Ephphatha
Mark 7:24-37), September 6, 2009, 14th Pentecost)
I want to begin with a question: "What does Jesus mean to you?" Another way of thinking about this is asking, "Who is Jesus in your life?" I will give you about 15 seconds to think about this question – and then if you are willing I am going to ask you to talk to the person beside you or in front of you for about 15 or 30 seconds and share with them who Jesus is for you. As you speak to each other please employ words that you both can understand. Avoid words like redemption, salvation or even Saviour, unless you can describe in other, everyday words, what those terms mean for you. Please also listen to the other person's response to the question, so that you can hear about their experience and understanding of Jesus. (Pause)
What was that like?
Peter Marty, a Lutheran Pastor in our sister church in the U.S., the ELCA spoke in a published sermon some time ago of a research project done in his Church. According to the findings of this project 90% of the teenagers surveyed, active in their Church could not tell you what their parent or parents believed. 90%! They didn't know. Marty then raises the revealing question: If adults cannot meaningfully and regularly speak of their faith, how will our faith, our trust in God through Jesus Christ ever be passed on?
Now, we can and do speak about some things. I know that a number of men often speak passionately about sports, politics, business. Some of such discussion involves hypotheticals. We are speaking from a distance. We are not the ones actually making the decisions and living with the consequences of those decisions: of sending Canadian soldiers into Afghanistan or decreasing the social safety net to balance a budget. We are not the ones who call the parents or spouse of a soldier who has been killed. Nor are we frequently the ones who see people sleeping on the street because our mental health institutions have been closed to save money and people have been forced to try to cope against insurmountable odds. Nor are many of us intensely training day after day to be a professional athlete, from the time we are only 14 or 15. Yes, someday such athletes may make millions of dollars. But for everyone who does 100's if not 1000's don't. But all would be professional athletes invest their lives in their pursuits. This involves great sacrifice.
Now I suspect that women also have passionate conversations about a number of things but being male, I am not in a position to so speculate. My point is that we do not hesitate to speak about that which matters to us.
Yet when it comes to our faith, we Lutherans are often tongue-tied. Others may make comments about Christianity – and often we say nothing. Others may take stands about peace and justice issues, about homelessness, about economics – and we may simply keep our "point of view" to ourselves.
Why is that?
Are we aware of whom we trust? Do we actually experience God's presence in this world, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus? Is His presence good news for us? Does that reality, Christ's presence in our lives lead us to new beginnings with each other, with creation? Does God in Jesus not only show us, but move us to know that death and all its powers do not and cannot control us? Does Christ's presence lead us to a living freedom – being free to love, free to act with and for others- whatever the consequences? God is present. God will not abandon us!
If all of this is true and we know it, not just intellectually but are open to hearing God each and every day as God speaks through God's word, through the Sacraments, through other people and creation – then why are so reluctant to tell others, to show others, to be unashamed of our faith – not in arrogant but in natural ways ongoing ways?
Some people say that they do not want to force "their views" on someone else. But I ask, "aren't our views, our convictions, our experiences as followers of Jesus even in (especially in?) our Lutheran tradition very good news? Don't we realize that not everyone knows that they are important to God and to us? Don't we realize that not everyone knows that money and the economy are not God? Don't we and others need to know that we don't need to be paralyzed by fear or anyone or anything because God is God? Can we not see that in Jesus God is for us and for the well being of all others and all creation?
Now if we are to live out our faith in the everyday stuff of our lives, we ourselves will need to be articulate and honest about our faith and honest with ourselves. We will need to continually be learning, growing and open in our trust of God in life. This necessarily will involve discipline and vulnerability. We will need to read and reflect, to listen as we live and pray. This means that we will actually PRACTICE OUR FAITH, day by day, week by week, month by month, for as long as we live.
Our children, our grandchildren, our friends, our spouses know us. They know what matters to us, how we spend our money, how we treat all others, including family, friends, colleagues and people in business. They know how we treat our own bodies by what we eat and drink. They truly know us. So if we share who we are with them in terms of our faith, our convictions they will be able to see the integrity or lack thereof in both what we say and do. Our families and friends know when we don't live up to what we claim to believe.
I remember one of our daughters saying when she was merely 5 or 6, "But daddy you don't always love people." Unfortunately she was and is right! What else could I then say to her but, "That's why I need your forgiveness! And yes, my girl, daddy is trying to do better at loving each and every person."
Living from our trust in Jesus and trying to do His will, necessitates the ongoing transformation of our lives, a transformation which God through the Holy Spirit alone can be working in us, through the means of grace, the Word and Sacraments. Word is a huge thing, meaning Jesus the Christ, the Scriptures and any ways that we hear God speaking to us. Such transformation in our lives is miraculous. Dying and rebirth are involved here and now! We need this miracle daily. And our world needs this miracle in and through us.
What we do what does matter. We all have our priorities. These may be conscious or unconscious. Whatever they are we live from our priorities. In our first Gospel story a non-Jewish woman refuses to obey the social taboos of her day. She refuses because her daughter is ill. Her daughter needs help. In asking for, demanding this help, this mother is not to be denied! It didn't matter to her that women were not to speak in public. It ultimately didn't matter to her that women like her, Gentiles, were forbidden to approach or touch Jewish men. What does matter to her is that her daughter is sick. She dares to hope, she believes that Jesus can help her daughter. From that faith, that hope, she approaches Jesus. She bows down at his feet. She begs him to make her daughter well.
And Jesus, this very human Jesus, raised in that particular milieu of Jewish culture says something that is offensive to me. He says to that woman begging for her child's well being, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." Jesus is referring to this woman and to her sick child as dogs.
But this mother moves beyond any such offense. She refuses to take this rebuff as a final answer. She is advocating for her daughter. Her love for her daughter is paramount. It will not be turned back by shame or embarrassment or even insult. So, this mother replies to Jesus, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."
And Jesus' mind is changed. He is opened to a new way. Because of what comes out of her mouth, this mother's word, Jesus declares the child well.
A second story quickly follows. Friends of a deaf man with an impediment in his speech bring him to Jesus. These friends love this man. Their love translates into action. They beg Jesus to lay his hand on him. If Jesus seems more than a bit removed from the Gentile woman in the first story, now he may seem a bit uncomfortably close and intimate to this deaf man. Jesus takes the deaf man aside. Jesus places his fingers in the man's ears (ooo!!!), spits and touches the man's tongue. Then we are told that Jesus looks skyward, sighs or grunts and says, "Ephphatha!" which means, "be opened" or "open up". And then the man is able to speak clearly.
What will it take for us individually and for our Church as a whole to speak clearly of Jesus and his love with both our words and actions? What will it take for us to use a poker term, to be all in?
Our world desperately needs to experience the love of Christ through our lives, our words and our deeds!
Christ is saying to us, OPEN UP! Are we open to the moving Spirit of Jesus Christ who so deeply loves the world? Will we dare to become more vulnerable, to not be deterred by shame or insult so that His love is enacted?
May God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, open us, move us and free us to reflect Christ's love in word and deed here and now, individually and together. Ephphatha! Amen..