(Homily 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Yr. B)
The
message of this Sunday revolves around the
theme of the messianic miracle, orchestrated in the images of deafness,
blindness, lameness and speech impediment; and the miraculous healing that
followed. For in the first reading, the Israelites paid deaf ears to the Word
of God. But the Prophet promises that God is going to heal them of this spiritual
deafness, blindness, dumbness and stagnation. And in deed, the healing of the
deaf and dumb man in the Gospel goes a long way to reveal that the Messianic
times prophesized in the first reading has come. The miraculous healing of Jesus is therefore the fulfilment of the messianic
healings prophesized by Isaiah. In the same vein, the second reading, in
practical terms continued the exposition of this theme, thereby presenting a
community that faced the temptation of not listening to the Word of God and to
the voice of the poor. The writer therefore, reminds us to stay away from the
worldly tendency of making preferences in favour of the rich at the detriment
of the poor and the weak.
The
first reading (Is. 35:4-7) started with the solemn invitation to
courage, trust and hope in God: “Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
Be strong, do not be afraid” (v.4). This
passage is taken from the first part of Isaiah; it is among the prophecies of
the pre-exilic period. From all indications, this passage must have been chosen
because of verses 5 and 6 that speak of the healing miracles that will
accompany the return from exile. The prophet encourages the people for two
reasons: First, because their God is
coming to liberate them. Second,
because with this God, the desert will no longer be a place of malediction, of
hunger and thirst, but a place of divine intervention. Little wonder the
Prophet assures them: “for waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and
streams in the desert. And the burning sand shall become a pool” (vv. 6b-7a). This is what God does for His people. He turns negativity to
positivity. He changes curse to blessing. The prophet addresses the Israelites
who were faint-hearted, and in their
feelings of discouragement, depression and despondency, he brought them words
replete with hope. The prophet brought them a message of joy and hope: “Be
strong! Do not be afraid. Here is your God coming to save you” (v4), this indeed, serves as a pre-announcement to the Incarnation. And
he continued “the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf
unsealed, the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb will sing
for joy” (vv. 5-6). The prophet
likened the Israelites to a lame person, because they cannot leave the place
where they are prisoners. They are blind, because they move about in the
darkness of Babylon and cannot find the way to freedom. They seem deaf and
dumb, because they have closed their ears to the Word of God. But the great Good News is that God is
coming to their rescue.
As
a matter of fact, ‘deaf, dumb, lame and blind’ are the elements that make up
the mission of the Messiah in the prophecy of Isaiah (61:1-4), they so called “messianic
miracles”. Even in the Gospel of Mathew, when John the Baptist sent his
disciples to ask Jesus: “Are you the one to come, or we should expect another?”
Jesus replied and said “Go and tell John: the blind see, the deaf hear, the
lame walk, and the Good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Mt.11:4-5). And this mission has its fulfilment in the words and
in the person of Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Gospel today. Be that as it
may, the healing in the first reading can be better understood from the
eschatological standpoint. With the words “He makes the deaf hear and the mute
to speak” (Mk.7:37), although not very explicit, however, our
evangelist has plausibly communicated that the prophecy of Isaiah is now
fulfilled in Christ.
The
Gospel narrative (Mk.7:31-37) presents
one of the two miracle accounts peculiar to St. Mark, the other account is the
healing of the blind man of Bethsaida in Mark
8:22-23. In both accounts Jesus is
presented as a Healer, who employs physical healing techniques, unlike the
other evangelists who presented Him as a healer solely through a word.
Little wonder, it does appear Mark emphasized the physical means of healing,
for instance: putting his fingers into his ears, spitting and touching his
tongue. Today, it is all about the pathetic story of the deaf-mute man that was
brought to Jesus. The evangelist did not tell us that he himself went, not even
that he wanted to go, but that he was brought to Jesus. How did they treat him? Did they treat him as an equal or they treated
him as we often do to the disabled among us? Another question that comes to
mind is this: why did they bring him? To support him or to use him to see
whether Jesus would heal him or they wanted to see with their eyes all that
they have heard about Jesus? But upon their arrival, Jesus did something very
much fascinating; Jesus took him aside,
far from the crowd. They started to communicate in the language of signs. But
Jesus went on to touch his ears, to spat on the ground, to touch his tongue and
looked up to heaven. And immediately his isolation started to disappear. He
must have felt at that moment that something is beginning to happen, and behold
upon Jesus’command “Ephphatha”, It is done! He was freed, unbound,
liberated and healed. While the crowd kept on waiting for them, when they
saw both of them communicating, they were greatly amazed, and thus their vision
of him changed instantly.
Let us return to the story once more, upon bringing him to Jesus, Jesus
took the deaf-mute away from the crowd, he took him aside. Why? It is because He wanted to get involved empathically
in the situation of the man. He developed interest in the existential
situation of the man, because of his handicap, which often creates in persons
with disability a sort of inferiority complex; they don’t feel comfortable in
the presence of many people. Christ understood this special need and took him
aside, so that the man will not be embarrassed. But above all else however,
Jesus does not want the news to spread around that He is the Messiah. Remember,
we are in the Gospel of Mark, and biblically, the messianic secret is so dear
to our Evangelist (Mark).
In the process of the healing, Jesus used
what I may call human elements to realize a divine mission. With those
gestures that were somewhat strange Jesus accomplished the miracle. Besides,
with those gestures Jesus situates himself into the cultural context of that
time:
● laying on of hands: was a Jewish ritual
gesture for healing.
● putting of fingers in the ears and
touching with saliva: were common gestures of healers of that time. Saliva
symbolizes the breath of a person, so it was as if Jesus gave him new life, and
of course He did. On the other hand, the last two gestures more than an appeal
to the cultural context, are beaming with theological meanings:
● the rising of his eyes to heaven entails
that Jesus is in constant communication with the Father.
● afterwards comes the healing word
“ephphatha” (be opened), or better a healing command that reveals Jesus’
authority as the Messiah.
In all, Jesus effectively carried out the miracle of the healing of the
deaf man with speech impediment, “And his ears were opened, and at once the
impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly” (v.35). Indeed, through this, Jesus revealed who he is: the Anointed One, the
One sent by God, The Messiah. Jesus performs the miracle in Pagan
territory, “in the Decapolis territory” (v.31b),
and as such, Jesus intends to
communicate by this very gesture that Salvation is for all, not only for the
Jewish people.
This wonderful gesture of Jesus attracted the admiration of the
bystanders, who confessed: “Everything he does is good, he makes the deaf hear
and the dumb speak” (v.37). That is
the proclamation full of stupor of those who witnessed this miracle and the
other miracles of Jesus. “Everything he does is good”, this expression re-echoes that, which ends every work of God in the
account of the Six days of creation in the book of Genesis: “God saw that
it was good” (cf. Gen.1-2). This
further reveals that there is a constant continuity between the action of God
in the Old Testament and the work of Jesus in the Gospel in particular and in
the New Testament in general. The same
God that created man and liberates his people from Slavery in Egypt and Babylon
is the same God who in Jesus cares and heals his people. As God did everything “good” so also Jesus continues
to do “good” everything. Little wonder, in the passage of today’s Gospel, the verb is used in the present tense
“everything he does is good”, to delineate that Jesus works are not to be
conjugated in the past, for he is “athanatos”
(immortal) and that his work of liberation is on-going.
On
the other hand, the story of this deaf-mute man is our story too. The passage
only gave him identity as “a man”, which can be any of us. Sometimes we are
deaf and dumb and as such in need of Jesus’ powerful words that heal and
liberate. Sometimes we are deaf to the Good news of Christ; we are dumb to His
words because we fail to proclaim it with our lives and existence. We do not only demonstrate that we are not
deaf to the Word of God only when we listen to it, but also when the act of
listening produces action in us. In the words of St. Paul: “akuoe pistos”, faith comes by hearing (Rm. 10:17), not ordinary hearing, but a hearing that becomes an obedient
listening that produces moral obedience.
Similarly,
in the Second reading (Jm. 2:1-5) we
are exhorted to adopt the right treatment of the poor. Sensitivity to the poor is indeed presented as an aspect of the
Christian message that must continue. St. James affirms that God does not
discriminate, and as such we should not let class distinction enter into our
faith (v.1). In his letter to the
Romans, St. Paul puts it succinctly well: “There is no favouritism with God” (Rm. 2:11). And if at all, there is a
preference or a privilege in God and in the comportment of Jesus, it is for the
poor, the weak and the needy. Indeed, to say it with St. James, “It was those
who were poor according to the world that God chose, to be rich in faith and to
be the heirs to the kingdom which he promised to those who love him” (v.5). He
chose the poor because they are humble, and without presumption of
self-sufficiency, more open to the gift of God and more disposed to love God. Here, poverty is not referred to material
poverty, but to those who are humble and conscious of their dependency on God.
Today therefore, the prophecy of Isaiah is not only fulfilled in the
healing of the deaf-mute, but also in every one of us when we were baptized,
for in the rite of Baptism, the priest says the Ephphatha blessing of the ears
and the mouth thus: “The Lord Jesus made
the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive
his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God
the Father”. And again, today his Word resounds deep within us, Jesus takes
us apart and speaks to our deafness, our dumbness, our stubbornness of heart,
our solitude and our isolation. May He once again touch our ears to listen
obediently to his word and our mouth/tongues so that we may be authentic
witnesses of his word. We earnestly pray for Jesus’ touch in our lives, for His
is a touch that heals, restores and liberates.
(Fr. Vitus
M.C. Unegbu, SC)
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