Mark 7:31 - 37
Most bible scholars think the Gospel
of Mark was written about sixty to seventy years after the birth of
Jesus. Matthew and Luke came ten to twenty years later. Both
Matthew and Luke follow the general outline of Mark, and sixty
percent of the gospel of Mark is found in Matthew; its appears that
whole sections of Matthew were copied from Mark. For a long time
Matthew was the gospel we used most in the liturgical cycle; we
hardly heard from Mark.
To me, though, Mark is one of the most
interesting writings in the New Testament. People who know Greek say
that his style is very unusual. They used to think he might not have
known Greek too well, but now it seems as though he deliberately
wrote in this way, to give a sense of movement, of haste. Mark also
is always having Jesus tell those who observe his miracles not to
tell anyone about them, but they do anyway. We still don't know why
this is – it doesn't happen in the other gospels – if Jesus
doesn't want the news of his miracles to be spread far and wide, and
it happens anyway, why does Mark keep emphasizing the so called
“Messianic Secret?” Some people think Mark is writing for a
community, probably in and around Rome, who are under persecution,
and he's reminding them that they know something their persecutors
don't.
There are many other things in Mark
that are puzzling. The miracle stories are often worth thinking
about. Today, we hear a story that is not in the other gospels –
and that in itself is interesting. If Matthew and Luke were reading
Mark, surely this story would have seemed worth copying down, but
Matthew skips over this and the previous miracle story and kind of
sums it up with the sentence “Jesus healed many people”. But
Mark really elaborates on this one story, so I suspect he wants his
readers to think about it and perhaps see something about themselves
in the story.
Think for a minute how isolated this
man must have been. Not only could he not hear, but he couldn't
speak very well either. People who are deaf from birth don't have
the feedback necessary to pronounce words well and some never learn
to speak. In our day, the deaf can learn a very sophisticated sign
language and can communicate well with each other. In those days,
though, this man was probably the only one in the village who had the
problem and must have had a terrible time communicating more than
basic thoughts.
Think about how he must have felt as
his fellow villagers brought him to Jesus and asked that Jesus lay
his hands upon him. Did the deaf man know what was expected?
Probably not – but the point is that he trusted his friends.
Then notice the Jesus does not lay his
hands on the man. Instead, he takes him off privately and puts his
fingers in the man's ears and groans, saying “Be opened” and then
spits on his tongue. Healing miracles in the other gospels most of
the time have Jesus simply commanding something to happen. Only in
Mark do we find Jesus doing these kinds of miracles, which have
overtones of magic about them. Some people think that Jesus did work
his miracles like this but later writers left out all these details
because they were trying to emphasize His divinity. But I like
another theory, which seems more consistent with Mark's point of
view. In another part of Mark's gospel he writes that Jesus could
not work many miracles because of their lack of faith. For Mark,
faith on the part of the person being healed is a very important part
of the miracle. So Jesus uses sign language to indicate what he
intends to do, and that allows the deaf man to understand and
believe.
So where does that leave you and I? I
don't know about you, but I think I have a sort of spiritual
deafness. My faith tells me that God is always communicating with
me, but I don't hear much of it. I'm distracted, I'm selfish, I
don't want my orderly life to be shaken up. If I want to hear God,
I've got to train myself to listen better. He speaks through the
scriptures so I better read them. He speaks through the events in my
life, so I need to ask what he is saying. All of this means that I
need quiet and freedom from distraction if I'm going to hear God.
I'm also deaf to the people around me.
When I ask “how are you”, do I really want to know? If I say
“do you need anything,” am I hoping you will not? And that of
course is if I ask at all. And yet Jesus told us that if we wanted
to be great in the kingdom of heaven we had to serve each other. The
only way to get into the habit of service is to find some way to
serve on a regular basis, and once we take up a life of service, we
will eventually hear the cries of the poor.
The second thing I think the story
tells us is that if we want Christ to make us whole, we have to
increase our faith. I'm reminded of the man who said to Jesus,
“Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” We all have room to
increase our faith and part of that requires prayer. The stronger
our faith, the more we will be able to accomplish in our mission as
Christians to bring about the kingdom of heaven. We associate strong
faith with miracles like healing, and of course that seems to be the
case. But there are other kinds of miracles – and we think perhaps
of Mother Angelica who founded EWTN depending all the while on God
and God alone. We think of so many other remarkable things the
saints did, and we realize that like the deaf man, God will multiply
our weak human efforts if we have strong faith.
And perhaps the third thing is that in
this story Jesus is there, not like some genie in a bottle granting a
wish, but being very human, touching, groaning, giving his all to
make us whole. And that, of course, is the whole point of the
Eucharist, which is the ultimate sacrifice on Calvary played out in
sacramental form.
So Mark is writing to persecuted
Christians. He is telling them through this story that Jesus is
there in the midst of their struggles, and this is no time to give
up. Because he will open our ears and give us the words we need to
say, and ultimately make us whole if we but trust him, if we let him
do so.
