Robert Barron - Be Opened
Peace be with you. Friends, our gospel for today is one of my favorites, and it's such a evocative scene, and it's one of Jesus' miracles. Now, that He was a wonder worker, I think, is undeniably true. It's one of the most basic things we know about Him. That He was a preacher of divine truth, that He died on the cross, and so on, the historians all agree, and I think it's hard to deny, if you're taking the gospels as your basic evidence, that Jesus wasa wonder worker. Now, did He do it just to show off? Did He do it just to show, "Hey, look how much power I've got"? No. Keep in mind, Jesus, as Saint Paul said, "is the icon of the invisible God". He's the visible representation of the God of Israel. And so whatever He's doing, whatever He's saying, is representing now, to the world, who God is and what God is about.
What does God want? He wants His creation to recover its lost integrity. So, it's a biblical intuition that sin affects not just us. That's fundamental in the Book of Genesis. It's not just a anthropological problem. No, no, sin affects all of creation. All of creation is compromised. And so God's rescue operation is not just directed toward human beings, it's directed toward all of nature. So, Jesus the healer, think now of Yahweh, the God of Israel, who wants to knit His creation back together. He wants to bring peace and healing to us, but also healing to the wider creation.
Listen now how, from our first reading, the prophet Isaiah puts it. "Here is your God, He comes with vindication; with divine recompense, He comes to save you". And that word, "save", it means to heal. He comes to heal you. "Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf cleared. Then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the dumb will sing". So, all these forms of a compromised creation, that the Lord's coming, in power, to set that right. Jesus, not one prophet among many, but Jesus now, the Word made flesh, the very embodiment of the God of Israel, is accomplishing this in His ministry. Now, I'm going to pause for a little parenthesis here. This would be a lecture for another time.
You say, "Okay, if that's true, then why didn't He heal everybody? Why didn't He cure every blind person, every deaf person? Why didn't He make every lame person leap like a stag"? Again, I say it's a lecture for another day, but it seems to be the style of the God of Israel that He loves to initiate great things in a small way. Think of the mustard seed. That He plants a seed, and from that seed, something grows. Think of Jesus here now as the planting of the seed, which will grow, through the church, into this great vehicle of salvation. Yes, He healed some blind and some deaf and some lame, but it was the beginning of this process by which He would heal the world. And the privileged vehicle of that presence, that ongoing presence of Christ, is the church.
Think of all the ways the church heals the world. That's the basic idea. Okay, so here's another question, general question. So, the story we're going to read in the gospel is about the healing of a man who cannot hear and he cannot speak. And you say, "Okay, Jesus healed all kinds of people. How come these particular stories are told in the gospels"? Remember, Saint John says that, "If I told you everything Christ did, all the books in the world couldn't fill it". So, how come these are chosen? I think because certain of them had a powerful, symbolic resonance, beyond the particular person healed. So, that's true, and that really happened. Jesus really was a healer. But some of His healings, the early church said, "Boy, that speaks more broadly and more widely to a kind of spiritual healing".
And I think this is a prime example. The man born blind is another great example and so on. But this one, I think, I'll try to explain, is particularly good. So, listen to how it begins. Jesus has wandered now into the Decapolis, the area of the 10 cities. What we're talking about here is a kind of borderline area between Israel and the non-Israelite world. Most of Jesus' ministry, indeed, is within the confines of Israel and Judah, the ancient kingdom. Yes, God's first outreach is to Israel, but we know from the Old Testament that God's ultimate purpose is, through Israel, to reach the nations of the world, which is why we find these interesting little hints within the gospel.
Think of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman; that's someone now from over the border area. Think of Jesus going to Caesarea Philippi; that's outside of classical Israel. And this example, the Decapolis, kind of a borderline area, they're a hint, again, of the church, that Christ's mission is meant not just for Israel, not just for Judah, it's meant for the world. So, He's wandered into this territory, and now listen. "Some people brought Him a deaf man who had a speech impediment, and begged Him to lay His hand on him". Okay, so there was this particular man with this particular physical malady, but I think the gospel highlights this because he's a beautifully symbolic figure, too. What's the fundamental problem, if we don't hear the voice of God?
So, after the fall, look at the chapters of Genesis after chapter 3, and you see all the effects of the fall. That's what happens when the human race stops listening. Then you get to chapter 11 of Genesis, and the call of Abraham. This is God's rescue operation. And what are we told about Abraham? Is that he heard the voice of God. Now, see, that means someone who, above the hubbub of the world and all the different voices calling us to wealth and power and pleasure and success, heard a higher voice, the voice calling to integrity, to justice, to follow the divine will. And Abraham, Abraham, amidst all the hubbub of the world, heard that voice. And in that moment, Israel is born.
Now, now look at all the great heroes. From Moses to Joshua, to Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and to David and Samuel, all of them. Who are they? Jonah, too. They're people who heard the Word. They heard the higher voice. They were attentive to it. The call of Samuel, the little kid, and, "Samuel, Samuel". And he thinks it's Eli. It took him several times, and finally understood. Isaiah hears the voice, and, "Here I am, Lord, send me". Jeremiah heard it and first said, "No, no, don't ask me. I'm too young". But then he followed that voice. Hearing.
Now go back to Deuteronomy 6, the Shema prayer. "Hear, O Israel, hear, the Lord your God is Lord alone". It's all about attending to the higher voice. So, who's this man who can't hear? He's Israel, and by extension, he's the whole human race that's lost its acuity, it's lost its ability to hear the higher voice. And now, what follows from that? If you can't hear properly, then you can't speak properly. Someone who's deaf from birth, they can't articulate speech properly, because they've never heard it properly. So, he can't hear, and he has a speech impediment. If you don't hear the Word of God, you're not going to speak it articulately. How come, and see, this is like a self-fulfilling prophecy, it's like a vicious circle, how come we don't hear the Word?
Part of it is because people don't how to say it anymore. They're inarticulate in speech because they haven't heard, so they can't speak it. Do you see how this man symbolically represents the state of humanity? We don't listen to God, and therefore we can't speak clearly about God. We might be acutely sensitive to other voices. People that hear the voice of the culture, they hear the voice of the popular culture, they hear the voice of politicians, they hear the voice of everyone around them, telling them how to live their lives, they're acutely sensitive to it. And therefore, they're able to speak in those tones themselves. But they don't hear the Word of God, and therefore they can't evangelize, they can't speak.
Can I suggest to you, everybody? I think this guy is a beautiful symbol of a lot of our culture today. Think of this man, whom Jesus met in the Decapolis. It's like He's met him in New York, or Chicago, or Paris, or Sydney. He's met someone that can't hear and can't speak. Now, what's His first move? It's very interesting to me. His first move is to lead him away from the crowd. We saw something very similar in the account of the curing of the blind man. He first moves him away from the crowd. How come he's blind? He can't see things spiritually, because he's been around the crowd too much. How come this guy can't hear? He's been listening to the crowd too much.
So, Jesus leads him away. And I've shared this with you before. The Greek word for church is ekklesia, in the Greek New Testament, from ek and kaleo. Kaleo means to call, ek means out of. What's the church? What's the church, everybody? It's that community of people who've been ek kaleo; they've been called out of the crowd. What everybody's saying, what everyone's hearing and speaking, you're called out of that, into something new. Now, what is it? This description, which is so rich, listen now. "He" Jesus now, "took him off by himself, away from the crowd, and then put His finger into the man's ears, and spitting, touched his tongue. Then He looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, 'Ephphatha!' That is, 'Be opened.'"
So, just stay with that image. Here's the man, can't hear, can't speak. Jesus leads him away from the distorting crowd. And then it's as though He plugs Himself into the man. It's like an electric current. I always think of it that way. Think putting the fingers in his ears. And then that beautiful, eloquent groaning. What was that? How vividly remembered this scene was. And the fact, too, that's one of the only three times in the gospels they preserved Jesus' Aramaic speech. "Talitá kum," being the other one. "Little girl, get up". And "Eloí, Eloí, ¿lemá sabactaní"? "God, why have you forsaken me"?
Here's the third one. "Effetá"! "Be opened". What does that mean? Yes, the physical healing of his ears. But much more powerfully, I think, it's be open to the Word of God. You're deaf, you're shut out from the Word of God. Plugged into Jesus, He's like an electric current that connects him to the power of the Word. Think now, everybody, of the liturgical and sacramental life of the church. What is that? Why do we go to church? Why do we receive the sacraments? We're getting plugged into Jesus again. We're getting plugged into the source of the Word. Without it, we're not going to hear it properly. "'Ephphatha!', and then immediately, the man's ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly".
Right. When you hear the Word of God, you can reproduce the Word of God to others. If you're deaf to it, you won't be able to speak. But plugged into Christ, opened up, having heard the Word, you're now able to speak it articulately, and to the benefit of all those around you, who become deaf to the Word. But if you're able to say it clearly, maybe they'll hear it. Can I suggest, everyone? This is a marvelous little icon, this story, of the new evangelization within a secular culture. We're deaf and dumb, most of us, in our culture. Deaf to the Word, unable to speak it. Get plugged into Jesus. Hear Ephphatha, be opened, and then you'll speak the Word plainly to a culture that needs to hear it And God bless you.