Ephphatha

When a baby is baptized, the baptism itself is followed by a series of so-called “explanatory rites,” rituals that symbolically elaborate the full meaning of baptism. The last of these rituals is called the Ephphatha - the Aramaic word Jesus used in today’s Gospel [Mark 7:31-37]. The fact that the actual word was remembered and repeated in its original language in the Gospel suggests that what Jesus said and did on that occasion must have made quite a memorable impression on his followers.

At a Baptism, in imitation of Jesus, the priest or deacon touches the newly baptized baby’s ears and mouth, saying: May the Lord Jesus, who made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, grant that you may soon receive his word with your ears, and profess the faith with your lips, to the glory and praise of God the Father.” In other words, Baptism initiates a person into a new way of life - opening one’s ears to hear God’s word and one’s mouth to proclaim his faith – a new way of life for the rest of one’s life, just as the life of the man Jesus healed in today’s Gospel was totally and irrevocably transformed.

Who was this man, forever immortalized by Jesus’ healing touch that day? Apart from his disability, we know next to nothing about him. He could have been anyone. His anonymous status makes him a sort of “Everyman” character. The only thing we can infer about him is suggested by the geographical reference at the beginning of the story. Jesus left the district of Tyre and went into the district of the Decapolis.  Jesus has here gone beyond the borders of Israel into unambiguously Gentile territory. The salvation promised by God to Israel in the words of the prophet Isaiah - Then will the ears of the deaf be cleared; then the tongue of the mute will sing – is coming true. And one of the first to benefit is a deaf pagan foreigner, his ears suddenly opened to receive God’s word, his mouth now opened to profess his faith!

But this story highlights not just a man and a miracle, but also what happened next. The man spoke plainly. The people were astonished and proclaimed it. So this is a story about change – not just the dramatic healing of one individual in need, but the total transformation of his life and the creation of a community of disciples who have suddenly seen something new and different made possible by Christ. 

So what might such a transformed way of life and such a transformational community actually look life?

The letter of James, from which we have been hearing these several Sundays, reminds us that our faith must not be something somehow incidental in our lives, but must be transformative in every aspect of life. The exhortation we heard last week, Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves, gets “unpacked” in a series of practical exhortations today [James 2:1-5] to judge, value, and treat people according to completely new and different criteria from those predominating in secular society – a tall order, to be sure, in any time and place, but certainly more so in a society such as ours where we all seem so enamored with the rich and famous, a society in which the corporate executives earn several hundred times what the average worker earns, fostering an economic, cultural, and moral gap of a magnitude that would have been almost unimaginable as recently as 50-60 years ago, certainly a significant statistic to contemplate this Labor Day weekend.

As members of Christ’s Church, who receive his word and proclaim his faith, we are now witnesses of the change God is working in us – and through us in the world. Like the bystanders in the Gospel, we will have no viable authentic alternative but to proclaim what we have heard and seen, something we do in fact by becoming something new, by becoming new people, something that should show – must show – in our behavior towards one another. God’s presence and action in our here and now life together is intended to be every bit as transformative and permanent in its effect on us and in our world, as that unforgettable Ephphatha was for that anonymous 1st-century “Everyman” in the Decapolis.

Homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, New York, September 4, 2021.