14th Sunday after Pentecost / Year B

Isaiah 35:4-7a; James 2:1-10-17; Mark 7:24-37

Pastor Gayle M. Pope

Open Your Eyes!

Grace and peace to you, brothers and sisters, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Last month I drove all the way to Fargo – north and west through Iowa to southern Minnesota, west to South Dakota and north again up I-29. Then back through Minneapolis – probably about 24 hours worth of driving.

When I got back, Terry said, “How were the crops?” And I thought, “What crops?” I drove through the most crop-filled part of the country and I never even really saw them. When it came to looking at crops, I might as well have been blind.

I am learning that farmers see the world through farmers’ eyes. I don’t have this kind of vision – yet, anyway. I’m learning, though. The other day we were driving somewhere through the country past a bean field and I said, “Hey – how come all those leaves have holes in them?”

“Very observant!” Terry said.

So … what does all this have to do with today’s Bible readings? Well – let me see if I can show you.

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah speaks a word of hope to Israelites exiled in Babylon. He prophesies about a time when God will come and save his people. “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”

Then, in the Gospel reading, we see Jesus unstopping the ears of a deaf man and releasing his tongue so that he can speak plainly.

There’s a connection here – one of many, many connections – where the Bible writers are showing us how all the promises and prophesies of God are being fulfilled in Jesus.

Something big is happening here. On the surface, there are these stories of Jesus healing a woman’s daughter without even being anywhere near her, and healing a deaf man with a speech impediment through some very close contact.

There are so many interesting and significant things in these stories.

First, there’s the angle that Jesus went away from the area around Galilee where he had been previously teaching and healing to the region of Tyre by the Mediterranean. He didn’t want anyone to know where he was, but he couldn’t escape notice.

Then, there’s the whole angle of the woman being a Gentile and this strange conversation between her and Jesus that really emphasizes her status as an outsider. She asks for Jesus’ help and he puts her off in a way that suggests he is only here to minister to the Jewish people. But she persists – just give me a crumb, then – and her faith and persistence is rewarded.

The Gentile angle of the story continues as Jesus heads back toward the Sea of Galilee through the region of the Decapolis, which is an area of 10 cities – an area that is predominantly Gentile.

Here he heals the deaf man in this interesting way, and then we come back to this angle of Jesus trying to remain low key. He orders the people who saw it not to tell anyone. But “the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.”

So, again, on the surface, the stories are interesting and amazing, but the really BIG thing that is happening – that these stories point to – is that GOD HAS COME TO EARTH in the person of Jesus Christ. GOD is fulfilling his promise to come and SAVE his people.

And not just the Jews – the chosen people – but the WHOLE WORLD – everyone who believes.

The very real and specific healings that Jesus does in the specific times and places we can read about in the Bible, are signs of the complete healing he brings to the world – the healing of our broken relationship with God.

In Jesus, God’s Kingdom has come to earth and it can’t be stopped. It is breaking forth all around us. God is here at work. Big things are happening!

Can you see it? Can you hear it? Are you excited about what God is doing in your life and in the lives of those around you? Are you participating in the action?

Are your bringing your requests for healing to Jesus like the woman in the story? Are you bringing others to Jesus like the deaf man’s friends? Are you telling others about the healing and forgiveness available through faith in Jesus? Or are you blind and deaf and dumb when it comes to the movement of the Holy Spirit all around us?

Just as I was blind to the crops between here and Fargo because I wasn’t looking at the world through the eyes of a farmer, we can all be blind to the signs of God’s Kingdom when we aren’t seeing the world through the eyes of a child of God – through eyes of faith and hope and trust.

But, just as I can LEARN to look around and see broken corn stalks and chewed up bean plants, we, too, can learn to perceive God’s Kingdom through the disciplines of prayer and study AND good works. We can develop spiritual habits and we can be strengthened in our faith by receiving the nourishment God provides through Word and Sacrament.

Jesus, who makes the blind to see and the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, wants to open our eyes and ears and mouths, too, and he’s willing to do it again and again if we but ask.

“I am here,” Jesus says to us. “Ephphatha – be opened!” See with MY eyes -- beyond the outward appearances of people and into their hearts. See the beauty and the pain that I see.

Hear with my ears – the meanings behind the words people say. Speak with my voice -- words of encouragement and forgiveness.

But not only words: touch with my hands – supplying the daily needs of your neighbor through WORKS of faith.

Let us continually ask Jesus to open our ears and our eyes and to loosen our tongues and to guide our steps that God’s life may continually fill us and flow through us wherever we go. Amen