Mark 7: 31 – end
As I get older I’m beginning to notice that my hearing is less sharp than it used to be. I’ve also experienced the frustration of having one, or occasionally two, blocked ears. Then being in a crowd becomes unbearable, and it’s very difficult to know when you speak whether you’re whispering or shouting. These are fairly minor problems compared with the frustrations of those who are actually deaf, and who consequently often also have difficulties with speaking. If you can’t hear, how can you know how to pronounce the words?
Our Gospel passage this morning is the story of the healing of someone who was deaf and also had some form of speech impairment. But Mark wants us to understand this story as speaking about spiritual deafness and healing. Think of the many times when God calls people in the Bible – the little boy Samuel in the temple, Jeremiah the prophet; then Jesus calls his disciples to follow Him. Right back in Genesis we have the story of God calling out to Adam and Eve in the garden after they have taken the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They hear His voice, but are afraid and they hide because they know that they have disobeyed Him so they try to ignore His call.
Jesus can heal this kind of spiritual deafness because He is the Messiah, the Son of God.
Listen to these words from the prophet Isaiah, which describe what will happen when God comes to save His people:
“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” (Isaiah 35: 5 – 6)
Mark points to Jesus as Messiah by telling this story, and soon afterwards another one about Jesus healing a blind man. He deliberately echoes Isaiah’s words by using a rare Greek word for ‘speech impaired’ rather than the more usual word for ‘dumb’.
This is also why Mark stresses the complete amazement of people at this miracle. It is no ordinary act of healing to cure the deaf and dumb.
Mark also uses the healing of this ordinary man to contrast with the spiritual deafness of others. Earlier in the Gospel we’re shown that neither the Pharisees, nor even the disciples can fully understand either what Jesus says or the significance of the miracles. Jesus is recognised fully only by God and by other spiritual forces.
So what happens? Jesus takes the man aside, away from the crowd and heals him, simply, using the techniques that other itinerant healers might have used at the time. He meets the obvious need of the man, who is now able to “speak plain”. Not oratory, but communication. We’re not told what the man said. It looks as if the people around him continued to speak for him as they talked about the amazing thing that had happened in their midst. Jesus tells them, but not the man himself, not to talk about it.
So what about us? Are we listening? How is our spiritual hearing? I am speaking very much to myself as I say this.
Are we, like the Pharisees, unable to hear God because of our preconceived ideas about what He will say? This is a constant danger for those of us who think of ourselves as mature; we think we know what God is saying, what he expects of us.
Perhaps we are more like Adam and Eve, afraid of what God might say because we feel we may have displeased Him in some way? In that case, we may need to hear these words of Isaiah:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43: 1-3)
Jesus has come so that we can be reconciled to God. He is waiting. We are already his. There is no need to be afraid.
Or are we more like the disciples, as Mark depicts them, often hearing Jesus’ teaching and reading about His miracles, but somehow not quite fully grasping the meaning? Those who are deaf are likely also to have impaired speech. If we can’t understand we will never be able to pass on anything of any help to others.
We have the enormous advantage over the first disciples of living in the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus. But it is still only through God’s gracious revelation, through the Holy Spirit that we truly recognise Jesus as our Lord and God. We need to learn to listen. We need to draw aside, often, to ask God to heal our deafness. Listen to these words, also from Isaiah:
“The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens – wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.
The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious.” (Isaiah 50: 4 – 6)
Let’s ask God to heal our deafness, to waken our ears and to keep us listening.