This week we explore a story of how Jesus healed a man who could neither hear nor speak: 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.
The story has power on its most basic level, but for some time I have been more alive to an allegorical interpretation of this tale. For me, the man who is deaf and mute can also represent the church of our day, which can be deaf to the promptings of the Spirit and impeded in communicating the Good News about Jesus to our surrounding communities.
How does it alter our understanding of this story if we put our churches in the place of the man? Let’s look at the nature of this healing. Where sometimes Jesus heals with a word, not even in the same physical location as the one healed, in this case he is intensely personal and material. He uses his own saliva, placed on the man's tongue, and puts his fingers in his ears. Beyond the "ick" factor, magnified in the age of pandemic, we see here an incredible intimacy. Perhaps our churches, and those who work so hard to sustain them, have forsaken intimacy with Christ for the burden of keeping his church lumbering along. That has ever been a bad trade!
We need to come close to Jesus again, close enough to touch his wounds, and allow him close enough to touch our ears and our tongues. We need to take to heart his command, "Be opened!," lower the barriers our traditions and customs – and jargon – put in the way of truly welcoming newcomers and seekers, and recover the impulse toward faithful faith-sharing that is in our DNA as followers of Christ.
Where do you feel your spiritual hearing might be stopped up? In what ways do you feel impeded in talking about your life in God? Today as a prayer experiment, read this story again and put yourself in the place of the man healed. Let the story unfold in your imagination, rich in sensory detail: what do you hear, smell, see? Does Jesus say or do anything different with you? Anything specific?
If it wasn't impossible to pronounce, "Ephphatha!" would be a great name for a church. I pray we will live into the heart of this command, and truly, in every possible way, "Be opened."
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