Offered on September 5, 2021 || The Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time<\/p>\n
by Casey Stanton<\/p>\n
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The Jesus of Mark\u2019s Gospel doesn\u2019t come to play. His mission is urgent and told at a breakneck speed. By Chapter 2, he can\u2019t go anywhere without\u00a0 the crowds pressing in on him. The hunger and the need for Jesus practically overwhelms the narrative. He has to share the load — he sends out his disciples\u00a0 and gives them authority to drive out unclean spirits, to heal, to preach repentance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Today\u2019s Gospel (7:31-37)<\/a>\u00a0 sits right around the midpoint in Mark\u2019s breathless narrative. Wedged between miraculous feedings, tussles with the Pharisees, and a rather complex encounter with a Syrophoenician woman of tremendous faith and wit.<\/span><\/p>\n This story reveals a Jesus who seems to be squeezing the most out of his earthly, enfleshed existence. A Jesus who is fully God and fully human: for this is a healing that involves all of Jesus. It\u2019s not just a touch of the cloak or a word spoken for a healing that gets worked out on the other side of town.<\/span><\/p>\n It is intimately physical: fingers in ears, spit on hands, hands on tongues. Eyes heaven bound.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And then: Jesus\u2019 groan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This word for groan (<\/span>stenaz\u014d) <\/span><\/i>\u00a0appears nowhere else in Mark or in any of the Gospels. Mark is telling us something here. He\u2019s stopping us. He wants us to pay attention. If the translation doesn\u2019t seem peculiar enough to give us contemporary readers pause -then the Aramaiac will surely have most presiders pausing to practice the perplexing pronunciation: Ephphatha!<\/span><\/p>\n How \u00bfqu\u00e9<\/strong> you say that word again?\u00a0 Ef-fath-ah\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Be thou opened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n An imperative sentence. A command and a prayer.<\/span><\/p>\n The Church in its wisdom has ritualized the significance of this encounter:\u00a0 recognized that there is something here to stop us in our tracks, something fundamental about who Jesus is and what we are to pray for if we hope to follow Him. On Holy Saturday morning,\u00a0 this marks a final rite for the elect before full initiation. It is also a part of our baptismal liturgy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A priest or deacon goes to each Elect and touches the right and left ear and the closed lips of each of the with their thumb, saying:<\/span><\/p>\n Ephthetha, that is, be opened, that you may profess the faith you hear to the praise and glory of God.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n BE. OPENED.<\/p>\n A thick ritual gesture, charged with the faith that we profess — pressing each of us into a deeper examination.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What impedes our speech?<\/strong> Today. This morning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What is it we look to the heavens for?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n What is the groan – the ache of our greatest desire and hope and lament?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n What is it we long to speak plainly?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n For there are experiences that render us mute, no?\u00a0 Encounters that leave us shattered, which we cannot bring to speech. And the more we hear of a world suffering — I for one, can begin to grow deaf to it. Weary with demands and news and lectures — even sermons —\u00a0 that constantly remind me about the brokenness of the world while I sit here wondering what in the world AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT IT.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I have laundry and a mortgage and obligations. Not to mention crying children. A marriage that\u2019s frayed and tired. Aging parents who increasingly rely on my care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n BE OPENED.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not the president. Or a senator. Or a CEO. Or a bishop.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But what is it to enter in, to imaging Jesus alive – right now – turning his eyes to Heaven – groaning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To enter into this miracle, we have to be willing to get real intimate with Jesus. To let him stick fingers in our ears and groan on behalf of the worst thing we\u2019ve ever done, on behalf of the weight and grief we carry, on behalf of the pain and anxiety and fear we are holding in our flesh — and he holds our tongue in order to free it. His spit can save us – but have to choose to draw near enough for him to do it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps as a Catholic tradition — carrying rites and liturgies thick with such miraculous promise — we might together stand inside of Jesus\u2019 own groaning, and pray his words as our own prayer — over our lives, and over the life of the Church throughout the word.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is exactly what Pope Francis is inviting us all to. I mean it — Rheba, Robert, Barbara, Ashley, Ken, Fr. Gonzalo, Kaylor, Christine, Jeanne…<\/span>He is tasking the Bishops to consult with the entire people of God everywhere on planet earth – to listen.\u00a0 To be opened to hear what is deeply stirring in the hearts and minds of people — to trust, profoundly that the Holy Spirit can speak plainly through the people of God.<\/span><\/p>\n Pope Francis and a remarkable team he\u2019s assembled are seeking to enflesh a corrective to the sin of clericalism that would have us showing partiality in our worship space & in our governing space\u00a0 — paying attention only to the ordained as if the rest of the assembly has no wisdom to offer in matters of the community\u2019s life and mission!<\/span><\/p>\nBE OPENED.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n
BE OPENED.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n