23rd. Sunday (Year B)
(Isaiah 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark
7:31-37)
In our reading from the prophet
Isaiah we heard:
Say to those
whose hearts are frightened, "Be strong, fear not! Behold, here is your God, He comes with
vindication; with divine recompense He comes to save you."
Israel, although conscious of being
God’s Chosen People had, nevertheless, a long history of suffering as a pawn in
the conflicting endeavours at empire building by surrounding super-powers, and
such a prophecy of salvation tended, as the suffering and humiliation piled up,
to be welcomed as fighting talk by nationalist dreamers and even used as
justification for cloak-and-dagger violence by the Sicarii, Zealots, and other
enthusiasts for political autonomy; and that, certainly, was how many Jews in
the days of Jesus were inclined to think.
Experiencing continued occupation
by alien forces of the Roman State they longed for God to help them overthrow --
through the promised Messiah -- the military might of their hated and despised
oppressors. And with such expectations, they were pre-disposed to see Jesus’
miracles, such as His most recent feeding the five thousand in the desert, as
evidence that He must surely be the one they were looking for:
Here is your
God, He comes with vindication; with divine recompense He comes to save
you.
However, the reaction of the
religious authorities to Jesus, and especially that of the Pharisees who were
most influential with the ordinary people, was disappointing. The Pharisees thought themselves well
prepared for God’s coming judgment thanks to their meticulous observance of
God’s Law as laid down in the Torah and interpreted by their own oral traditions
from chosen elders. As regards the coming of a possible Messiah, they had had a
lot of experience with such figures; figures who came and went while they
themselves grew ever stronger in their hold over the people. And
yet, Jesus, was very different from any
other ‘popular promotion’ they had ever encountered: He was – so He claimed --
the prophetically foretold Son of Man who actually called Israel’s God His own
Father; and His power, shown publicly by some most remarkable miracles, was
definitely not exercised for any political ends nor for personal
aggrandizement. Such a man the Pharisees
regarded with suspicion, because He was not one of them and quite evidently did
not consider Himself or His disciples to be bound by their traditions. And what was even worse, He did not seem to
regard the Pharisees themselves as being purified and justified by their
meticulous religious practices, nor was He afraid to publicly take them to task
for their failings:
You nullify
the word of God in favour of your tradition that you have handed on. And
you do many such things. (Mark
7:13)
And so the prophecy from Isaiah with
which we began our readings today was suited to both people and Pharisees … the
people who perversely looked for a warrior Messiah, and the Pharisees who needed
someone to heal them of a spiritual sickness which they could not, did not,
would not, recognize or acknowledge. It
was, indeed, a divinely conceived prophecy proclaiming Messianic help for both
the frightened and the blind:
Say to those
whose hearts are frightened, "Be strong, fear not! Behold, here is your God, He comes with
vindication; with divine recompense He comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the
ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the
tongue of the mute will sing.”
Jesus’ journeying beyond the
confines of Israel -- alone in today’s Gospel reading but surely accompanied by
disciples as Matthew tells us -- would have been a novel and informal
group-learning-experience for His disciples.
Avoiding the militant enthusiasm of those in the Jewish homeland waiting
expectantly for the Messiah of their dreams, Jesus intended to take His disciples towards
the land of the Decapolis -- a territory quite recently freed from Jewish rule
by the Romans under Pompey -- and by so doing would enable them to understand
all the more easily and readily assimilate His words and actions without the
agitation of national pride provoking political tensions all around them and
especially without the constant need to answer carping religious opponents prepared to make use of
such tensions for their own purposes. As
they journeyed on their way Jesus’ teaching would be supremely suited to free
His disciples from the legalistic formalism of the Pharisees and their Scribes,
as His unfailingly Filial awareness of, peace in, and responsiveness to, His
Father’s abiding presence, together with His absolute confidence in His Father’s
sure guidance tended, gradually and irresistibly, to confirm their appreciation
of His unique wisdom and incomparable holiness; while, on the other hand, His
sympathetic attitude to and dealings with people they encountered on their way
-- many of them foreigners (a word Jesus Himself used), along with the
relatively few and fragile, perhaps even alienated, Jews who approached them --
proved surprisingly and fascinatingly beautiful, delighting His humble and
admiring disciples with a never previously experienced spiritual awareness of
such heavenly joy and peace on
earth.
And people
brought to Him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged Him to lay His
hand on him.
Who were the people who brought the
man to Jesus? Were they perhaps Jewish
people living relatively close by and bringing either one of their own or
perhaps a friendly pagan? Did they bring
him because he was not able, or perhaps afraid to come to Jesus of himself? Perhaps we may have someone here in a
situation not unlike like that of the man St. James spoke of in today’s second
reading, someone ‘poor and shabby’, not attractive, perhaps even somewhat
objectionable.
Jesus took him off by himself away from the
crowd.
The man was being given the
opportunity to experience a little of the riches being bestowed on Jesus' accompanying disciples: personal closeness with Jesus to overcome his original
apprehensions and personal difficulties.
Jesus put His
finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue.
Jesus was doing things not
unexpected by the man, thus calming him down and hopefully stirring up embers of
confidence and trust.
Then Jesus
looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him “Ephphatha! -- that is, ‘Be opened!”
Here, with that glance up to heaven
and the audible groaning of Jesus (most assuredly not something done, put on,
for mere effect) are we perhaps privileged to glimpse the man’s introduction to
faith in the goodness of God and the saving sufferings of Our Lord? Anyhow,
The man’s ears
were immediately opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke
plainly;
and thus he was enabled to join with
all around in their heart-felt acclamation:
He has done all things well!
Now, let us look more closely at
Jesus as we see Him portrayed in the Gospel.
He had, quite recently, performed the miracle of feeding the five
thousand and then -- in an open confrontation -- discomfited both the Pharisees
and Scribes who had sought to accuse Him and His disciples for failing to
observe the traditions of their elders.
Jesus had, at that time, been close to being hailed by the common people
as the expected Messiah: their longed-for, conquering, leader. That experience would seem to have been in
the forefront of His mind, for He went, straightway, out of Israelite territory
and left for the Greek-speaking area of Decapolis, where Jewish expectations and
practices were smothered in what could be regarded as a heavy pagan
smog.
On the way, Jesus and -- according
to St. Matthew -- His disciples, walking the coastal region near Tyre and Sidon
unnoticed and free, had been discovered and followed by a woman who pestered Him
and His disciples to heal her daughter, whereupon ensued that most memorable
dialogue:
Let the
children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and
throw it to the little dogs.
Yes, Lord, yet
even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's
crumbs. (Mark 7:27-28)
Jesus immediately recognized that
such an answer was far above the woman’s natural capabilities:
He said to
her, "For this saying, go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter."
“For this saying” …. Jesus was
indeed struck by what the woman said for He never failed to recognize and
respond to His Father’s touch; and so He continued walking in this pagan
district, going, we are told, towards the Sea of Galilee, but not directly,
choosing rather to take a long, round-about, route, leading ultimately to the
Decapolis region. ‘Back home’ He had not
wanted to be lionized by over-enthusiastic Israelites dreaming of the Lion of
Judah crushing Israel’s oppressors, and for that reason had entered this
non-Jewish region; and now, after having encountered the Syro-Phoenecian woman
so beautifully gifted by His Father, He decided to continue on this journey
through to the Decapolis. Perhaps His Father still had some further purpose for
Him there?
Such was indeed the case, because,
according to our Gospel passage today, Jesus had been invited by His Father, to
perform yet another miracle: this time upon a deaf-mute man, a miracle
fulfilling what the prophet Isaiah had long foretold:
Then will the
eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will
the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Jesus always walked before His
Father, looked for His Father’s presence, listened for His Father’s voice, and
after this relatively short journey outside Israel He brought back His immediate
disciples to Israel and God’s Chosen People with greater confidence in, and
admiration for, Him Whom they had heard the lips of both suspect Jews and
foreign Greeks unite in His praise saying:
He has done all things well!
If and when the time would come for
them to be sent out to baptize all nations they would be able to recall with
deep gratitude and inspiring confidence what they had originally experienced and
assimilated in the presence of Him Who had shown Himself to be both intimately
at one with God and most sympathetically at ease with and in understanding of,
ordinary men and women met on the way.
Let us now, therefore, take part in
the Holy Sacrifice with like appreciation: humbly rejoicing in the saving
presence of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour, and whole-heartedly renewing our
personal commitment to Him while confidently acknowledging our calling, in Him
and by His Spirit, to live (and die) for the glory of His Father’s Name, and the
exaltation of Mother Church despite her and our many failings and
faults.
