First Reading
Isaiah 35:4-7a
Thus says the Lord: Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing. Streams will burst forth in the desert, and rivers in the steppe. The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground, springs of water.
Second Reading
James 2:1-5
My brothers and sisters, show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if a man with gold rings and fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here, please,” while you say to the poor one, “Stand there,” or “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil designs? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?
Gospel Cycle Cycle B
Mark 7:31-37
Again Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. 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. 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. 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.”
Our hearts always get excited when miracles happen. There are stories in every large scale disaster about one or two people or a group of people who are saved, and always such stories hold our interest. That anyone survives today’s terrorist attacks is always a miracle. The atmosphere in the time of Jesus was also fascinated with miracles. The miracle in today’s Gospel is one recorded on by Mark’s Gospel.
We who do not regularly read the Hebrew Scriptures in Greek can easily miss the connection between the first reading and the Gospel today. The first reading is about the soon-to-happen return of Israel from exile to its own land. That was to be an incredible miracle. But the great return from exile would have signs and wonders accompanying it: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing. Streams will burst forth in the desert, and rivers in the steppe. The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground, springs of water.”
When we read this description, our own hearts should be delighted and filled with joy! We must try to imagine blind people seeing again, deaf people hearing again, lame people walking with energy and without problems and those who have been unable to speak now singing!! Not only will the return from exile include all of these physical healing, but it will include the desert turning into fertile land and water being in abundance.
The Greek word for the mute person in this passage from Isaiah, the man with a speech impediment, is mogilalon and that word only occurs one other place in Scripture and that is in the passage that we have today from Mark’s Gospel.
Jesus is seen as the return from exile to the kingdom of God, to faithfulness to the word of God. Jesus is seen as the Messiah, the one sent by God for the salvation of His people.
The question that we must ask ourselves, of course, is whether we today see anything pointing to the kingdom of God? Many of us are so well educated that we have a difficult time accepting miracles. On the other hand, many of us know really credible people who have experienced miracles in their lives after praying for a miracle. For our ancestors in the faith, both Hebrew and Christian, miracles always point to the work of God.
The second reading reminds us of daily realities in any community: show no partiality! That is incredibly difficult! All of us are prone to be more comfortable with other people who are similar to ourselves, rather than with those who are very different. But just at a human level of community building, that is not a healthy way to live. How much less so when we strive to follow Jesus as our Lord. We have to become comfortable with the poor and the rich, with the sick and the healthy, with those who dress well and those whose dress repels us, with those who are clean and those who are dirty, etc. Christ’s love does not have these kinds of boundaries. But we generally do have such boundaries and we must become aware of them and seek to live beyond them.
Perhaps today we can think of our spirituality of following Jesus as a call to rejoice in His presence and His miracles, a call to continue growing in love so that we can go past our own limitations and a call to recognize the divine presence at work in our daily lives. Let us ask our Lord to open our eyes of faith, to unblock our ears and to allow our hearts to sing.