23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 35:4-7 1 James 2:1-5 Mark 7:31-37
At the beginning of the Baptismal ceremony those to be baptised are asked to express Faith in God and in the Church’s doctrines and then, immediately, have the water of Baptism poured on them. Following this there is the short ceremony which is called the ‘Ephphatha’ (Aramaic word for ‘be opened’ – the language of Jesus). The minister then touches the ears and mouth of the one being baptised and prays: “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb 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.”
When the crowds came to Jesus to hear him or to be healed, he usually refers to their Faith; “Do you believe that I can do this?”: “Your Faith has healed you”: “Your Faith deserves it, let it be done to you”. The Gospel story today tells of how ‘they brought to him a deaf and dumb man so that he would lay his hand on him’, so that he would heal him! It is still something that is repeated regularly in churches - They bring them to Him that he might lay his hand on them!
The healing of the man in the gospel story entailed Jesus taking him aside, touching his ears and tongue, speaking the Word to him and releasing his tongue so that he might proclaim his Faith. Our own Baptism is a once-off event in our lives. But it is also something that needs to be constantly renewed in our lives. In this act of renewal we approach the Lord, we ask for forgiveness and healing, we express our Faith and it is through that Faith that the Lord ministers to us. Yes, we can and do renew our encounter with the Lord whenever we wish. We can provide the opportunity for the Lord to ‘take us aside’, to speak to our hearts. In this encounter, as in the encounter in the gospel story, the Lord touches our mouths and our tongues so that we can proclaim him.
Our liturgy today, as last Sunday, gives us the teaching of Saint James to help us in our calling to be disciples. Saint James, the practical, down-to-earth teacher begins by warning us about double standards: ‘don’t try to combine faith in Jesus with making distinctions between classes of people’. We are used to saying many good things about the poor. It seems to let us off the hook’ when we cite ‘Happy are the poor ….’(Mt 5:3) Rich people, by extolling the happiness of the poor risk glossing over any sense of solidarity with the poor or understanding of them I remember hearing of a Dutch Bishop having gone on a fact-finding mission to Africa and visiting the slums of Nairobi. He couldn’t stop singing the praises of the poor there, how happy they were in spite of their poverty, how much they enjoyed life in the midst of stinking open sewers and burning trash heaps. Someone at his reporting interview dryly asked: ‘Why shouldn’t we leave it to the poor themselves to sing the praise of poverty and for us to just show solidarity with them?’ How powerful are the words of Saint James. He repeats: “Listen my brothers and sisters …. God chose the poor to be the heirs to the kingdom”.
When the disciples witnessed the healings of Jesus they could not hold themselves back from proclaiming him. They confirmed that he ‘makes the dumb speak’ – the same phrase (in Greek) as Isaiah used in our first Reading ‘the tongues of the dumb sing for joy’. (Greek word ‘Mogilalos’ - struggling to speak or sing)
Let us join them and ‘Give praise to the Lord’.