They Were Astounded Beyond Measure!
Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one… Do what? Hearing
and speech restored — and we're to tell no one? That's like
saying to the blind whose sight has been restored, “Don't look!”
Or to the lame, “Rise up, walk — but not too far and not too fast lest
someone should notice.” Good things demand to be told, to be
shared. But what about the difficult things in life, the hard
things we all face? But I get ahead of myself.
The reading from James reminded me of how we are shaped by what we see
and hear and experience. My Mom did not do a lot of needlework,
but when I was quite young, I remember her working on a “sampler” – and
framing it when it was done. The sampler hung on our the kitchen
wall until she died a few years back – a silent message to two
generations – and it read, “Every good and perfect gift is from above.”
Seeing that statement everyday of my young life ingrained in me the
concept of thankfulness for the blessings of this life as it spoke of
God's love and goodness, of God's interest in and care for
creation. It was one of the planted seeds that taught me that the
Christian life is not a rational exercise. It is not defined by a
set of rules, of rights and wrongs. Life is experiencing the love
of God in Christ Jesus as we come together. It is bringing that
love to a suffering world. It is singing our part in an ancient
song, dancing to a cosmic rhythm, overcoming discord with faith and
hope.
One of the men with whom I work got “the call’ this week. His
brother, who has been doing battle with a terminal illness, got a
discouraging report from the doctor. We talked about he and his
wife's visit to the brother and other family members. Not
comfortable with what to say or do, they each found themselves
withdrawing from the others. There are certainly times when
silence and being alone — with God — are needed. But often we are
silenced, blinded, bound by uncertainty and fear. The dynamics of
how major news impacts everyone in the family – how we try to ‘be
strong’ for each other, unsure of what to say or when to speak – seemed
remarkably close to the dynamics that plays out in the family of God.
It was almost five years ago when I stood here on the Sunday after
September 11. I, like much of the country, have thought back
about that time and the years since. Then, the feelings were too
raw, the shock too great, the meaning too indistinct to say more than
what welled up from the depths of my heart. And, in spite of what
I might have wanted to feel at that point, it was a spirit of
forgiveness that cried out to be heard.
This week I re-read that sermon from early September 2001. I
think, given the same situation, that spirit is one in which I would
again have chosen to speak. Five years ago, I was aware of
feelings of anger and uncertainty. But these are only expressions
of a deeper emotion – of fear. It is the same emotion that
ripples through our family when someone gets bad news. It the
emotion that awakens us when the telephone rings in the middle of the
night.
It is to the fearful that Isaiah speaks, offering hope. Hope of
one who will come to open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of
the deaf. And so it is that today we come to this story of Jesus
unstopping deaf ears, causing a twisted tongue to shout with joy.
Mark does it again — tells his story with such an economy of words that
we are drawn in to add our own story, to become a part of what Jesus is
doing. We cannot stand outside and merely listen — there is too
little flesh on the bones of the tale to allow that. Other
writers may expand to ask the significance of Jesus’ healing and of why
this man was deaf in the first place — but Mark simply tells us what
Jesus did:
He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers
into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking
up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha.”
On the principle that everything Mark writes conveys an important piece
of the story, it seems to me that there is a message in Jesus’
sigh. There are prayers for which words are inadequate — there
are wide-ranging expressions that can only be compassed about by a
sigh, a groan. It was Paul, in his letter to the Romans I think,
who spoke of groaning as prayer beyond understanding.
Deafness, blindness, inability to communicate — these are things that
serve to isolate us, cut us off from the world around us, reduce our
participation in the dance of life. There are external
circumstances such as birth defects, trauma, or disease that can cause
blindness, deafness, lameness. But what is perhaps most tragic is
that we often blind ourselves, stop our own ears, bind our tongues, and
refuse to dance. Fear leads to anger, doubt, loss of hope, lack
of a vision — symptoms as effective as any trauma or disease at
blinding us, at making us deaf, speechless, immobile. There are
three basic causes of fear: the possibility of harm, the possibility of
frustration (the failure to achieve), and the possibility of not
surviving. And any of these may be caused by real or imagined
threats.
Sometimes fear arises out of frustration — we feel trapped in
situations beyond our control and unable to see solutions. We may
lash out at innocent bystanders as if acting out our violence will
alter the hopelessness. Many of those drawn into terrorist
activities are sometimes motivated by this sense of hopelessness — they
feel dominated and threatened. These fears were common in the
Roman Empire — and many hung on crosses throughout Judea as testimony
to the power of Rome to control terrorists.
Sometimes we are fearful of change. Those in whom we have placed
our confidence, our trust, the ones we count on, disappoint or abandon
us. They turn out to be human, as human as us. As we get
older, our bodies change, our abilities in some aspects are diminished
— we are more susceptible to disease, vulnerable to our weaknesses, and
aware of our mortality.
Fear may come from ignorance — uncertainty about what is required, what
is expected, of what our end might be. This was a common problem
in the account of the Exodus, as the Jews continually envisioned a
better Egypt in their memory than was justified by the facts.
Fear can arise from the realization that our lives are less in our own
hands than we like to think. We come to see that our own strength
is inadequate for life. We find ways to shut out that reality —
we turn to intoxicants, drugs, entertainment, something that can save
us from ourselves. We become blind to those around us, we shut
our ears to the cries of those who need us, we decide to sit rather
than join the dance. Sadly, some of us even turn to religion to
escape our frightening reality.
And it was this religion that Jesus had to combat throughout his
earthly ministry. Not so very different from today when we can
make religion a tool for withdrawing from the needy world around us
rather than the wellspring of life, love, and courage that Jesus is
continually trying to reveal in the Gospels.
Jesus sighed — perhaps feeling the mistrust, the doubt, the lack of
hope, the fearfulness of those around him, everywhere he went.
The stories tell us again and again that he opened eyes wherever he
found blindness, restored hearing and speech to the deaf and
speechless, healed the broken, forgave the guilt ridden, raised the
dead, all the while inviting everyone to join in the dance.
Sydney Carter, an English Christian Quaker, described it so well in
1963 when he wrote the words to an oft sung hymn, set to an old Shaker
tune:
I danced on the Sabbath and I cured the lame.
The holy people said it was a shame.
They ripped, they stripped, they hung me high,
Left me there on the cross to die.
I danced on a Friday when the world turned black.
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.
They buried my body, they thought I was gone.
But I am the dance, and the dance goes on.
Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he.
Copyright 1963 Stainer & Bell Ltd. London, England
Something about being in the presence of someone who has experienced
the loving presence of Christ, someone with hope, with vision, with
life — Mark describes it well: They were astounded beyond
measure. And that is what we find at the altar each Sunday as we
celebrate the one whose life was so much more powerful than death,
whose body and blood were offered as gifts.
And so we, each Sunday, recognize what we have received as we pray:
Send us now into the world in peace,
and grant us strength and courage
to love and serve you
with gladness and singleness of heart;
I wonder — if we went into the world in peace, if we showed forth
strength and courage in love and service, if our joy, our gladness, our
singleness of heart really guided us this week, would those with whom
we interact be astounded beyond measure?
John Dryden Burton
September 10, 2006
----------
Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for,
as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so
you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through
Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Isaiah 35:4-7a
Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible
recompense. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of
the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the
lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for
joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams
in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty
ground springs of water.
James 1:17-27
Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation
or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he
gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of
first fruits of his creatures.
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen,
slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's
righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and
rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word
that has the power to save your souls.
But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive
themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers,
they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look
at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were
like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of
liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who
act-they will be blessed in their doing.
If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but
deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that
is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for
orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by
the world.
Mark 7:31-37
Jesus returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon
towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They
brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they
begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private,
away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and
touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said
to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his
ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them,
the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond
measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf
to hear and the mute to speak.”
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