23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

When I was a toddler, my mother noticed my hearing loss when I didn’t react to the sudden loud music of a military band that had startled her. At age four a speech therapist taught me how to talk. Since adolescence, I have relied on hearing aids to survive in the hearing world. Before they existed, those with a hearing loss used ear trumpets, large horn like devices that they held up to an ear to funnel in the sound.

The miracle we witness was unlike any other recorded in the gospels. Jesus takes the deaf man away from the crowd. Putting his fingers in the man’s ears, he then touches the man’s tongue. Looking up to heaven, Jesus groaned, “Ephphatha!” That is, “Be opened!” Immediately the man could hear and his speech impediment was gone.

The people were awed by what happened. They could see that God comes to save all peoples. Perhaps they knew of the vision of peace and restoration proclaimed by Isaiah, which we just heard. “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.” What Isaiah communicates with poetry, Jesus does with miracles, using them as a sign of salvation.

Alas, we tend to think of salvation in terms of heaven and the hereafter but the readings challenge us to see salvation as encountering and hearing God now. Even in the events of our daily lives, God is present to save us. 

Jesus ushers in the new kingdom of God envisioned by Isaiah; the deaf man embodies the human need for healing. Isaiah depicts salvation in terms of an ideal world of plenty. Jesus does so with miracles. Salvation may seem like something out of the ordinary but not so. Salvation begins when we open ourselves up to a relationship with God.

Salvation isn’t a future event or a figment of our imagination. Imagine Jesus saying to you, “Be opened!” Jesus is curing not your physical hearing but your inability to hear his message that leads you to salvation.

As a kid, my mother used to accuse me of selective hearing. How selective are we when it comes to listening to Jesus? If we hear the anguished question, “Why can’t you hear me?” our hearing is more impaired than we realize. What might God be saying to us that we are not hearing?

One example is prejudice. In his letter, James urges us to show no partiality and yet he points out that we often do. None of us care to think of ourselves as being prejudiced but consider the possibility. Prejudice comes from the Latin word that means “pre-judge.” When we have made up our minds about someone or something, we have already passed judgment. Doing so, we put up barriers. James compared how we might treat someone who is wealthy or poor. How do we treat anyone of a different sexual orientation or race or ethnicity or faith or disability?

Prejudice prevents us from experiencing salvation. So long as we cling to any manner of bias, we are not hearing Jesus telling us how to act here and now. He wants to put his fingers in our ears and say, “Be opened!” Be open to hearing the Good News, to loving one another, to seeing the fullest beauty of his blueprint to living life here and now.

At times we are blind to the goodness that exists in others because we only notice some aspect of their behavior that disturbs us. Other times we are deaf to the voice of reason, closing our ears to a point of view different from our own. Without realizing it, we can be deaf and blind to the needs of others. Everyone is looking for a safe life, the chance to live with dignity and security yet many are denied the opportunity. The Lord hears the cry of the poor. Do we?

Think of the countless victims of natural disasters and refugees seeking a safe haven. The kingdom of God will be a time and place when the cares and concerns of the needy are addressed.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged, “Do your little bit of good where you are. It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

In the midst of the noise and distractions that surround us, Jesus wants us to sense God’s presence when we are overwhelmed by anger, jealousy, or disappointment, to see the possibilities we have to bring God’s peace and forgiveness into our lives and the lives of others, especially those whom we love. “Be opened!” he is saying to us who are not hearing him. Your response could make all the difference in bringing Christ to someone else’s heart. (May we have a heart for those in need and share the love of Jesus with others through our words and actions.)