23rd Sunday: We need to pay attention in order to listen to God

The story in the Gospel today is about listening. Jesus is the Divine Word, a human that is our direct connection to God. People can see Jesus, but cannot see God. Jesus makes the invisible, visible. Consequently, healings in the Gospel speak to us on both the physical and spiritual level. They say something about God. 

In the story today a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment is healed by Jesus. What attracted people to Jesus was that he did perform healings. But how the healing is done is the meaning of the story. Consider the various parts of this Gospel story. The man who is healed is deaf and has a speech impediment. He can neither hear God’s word, nor sing God’s praises. He is isolated from his community. Every human being is made to be in relationship to the Divine. We are made to hear God’s word of love for us and to respond in love. How does Jesus connect this man to his essential humanity, the community and, thus, to God?
 
Away from the crowd
The first thing about this healing is that the Jesus takes the man away from the crowd. The Gospel says:
 

And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. 
He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
 Mk. 7

 
What does it matter to a deaf man if he is in the noise of a crowd? He can’t hear anyone anyway. Jesus takes him away from the others so that the deaf man can focus on what the Lord is doing for him. It is not just the noise in our life, it is how the noise distracts us from God’s working in our life. God attracts our attention. St. Paul in his letter to the Romans said that ‘faith comes by hearing the Word of God.” Rom. 10:17 How can we enter into a trusting relationship with God, that is faith, without time to focus on and listen to God. If you had to say how you were aware of God’s presence in your life this week, what story would you relate? How did he try to get your attention? The Lord takes this man to a place where he can focus on God’s Word made flesh, the person of Christ. God does reach out to us.
 
Jesus is the connection with the Father
After Jesus took the man away from the crowd, the scripture says:
 

He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue;
 then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!”—  that is, “Be opened!” —
 And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
 his speech impediment was removed,
 and he spoke plainly.
 Mk 7.

 
In other parts of the Gospel, Jesus heals by just a command, “be healed.” In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is the visible connection to God; like a wire through which an electrical current runs between God and the deaf man. All of that is for the deaf man, the crowd that is watching and us. The sacraments make God’s favor, something invisible, visible. The Church is also the visible presence of the body of Christ in the world. We become part of that body in baptism.
 
During the Rite of Baptism, the priest or deacon, calling to mind this story, touches the ears and lips of the person and says:
 

The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and the glory of God the Father. All: Amen.

 
Baptism is visible sign of the reality of relationship to God.
 
He ordered them not to tell anyone
In Mark’s gospel, the Messianic secret is repeated throughout the narrative. Jesus constantly orders people not to talk about what happened. In this reading, the scripture says:
 

He ordered them not to tell anyone.
  But the more he ordered them not to,
 the more they proclaimed it.
 They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well.
 He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. Mk 7

Why did Jesus want it all to be a secret? Sometimes, when we listen, we don’t hear the whole message. We get distracted and start thinking about how this will affect me. You can’t understand Jesus and his teaching and healing without the cross and the resurrection. We need to go deeper to understand God. Our Lord’s command not to tell anyone is rooted in our need to see the whole truth about Jesus. He is more than just another teacher or another wonder worker. Jesus is the Word of God. We can’t really hear who Jesus is without understanding him through the Resurrection and the Cross.
 
Listening to this story
So think about what this story means:

1. We cannot hear God if we cannot, from time to time, get clear of the noise of the crowd and go someplace to be alone with God. For us, that is Mass and it is also our time in quiet, prayer and the reading of scripture.

2. Jesus is the connection between us and God. His work did not end when he ascended into heaven. We are still connected to God through him in grace, the Church, the scriptures and the Sacraments.

3. Jesus calls us all to listen. Awareness of God's presence in our day is listening and pondering on our experience of him. Without awareness of God in our life, we are proceeding only on information someone else told us, not our personal experience of the Risen Lord. Christian experience gives us a context to understand our own personal experience.

Time to listen and think.
Here is another opportunity for the men in our parish. That Man is You is a parish prayer and discussion group for adult men, married or unmarried. It is an opportunity to reflect with other men on your call from God to be the echo of his holiness in the world. The group meets Saturday mornings in the parish hall from 6 to 7 am. You can get more information out in front of the church today. Peace.