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 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.”
What a wonderful God we have! What a wonderful Lord God we have in Jesus Christ! Jesus wants us to live. Jesus wants us to live fully in this life with the freedom of children of the Kingdom.
Isaiah tells us in the first reading not to be fearful. So often fear can hold us back and keep us from kingdom living. We get worried about what others might think. We get stopped by our own fears. We wonder if we will have the strength to continue on the road of the Gospel when it costs us a lot.
The Letter of James today tells us to love everyone and not to make distinctions. That is easy to say, but most of us just naturally gravitate to the clean, the beautiful, the normal and the well to do. Saint Benedict in his Rule for Monks acknowledges this sort of natural impulse and then tells his monks to treat everyone the way they would treat the wealthy and the powerful.
Every community of people has oddballs and fringe people. We are invited to love them all and to heal them by our love for them. Just as Jesus allowed the deaf mean to speak in the Gospel today, so also we must help the fringe people have a voice in our communities, in our parishes and in our religious communities. There are so many ways in which we can invite those without a voice to have a voice.
So also we can help the deaf to hear. That is more difficult because we ourselves are often the deaf. We do not listen to others and so we are deaf. How can we listen to the marginalized, the fringe people, the oddballs, unless we associate with them and spend time with them. Our Lord Jesus lived that way. He was known to associate with sinners and prostitutes.
My sisters and brothers, we are invited to change our lives. We are invited to leave the comfort zones in which we live. We are invited to associate with the poor and the needy. This invitation comes to us from the Lord Jesus Christ and He promises us that if we live this way, the Kingdom is ours.