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September 10, 2006

Mark 7: 31-37

Be Open

During the summer while growing up, I was always in some body of water most of the time. At summer camps, I was swimming in the pool or taking swim lessons. Or sailing with my dad on his sailboat. Or learning how to water-ski at a friend’s lake house.
But my favorite water childhood memories are of our family vacations at White Lake. We would go every summer with another family from our home church to spend the week at the lake. Each morning at the lake it was the same routine. The children would wake up, run and put on our bathing suits, and then go jump on the parents’ beds to wake them up. The water waits for no one!

Once we were lathered up in sunscreen, there was always a race to the water. The last one in was a rotten egg. And as you remember, there is no worse fate than being a rotten egg! All of us would take a diving leap of the dock into water and then shot back to the surface. And then we were off and swimming until the Moms call us in for lunch.

Every once and while, when we took that diving leap off the dock, we would get water in our ears. I am sure that you have had water in your ears while swimming. It is one of the worst feelings.
You can hear what people are saying but it comes through as fuzzy and distorted. The water blocks the fun that we may have been having and it is annoying. I don’t know if you are like me but I always had to deal with the water in my ears right then and there before I could do anything else.

I remember the few times that this happened to me at the lake. I watched as the others went swimming off in the distance while I had to climb out of the water. I made the climb up the ladder, looking out at the water longingly while my friends were having fun. I tried tilting my head to the side, giving it a good whack, trying to get that stubborn water out of my ears. And if that did not work, I would try tilting my head to the side and jumping up and down.

Then a miracle would happened! I could feel the water flowing out of my ear. And I could hear again! I could hear clearly. And the best part now was that I could once again take that diving leap off the dock and join up with the others in the swimming fun! I could be a part of the swimming and experience everything fully once again!

I imagine that this excitement, this joy is what the gentleman felt in our story today after Jesus healed him.

Jesus has just enter Decapolis following the healing of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter. He is performing miracles in Gentile territory and bringing the Good News to the ones that society does not want to remember or has pushed aside. And he comes upon a group of friends that has brought a man to him and begs for Jesus to heal their friend. Jesus takes him aside and puts his fingers in this man’s ears, spits on the ground, and then touches the man’s touch. And then it’s a miracle. The man can speak. The man can hear clearly! And the crowd is amazed and begins to proclaim the Good News, even though Jesus has asked the crowd to keep it quiet. And the stories of Jesus are now being shared in Gentile territory as well as Jewish territory. There is no place that the Good News of Jesus is not traveling to or being shared. No one is left out of this life-changing message.

This story of this healing is like many others in the Gospel of Mark and the other Gospels. The story line is similar to all the other healing miracles performed by Jesus. Some one is brought to Jesus to be healed or asked to be healed by Jesus. Jesus touches them and they are healed. And the people are astonished and begin to realize that there is something different about this man who is called Jesus. The Good News is shown to all. God’s saving grace and mercy is shown through the healing power of Jesus. It is the same story. Or so we think.

The interesting to note about this story is that there is no parallel story in either the Gospel of Matthew or Luke. This story can only be found in the Gospel of Mark. And the authors of the Gospel of Matthew and Luke had the Gospel of Mark when they begin to write their own Gospels. So why did the author of the Gospel of Mark find it necessary to share this story while the other authors left it out?

The author of Mark realized the irony of the situation. Jesus has asked this man to tell no one about the healing. But any one who knew the man before the healing would know that this man has been changed. Now he can speak. Now he can hear. He was not able to speak before. He was not able to hear before. There was a change. Something or someone healed this man. He has been changed.

Regardless that Jesus said to tell no one, the Good news will be shared! It does not matter if this man kept quiet or not on the subject of who healed him. Everyone knows that he has been healed. The blockage has flowed from his body and now he can fully experience life again! There has been a change. He has been changed. And now the possibilities have been opened for this man and for the crowd who witnessed the healing.

Jesus has opened the world for this man. He can now hear. He can now fully experience life through his sense of hearing. He can now talk. He can now share his thoughts and feelings. He can now share his hurts, his joys, and his excitement just by opening his mouth and letting his voice come through.

The author of Mark uses a line from prophet of Isaiah to show the possibilities that have been open through this man known as Jesus. The readers of the Gospel of Mark would have recognized this passage from Isaiah and remembered Isaiah’s vision of the day of salvation. “Healings of blind, deaf and disabled persons are all signs of the arrival of the messianic age. This confessional response provides an initial key to the way in which Mark’ s readers are to understand Jesus’ miracles… which initiates the revelation that Jesus is the Messiah.”

The world has been opened to the possibilities of the coming of the Messiah. The crowd has been opened to the possibilities of witnessing the Good News. The man has been opened to the possibilities of the healing grace of God.

One of the things that you will learn about me is that I am a huge movie fan. I really enjoy going to the movies or renting movies. So it is no surprise that this story of healing reminded me of a scene in the movie, Awakenings. Robert DeNiro plays a man that has been catatonic for thirty years and lives in a mental institution. All the doctors have given up hope because there has been no response from Leonard, DeNiro’s character. Until one day when the doctor played by Robin Williams decides to try a new drug out on Leonard to see if it would wake him up from his catatonic state. The first couple of tries with the drug had no results but then the doctor upped the dosage and then it’s a miracle. Leonard is back! He is able to speak. He is able to hear and share his feelings once again. And you watch as he experiences everything again for the first time. One of the memorable scenes of the movie is when Leonard wades out in the water and turns to the doctor with this huge smile on his face. It was the expression of true joy. It was the expression of true grace. It was the expression of truly being open to the world that is filled with possibilities.

I believe that Midway Christian Church has been given the rare opportunity to recognize the possibilities that come with being open to God and God’s grace. It al began with the decision to take care of our building and has opened us up to the community. And this opening has sparked something in this congregation. There is energy. There is excitement. I have had so many people stop and ask what’s going on at the church. And I tell them to come and join us and see that it’s just not the building that is open to possibilities. The new Children Worship and Wonder program has opened this church to reach out in a new way, to help our children learn the stories of faith, and to become a part of those stories. This program is like nothing this community has ever seen or experienced and Midway Christian Church is opening up the possibilities of other children to learn the stories and become part of the stories of faith.
Yes, we have been given the rare opportunity to have our eyes, ears and mouths opened through an experience with the risen Christ. We have been opened to the possibilities of sharing the Good News. And now we have the opportunity to give others the chance to experience the possibilities of God’s grace and God’s love. We have the chance to share these life-changing promises of hope, peace, and grace to the world.

May we always be open to the possibilities and promises of God in our lives. Amen.

Rev. Heather McColl
Midway Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

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