Homily: Messy But Graced

Year B / Ordinary Time / Twenty-third Sunday

Readings: Isaiah 35.4-7a / Psalm 145. 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10 (R/v 1b) / James 2.1-5 / Mark 7.31-37

One of my joys of studying theology in Boston and preparing for priesthood was living with newly ordained Jesuits. They would preside at our community mass and I would learn from them. 

Once, a newly ordained friend, barely a few weeks into his priesthood, began a community mass by coming late. He wore the wrong vestment colour for this feast day. He preached on the wrong readings. He said “oops” and apologized. He forgot that there was a dedicated Eucharistic Preface for the feast. He set the altar, leaving the deacon confused about his role. He forgot to pour the drop of water into the wine. At the end of Mass, he forgot to let the deacon give the dismissal.

“What a mess!” I remarked to an older Jesuit. Being wiser, he simply said: “He's probably nervous. Besides God’s grace still works, yes? Didn’t we celebrate Eucharist?” Here I was fretting that my friend’s mistakes would make the sacrament less sacred, only to have this wiser Jesuit teach me that there was sacredness in the messiness: God was present. 

The truth is, God is present at all times in our lives: in the good, the bright, the perfect, as well as the bad, the dark, the imperfect. 

This is the hope, I think, our gospel reading this morning offers us. We see God present in Jesus healing the deaf and mute man. But it is a healing that could only happen because Jesus chose to enter into the messiness that the deformity of deafness and the imperfection of being mute are. 

How do we know Jesus chooses to heal by entering into the messiness? By paying attention to Mark’s description of this healing. Jesus took the deaf man aside for healing. Jesus touched the deformed ears that could not hear. Jesus spat and touched this man’s tongue that could not speak. Then Jesus cried Ephphata, “Be Opened,” and immediately the man’s ears open to hear and his tongue loosened to speak.

This is not a sterile, hygienic healing. It involves Jesus rolling up his sleeves, so to speak, and getting dirty. He engages the messiness to bring out of it healing and restoration for the deaf and mute man.

Haven’t we have experienced Jesus’ healing and restoration many a time in the messiness of our lives? It might have been in the embrace of our parents when we failed in school. Or, when friends supported you when were ill, or your work was terminated. It could even have been in those gracious words a confessor said to remind you of God loving you even more in your sinfulness. 

Whatever our experiences of Jesus’ healing and restoration are, and no matter how many times we have experienced them, there is always a question we need to answer. It is this:  “Why would Jesus want to heal me in my messiness?” 

“Be opened!” Jesus commands the deaf-mute man. Jesus’ call is more than a matter of physical healing. It is call to see and embrace the sign of God’s salvation.  Jesus heals; his action is God's superabundant life breaking open our messy human lives, so often soiled, stained and spoilt by human sin. 

He breaks us open to the holy possibilities God wishes to give us: God’s healing and life; God’s mercy and forgiveness; God’s love and intimacy. And yes, Jesus especially breaks us open to God’s desire to be present in our messiness to save us.

We often approach miracles like today’s healing with a myopic perspective: what is in it for me, we all want to know. Today Jesus’ command to the deaf-mute man is also his command to us. But it is not for healing only; it is for us to open ourselves to the universal significance of God’s healing. This is: God’s salvation is for all. 

This movement from me to all, from self to community, from church to the world is seen in the juxtaposition of our 1st Reading and Gospel Reading. The theme is the same: God saves. Where Isaiah poetically proclaims this in the 1st Reading to the Israelites, Mark presents Jesus’ action in his gospel as the truth for all peoples, regardless of colour, tongue and faith. 

How can our ears and eyes—yes, our whole being—then not be open to this Good News that God's salvation is for all, and our tongues loosened to proclaim it when we see Jesus healing the deaf-mute man? It can only be in how you and I respond to Jesus’ command, “Be Open.” The most Christian way to respond to Jesus is to recognize him as God’s Word we must hear. Why? Because Jesus summons us to live a life of faith, hope and charity. 

Faith, that we can hear Jesus properly, and let him heal us from spiritual deafness. Hope, that we will receive God’s life fully and deeply. And charity, that having received God’s life, we can let Jesus empower us share with others what we experienced as God’s goodness. Faith, hope and charity: these make the messiness of life bearable, meaningful, and most of all salvific because God is with us and for us. 

This is why there is probably no time in our life when we should not ask for the healing of the blindness of our hearts. It is likely, too, that any time is a good one to ask Jesus to bless us with the prayer, Ephphatha, “Be opened!” For the better we can hear the Gospel, the better we will grow out of the messiness of our lives and into God’s life.

Perhaps, it is when we dare to open our hearts to Jesus’ command that we will understand what the older, wiser Jesuit taught me Boston some years ago: “God’s grace always works.” Then, we will know that what we will shortly proclaim in the Nicene Creed, that we believe in God, the creator “of all things visible and invisible,” is very true. It is because God who was present in the messiness of my friend presiding at Mass, is also very much present in the messiness of our lives—always with us so that we can have life to the full.

Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore

photo: www.nailschool.com