September 9, 2024

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle B

Isaiah 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37

In 2009, there was one of those moments that capture people's attention. In the United Kingdom, there is a show called Britain's Got Talent. This is a talent competition, the UK's version of America's Got Talent. A woman named Susan Boyle walked onto the stage. She was a middle-aged woman who was obviously not practiced in stage presence and was about as unglamorous a person as you could imagine. When told that her dream was to become a professional singer, one of the judges asked what singer she most wanted to be like. She answered Elaine Paige. Now, if you are like me and not up on your London musical scene, it turns out that Elaine Paige is one of the greatest stars ever on the London stage and is often referred to as the First Lady of British musical theatre. When Susan said this, many people in the audience snickered and some rolled their eyes. Well, as you can probably guess if you haven't seen this on the internet, when she started singing, out of this frumpy woman came the most beautiful voice. She wasn't two lines into the song when the entire audience was on their feet cheering, as much in amazement as enjoyment. [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxYtcTmeGcA ] The adage “Never judge a book by its cover” is probably as old as philosophy itself, but still we continue to learn its lesson, just usually not as publicly or spectacularly as Susan Boyle demonstrated.

Now I initially was going to use this example to help illustrate the lesson that Saint James is teaching us in the second reading. He tells us that Christians should not use appearances when welcoming people into their congregations. Just because a person shows up in expensive clothing does not indicate that this person, just because he or she is rich, is any more deserving than one who is poor and therefore is not dressed as well. A person's clothing does not tell us what their moral character is like, and even if it did a Christian community should welcome all. But I think this lesson is rather straightforward, so I'd rather talk about what Jesus tells us in the Gospel, a related lesson that is also brought out by the Susan Boyle story.

On the surface level, Mark is relating a miracle of Jesus healing the person who is deaf and mute. But there is an underlying deeper level that we need to consider. This year we have been reading mostly from the Gospel of Mark, and you may have noticed something that scholars who study the bible call Mark's Messianic secret. Mark, more than any other evangelist, emphasizes that Jesus always tells those that he heals not to tell anyone else about it. Of course they never obey that instruction and instantly run off and tell everyone. So the question is: why does Jesus ask for secrecy in the first place, and why does Mark emphasize this?

Most theologians conclude that Jesus does this because he knows what will happen. The Jewish people were expecting the Messiah to be able to heal people, as we heard in the first reading from Isaiah. And Jesus did heal people, thus demonstrating in action that the prophecies were fulfilled in him. However, once the label of Messiah gets pinned onto Jesus, all of people's preconceived notions of what the Messiah would be like and would do are now going to hinder and not help the work of Jesus. We see it time and again, people not listening to what Jesus says but expecting him to be a political ruler or the military savior of Israel. People jump to conclusions about Jesus, just as most jumped to a conclusion about Susan Boyle based on their ideas of what a good singer should look like. We will see this again in spectacular fashion in next week's Gospel where Peter will profess Jesus as the Messiah, only to be sternly rebuked by Jesus when Peter refused to understand that his cross, passion, and death are a part of that.

So how can we apply this to our Gospel today? Jesus was able to heal the physical illnesses that some people had during his earthly ministry, and by doing so, eye witnesses could see this clearly with their senses. However, Jesus came to heal not the bodily but the spiritual illnesses of all people for all times, and he also did this multiple times on those he encountered throughout the gospel. Unfortunately, when someone is healed spiritually, internally, when their heart and soul are made whole, it is hard to see, it doesn't make the dramatic hit-you-upside-the-head impact that a physical healing would make.

When a person is healed spiritually, they are changed, their view of the world is transformed. Jesus knew that if people just concentrated on the miracles as one-time events, they would not learn the deeper eternal lessons he was trying to teach. If you watch the replay of the Susan Boyle performance, you see the instant impact it made with the audience and the judges. However, I'm sure that most people decided that, okay, they were wrong about her, and left it at that. Most people probably didn't say, I made a gross mistake here. How do I change my ways and not make this mistake again, not prejudge people based on superficial characteristics in the future?

Jesus did not come to be a divine miracle worker for a few people; he came to be the savior of all people. And Jesus knows that we too need healing because, although we might not be physically deaf, we are all deaf, or at least hard of hearing, in certain ways spiritually. So when we hear Jesus today say “ephphatha,” “be open,” he is also talking to us. At our baptisms, the priest or deacon says this: May the Lord Jesus, who made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, grant that you may soon receive this word with your ears and profess the faith with your lips, to the glory and praise of God the Father. This is called the Ephphatha Rite. It is our promise when we become Christians that Jesus will help us to not be deaf and mute but be healed and able to enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven, both now and when we die.

But we must accept this healing. We must cooperate with his grace. We must want to hear his message and to speak his truth. If we hear the Gospel today and see that Jesus is proving that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, then we have learned an important lesson. If we don't then also see that Jesus is trying to heal us of our own spiritual defects, we are as blind, deaf, and mute as those he cured in the gospels. It is only when we open our hearts to the message of Christ, to love God and one another, to forgive others, and to accept our neighbor as always deserving of life, honor, and respect as a child of God, it is only then that we will truly be healed.

As we continue with our Mass, may the Eucharist give us the grace to further our spiritual healing that Christ is in the process of performing in us. May we look past the appearances of others and see the good within everyone, even if they don't show it very well. Let us all resolve to judge our neighbor as he or she deserves as a child of God and not be blind or deaf to their true value: a person made in God's image.