Sermon Preached by the Rev. Sam Frazier, Vicar

Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Haw River, NC

September 6, 2009

Proper 18, Cycle B
What is one item for sale that every grocery store has?  It is at the checkout line.  Anybody know what it is? Well, it is those outrageous newspapers, The National Inquirer and The Star.  Whenever I wait in the grocery store checkout line I cannot keep my eyes off the headlines of those newspapers.  But I look quickly, because I don=t want anybody around me to think that I am actually reading the paper’s nonsense.

Here=s a headline that might have appeared in one of those newspapers: NAZARENE SPITS, SAYS MAGIC WORD AND HEALS MAN BORN DEAF.  In the Gospel this morning Jesus feared that his healing of the deaf and dumb man would cause a sensation.  He feared that people would see the headlines and miss the Gospel itself.  The healing of a man born deaf - now that=s news.  Good news Gospel.  Jesus was not going to stop healing in order to prevent sensational headlines, so he allowed them to bring him a deaf man.  In private, away from the crowd, Jesus touched the man.  THE KINGDOM OF GOD HAS COME NEAR YOU, Jesus said.  For this particular man, those words were grounded in physicality, in touching, in spitting.  The Aramaic word spoken by Jesus echoes through the years down to our own time: EPHPHATHA.  It is a prayer more than a command.  It is translated as BE OPENED.

Some years ago, Barbara Lundblad wrote this about today’s Gospel passage in The Christian Century Magazine:

BE OPENED IS A PRAYER GROANED BETWEEN EARTH AND HEAVEN FOR US…IT IS JESUS= OWN LANGUAGE CALLING THE CHURCH TO BE A HEARING PLACE, NOT ONLY A SPEAKING PLACE…WE MIGHT BEGIN TO HEAR THE GOSPEL SPOKEN IN NEW WAYS - STRANGE SOUNDS AT FIRST - OR IN PICTURES WE HAD NOT IMAGINED.  SLOWLY NEW VISIONS OF TRUTH WILL BE BORN.  AND JESUS STAYS WITH US, SIGHING BETWEEN EARTH AND HEAVEN.  EPHPHATHA, HE SAYS.  BE OPENED.
In today’s gospel Jesus is confronted by an individual in bondage to the physical condition of his body.  While the man’s mind was still clear, his hearing had been lost and his speech was impaired. When Jesus took the victim aside from the crowd, he restored the man’s speech and hearing.  He freed the man from his bondage. Here he used saliva as a healing element.  While spitting was seen as the most obvious form of rejection and contempt that a person could express toward another in the Hebrew culture of the time, it also had another meaning.  The ancients believed that a person’s spittle contained the mysterious essence of that person.  So Jesus spat in his hand and put some of his spittle on the man’s tongue, and he put his fingers in the man’s ears.  Looking up to heaven, he sighed and said “EPHPHATHA”, which means BE OPENED.  And the man could suddenly hear and he could suddenly speak.

In all the scripture readings this morning, the central theme is that of people being made whole.  But while physical healing is important, an even more profound point is being made.  It is not only that our eyes are opened, but rather that they are opened to a new vision of reality.  It is not only that we can now hear, but that, by God’s grace, we can act on the new messages from him that we hear every day.  The Lord is saying to us as he said to the deaf and mute man in the Gospel story for today: BE OPENED.  If we will submit to his authority, we will hear as never before, and we will speak plainly about what great things the Lord has done for us.  And we will hear the cries of those in need and be able to speak words of comfort to them as we provide for their needs.
It is very significant that immediately after this miracle the disciples began to be able to hear and to see and to believe the true message that Jesus was bringing to the world.  It was the true message that Peter was able to see and understand when he said: YOU ARE THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD.  Here was a true miracle!  The message that Jesus had been trying to communicate to the disciples had at last, by the grace of God, penetrated Peter’s soul.  Peter now had the power, the power to hear and to understand Jesus’ message.  You see, the Christ of the Gospels gave light for people to see by, and he also gave people the power to see and appreciate the light.

The Gospel says that Christ can work that same spiritual miracle in our hearts and minds this morning.  We hear the Gospel preached and taught, but too often we are deaf to its true significance and unable to explain its true meaning.  Let us pray that Jesus will today heal us of our own deafness and our own inability to speak.  Let us pray that today, at this very moment, Jesus will give us the faith to see and to hear and to believe.

But faith is not so much what we believe as it is what we do.  These words from the Epistle of James read this morning sum it up: SO FAITH BY ITSELF, IF IT HAS NO WORKS, IS DEAD.

1) Abram knew that he was half crazy for leaving behind the comforts and security of everything he knew to follow a God who made a promise - the substance of which was: I WILL BE WITH YOU.  But he did it.

2) The children of Israel thought that they had lost their minds when they left behind their comfortable oppression in Egypt for a brutal life in the desert.  But they did it.

3) The first Christians knew that a decision for Christ could cost them their lives.  But they did it.

4) You and I know that a decision for Christ seems meaningless to those around us and will gain us nothing in material possessions or in respect.  But we can do it.

We can do it, that is, we can make a decision for Christ, because when the Kingdom Jesus brought to us comes upon us, it causes us to open up our souls and spirits.  If the deaf and mute man who was brought to Jesus could be opened up to a new spiritual life, then the same is true for you and for me. And the openness of this new spiritual life that Jesus gives us means that we can never again ignore those around us who are in need.  Twelve years ago at Princess Diana’s funeral, George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of our Anglican Communion, prayed this prayer:  LORD, WE PRAY FOR THE WEAK, THE POOR, THE POWERLESS.  LORD WE THANK YOU FOR DIANA’S COMMITMENT TO OTHERS.  GIVE US THAT SAME COMMITMENT.

Today may this prayer be our prayer.  AMEN.