stranger and rich and poor and urges us to do likewise. We all deserve reverence and respect. Following God’s way challenges us to question our cultural values, and ethnic and religious boundaries. Ultimately, there is no ‘other” for persons of faith. Despite our differences, we are one as God’s beloved children – our calling is to be boundary breakers and spiritual and political unifiers.

Jesus was being concerned to be with rather than be for. When engaging with this man Jesus may have had his ears opened and learn that there was nothing wrong with the man?  We can often focus on a person’s condition rather than the person. We want to fix things that do not always need to be ‘fixed’ without an encounter and relationship of respect being developed first. As Jesus learned from the Syro-Phoenician woman seeking help for her daughter, might he by walking away with the deaf man learn that what is viewed abnormal, damaged, deformed, defective and in need of repair, is not so. These views have been applied people in the LGBTIQ+ community. By walking away with the man, he was no longer a spectacle or object of derision, or an object of charity, ridicule or avoidance. For gay Catholics, it is hard to hear the Good News of God’s radically inclusive love in a church that still does not recognise the fruitfulness of same-sex love as worthy of blessing. They, like many others, are viewed as a crisis to be managed, not as gift to be welcomed.

Remembering what the young man said at the religious gathering, we learn that it is not the deaf person who needs opening, but us. We need to be open to others who share what they have been denied because of negative understandings. Discrimination unleashes fear but also stymies the whisper of God’s hope. In the face of such discouragement, it is easier to shut out and shut down to numb one’s pain. Jesus says: ‘Be opened!’  It comes as a loud groan. Like the God of the Exodus who heard the groans and sought to overcome exploitation and exclusion, Jesus joins that groan to be open. Be opened to hear God’s faithfulness. Be opened to perceive once again the new thing that God’s Spirit is doing. Be opened to believe in God’s choice of us as ‘the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom,’ (Jas 2:5), transforming our marginality into a place for truth-telling. Be opened to receive God’s enduring love that frees us from the oppressive and disordered narratives of shame, inadequacy, and fear.  ‘Be opened.’ ‘Ephphatha!’

Could we, for once listen, ‘be open’, Ephphatha, and let people communicate to express their thoughts and feelings which might have been denied them. This denial has created a negative understanding of deafness and other disabilities and other diversities. Will we see these not as defects or deformities, but a way of life? Will we see the person is not an object to cure or repair, but someone diverse? It is only when we begin to ‘be open,’ ephphatha that things will be clear, and we see what they express ‘correctly.’ Then we will learn to respect, accept, and embrace the other as wonderfully diverse.    

Jesus’ action expressed real sensitivity in taking the man away from the crowd. He did not act as if he knew what the man needed. Great injustices have been perpetrated on people when society and leaders see them as broken, backward, sick and impose help that they did ask for or want. Over the last 223 years, the colonised people of this land have had decisions made for them without consultation. When they asked for a ‘Yes’ vote in last year’s referendum on the Voice to Parliament it was rejected. A gift was actually rejected! Jesus is setting a bar for all who minister in his name. His being with rather than being for ensures an awareness of people’s dignity as sisters and brothers rather than treated as clients, service recipients or customers. The church reminds us that the ‘poor are sacraments of encounter’. The narrative in today’s gospel reveals a sacrament of encounter with Jesus. When a story is heard, it makes a difference to both him and Jesus.

James was addressing a community that separated people as ‘them’ and ‘us’ by using an example of two people at a religious gathering. One was dripping in gold and other in rags. He accuses the people for making distinctions among members of the congregation. He envisions a social space where all people mingle without favouritism where some are squeezed to the corners or confined to the margins. For James, the reaction of his community betrayed God’s priorities and those God values. The Latin American bishops remind us that we must recognise and acknowledge the unique role of the poor in our lives and faith, i.e., where the poor are sacrament. We meet Christ in the poor who have a special claim on our commitment. The bishops went on to say that the church’s faithfulness to Christ, its credibility, is at stake in our recognition of Christ in the poor: ‘Our very adherence to Jesus Christ ... makes us friends of the poor and unites us to their fate.’ (Aparecida Document #257). Samuel Wells, (in A Nazareth Manifesto) writes: ‘God has no ambitions and seeks no final goal beyond restored relationship. That relationship is the telos of creation.’ He adds, ‘There is no gospel other than one that requires and makes possible restored relationships with God, one another, and the creation.’

We need to ask ourselves where we fit in the story of the gospel today. It is not just about healing a deaf person but leading us into a space where we can hear more, see more and be more. Unless we can look upon and listen to those who are not like us, it is difficult to see how we can live the gospel of Jesus. This may be what Pope Francis is trying to tell us. It is about mercy, the loving kindness of God, expressed as tenderness towards others, that God’s reign, God’s presence, is affected. Francis lives the art of listening. We see how it brings him closer to people of all walks of life and makes God’s presence visible. It is the poor and those who work for justice that make God’s reign visible. As we continue with the Season of Creation and throughout September, are we listening to the cry of the earth, which another poor neighbour? By tending the poor and tending to the needs of our Earth, we tend the Body of Christ.

Jesus’ healing of the man in the Gospel along with Isaiah’s promise to the people in exile and James’ words about what we call God’s preferential option for the poor point to the social meaning of today’s gospel narrative and what curing blindness, deafness and impediments to speech might mean today. Clearly, we are called to be open to the invisible poor among us and even cross forbidden boundaries to meet them. We are not meant to merely see them but hear what they are saying something made very difficult when competing on fixes on mobile phones. It means that if we truly listen we can learn much about the world from people with what we call disabilities or people who are homeless or people who seek our protection.

Today in response to our biblical readings let our prayer be ‘Ephphatha!, open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts. Loosen our tongues’ not only to speak the truth about poverty, but act on that truth. Will we “be open”?   Ephphatha.