Steve Lindsley
Mark 7: 31-37 (Selected Verses)
So, after reading our scripture today, this healing of the deaf man in the gospel of Mark, I got to tell you: I have questions. Like, what’s going on with this secrecy thing? Tell no one, Jesus says to his disciples after making a deaf man hear again. This, after taking him out of public view; “away from the crowd,” we are told.
Okay, but why? Why would Jesus want to keep a lid on this? Which – stating the obvious here – did not happen. You and I are hearing this story in 2024 precisely because they did not do what Jesus asked. In fact, Jesus’ request appears to have had the opposite effect – the more he ordered them to stay silent, the more zealously they proclaimed it. Surely Jesus knew this would happen. So why tell them to stay silent in the first place?
That’s not to mention the fact that this would seem to be the kind of thing Jesus would want people talking about, don’t you think? Everyone loves a good miracle, after all. God at work, healing people. Not making it about himself; not posting a selfie with the healed man on Instagram, hashtag #anotherdayanothermiracle. No, just letting the word get out there on its own. He’s making people whole again; he’s making their lives better. Surely that’s a good thing for people to talk about, right?
Don’t tell anyone. And yet they told everyone. Because a miracle took place. And Mark gives us the play-by-play. Jesus, putting his fingers in the man’s ears, then spitting on his fingers and touching the man’s tongue. A little on the gross side, to be sure; maybe that’s why he wanted it private!
But there’s a verbal part to the miracle, as well. There usually is – some spoken command, some phrase Jesus lifts up. “Be clean!” he tells the leper. “Your faith has made you well” he says to the hemorrhaging woman. Here, Jesus offers up one simple word: EPHPHATHA. It’s a fun little word to say, don’t you think? Try it with me: Ephphatha.
That’s what Jesus says to this man; and we know this because the writer of Mark points it out directly in the text. In the original Aramaic, with a translation. It’s like using a highlighter, first-century Palestinian style. Jesus wants us to pay special attention here. The word, we are told means OPEN UP. Open up. And indeed, the man’s hearing is restored.
All of which leads me to another question I have about this passage, and that is: who or what is Jesus talking to here exactly? I mean, he doesn’t seem to be speaking to the man himself – if he were, he’d say something like “Open your ears” or “let your ears be opened.” But that’s not what he says, is it? He’s not really commanding this deaf man to do the opening. Jesus says, “Open up” – he’s speaking directly to that which needs to be opened. That which needs to be healed.
I mean, granted, it’s a subtle difference, but these gospel writers love their nuance. And here, Mark has Jesus going straight to the source of the problem. Commanding a deaf man’s ears to hear the wonder and beauty of the world around. To hear the voices of family and friends when they speak. To take in the sounds of nature and community. We hear stories about people who lose one of their senses and eventually have their other senses make up for it. If they lose their sight, their sense of hearing or smell increases. How incredible the reverse of that must be – to gain a sense you didn’t have before and have this whole new world opened up for you – now that’s a miracle!
But Jesus is doing more than simply healing a deaf man’s ears, isn’t he? Open up, he says. Open to up to hear again, yes – but along with that, open up to the grace and love and mercy of a God you thought had forgotten you, a God you thought had left you alone. Open up to experience the fullness of God’s goodness, that which we experience at every level of our senses, in our head and in our heart and in our gut.
Open up to a narrative – a narrative we find proclaimed throughout the gospels and lived out in the very life of Jesus himself – a narrative of healing and wholeness, of brokenness being healed, of redemption, of that which was old being made new again.
Ephphatha. Open up. What a wonderful miracle it is, to be opened to experience life as it had not been experienced before; to let the very spirit of God enter into us, down to the very depths of our being, of who we were created to be. Open up. Opening ourselves to God’s presence within us, so that same presence can find its way out of us – in the way we live, in how we see and interact in our world. A world we are being opened to every day! Open up to inclusion, to the transformative power of love and compassion and understanding. Open up to hear and know the needs of the other, to value their voices, especially when those voices are different from our own. Open up to let the Spirit of God move deep in us and through us, calling us together and going out. Open up!
It was a miracle that was sorely needed in Jesus’ time, as evidenced by all those who witnessed it and shared it with anyone and everyone. And it is a miracle that is still very much needed in our day and time, as well. More than we might realize. We are opening ourselves up, that is certain. The question for us today, for our world, is what exactly are we opening ourselves to.
Daniel grew up in a small town in the Midwest, where his family attended a local church that was the heart of the community. His parents instilled in him a deep sense of pride in his faith and living that faith out in the world, serving those in need. As he grew up in the church, he found himself part of the miracle of Ephphatha, being opened to the community around him and those who needed to experience God’s forgiveness and love.
But something changed in Daniel along the way, and it’s hard to pin down exactly what caused it or when it happened. Maybe it was the influence of a friend’s pastor he became familiar with in his latter high school years who preached a brand of Christianity that emphasized America’s divine destiny and portrayed non-Christians and immigrants as threats to this mission. Maybe it was the Christian student group he found himself part of in college; the group that believed America was founded on Christian principles and was under siege by secularism and multiculturalism. Maybe it was how, over time, his patriotism and religious devotion became deeply intertwined, to the point where they were indistinguishable.
Whatever it was, those who knew Daniel before came to know a different Daniel now. A Daniel who had a falling-out with his childhood friend, Amir, a Muslim whose family had immigrated from Iran. A Daniel who struggled to connect with classmates and coworkers who held different beliefs or came from diverse backgrounds. A Daniel whose social media posts, once chronicling the occasional family trip to the beach or pet pictures, now were filled with rhetoric amplifying his sense of righteousness, suspicion toward others, and impending judgment on those who did not “get right.” And most of all, a Daniel who was angry all the time.
I suspect you might know a Daniel somewhere in your life.
This version of Daniel didn’t just push family and friends away, it pushed him away from himself. Despite being told he was part of a growing movement to take back his country for Jesus, Daniel felt a growing sense of loneliness. One day, during a heated argument with his sister and in a moment of vulnerability, she tearfully told him how much she missed the open-minded, compassionate brother she once knew. Something about that exchange moved Daniel deeply and ignited a shift inside – a shift that, over time, helped him realize that the ideology that promised a sense of belonging and purpose had, in reality, only led to isolation and division. Daniel’s journey to reconnect with those he had pushed away was long and challenging, but it began with a simple, profound step: listening.
The narratives that define us, the narratives we are brought up in or align ourselves with, these narratives are immensely powerful. They have the power to sway our thoughts and actions in a way little else does. Most of the time this is a good thing. The problem – and the danger – is when these narratives are defined by fear. Fear. We have such a narrative in our midst today – it is the narrative of Christian Nationalism that has compelled so many people like Daniel to adopt a way of living in the world that is antithetical to everything Jesus lived and died for. And even if we do not subscribe to that narrative ourselves, it is essential that we understand the dangers of it – to those we know, to those we don’t know, to our church and to our country – and do whatever we can to counter its harmful effects on us all.
And perhaps there is no better way to do this than view it through the lens of our passage today and the miracle that unfolds – or can unfold – when we open up to God’s goodness in the world. It’s really all about a choice, don’t you think? All about what we choose to open ourselves to?
Are we opening ourselves to the pursuit of power, or are we opening ourselves to the hard work of love?
Are we opening ourselves to being defined by what we don’t have, what we are lacking; or are we opening ourselves to being defined by God’s great abundance and more than enough?
Are we opening ourselves to narratives that place us at the center of things; or are we opening ourselves to the gospel story that calls us to focus instead on the least, the lost, and the otherwise left out?
Are we opening ourselves to succumb to our greatest fears, our worst instincts, our erroneous assumptions; or are we opening ourselves to the light of grace and the promise of hope?
Ephphatha, Jesus commands. Open up! Open up to my healing powers, so you can truly hear what I am saying and hear the words your healed heart wants so much to hear. Open up to my narrative – not a narrative trumpeted by hate-filled preachers and politicians on either side of the aisle with ambitions that are far from mine, but the reality that my grace that is sufficient for you is also sufficient for the very person you may not feel it is sufficient for.
Open up to the possibility that you may not be right. Open up and let love fill your whole being, take root there; instead of fear, which is the opposite of love. Open up and see and hear my Word in a whole new way.
Open up, Jesus says, so you can look deep within yourself, deep in those places you dare not look. Look there and see the mess, and then see me in there. For that’s where I am, Jesus says, within you and with you in the mess, in the muck; the beautiful, complex, chaotic swirl of what it means to be made in my image.
And when you look there, Jesus says, open up to being opened; to allow his healing presence to make you whole all over again. Because that is precisely who you were created to be, friends – a child of his narrative, a narrative of love and grace and mercy, a narrative so you can see with fresh eyes, hear with new ears, speak with new words clearly and confidently the love that has transformed you through his healing touch.
Ephphatha, Jesus commands. Is it any wonder that this miracle could not be kept a secret? Is it any wonder we can’t keep it a secret, either?
In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, thanks be to God – and may all of God’s people say, AMEN!
* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.