Homily for Sunday, 9 September 2018

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada. 

When is the last time any of us have attended a baptism? Have any of us ever noticed a strange part of the baptismal ritual, after the baptism itself, when the deacon or priest prays over the newly-baptized person while touching her or his ears and mouth? The deacon’s or priest’s prayer over the newly-baptized at this point in the ritual is this: “The Lord Jesus made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”

This part of the Rite of Baptism is known by a strange word: “Ephphatha.” We hear this originally-Aramaic word, ephphatha, translated for us as “be opened,” with the accompanying gestures from Jesus toward the deaf and mute man—Jesus puts “his fingers into [the man’s] ears” and touches his tongue—today in Mark’s Gospel.

Is it not remarkable that this Gospel event of which we hear today, Jesus’ restoration of hearing and speech to the deaf and mute man, “Ephphatha,” “Be opened,” was integrated in a set ritual of Baptism very early in the Church’s history, as early as the 600s? This was just as the Church was expanding beyond the geographical limits of the former Roman Empire north and west into then-pagan territories of Europe. The ephphatha has always had a double focus: First, to “open” the newly-baptized to God’s grace against sin. This is why, until it was moved in the baptismal ritual to after the baptism itself after Vatican II fifty years ago, the ephphatha introduced the renunciation of sin and profession of faith at the very beginning of the Rite. Second, the ephphatha held (and more dominantly today holds, especially since Vatican II) the significance of a call to the newly-baptized to spread our Christian faith in word and action, what we might call evangelization.

How, then, might we accomplish this, if at the heart of Jesus’ command to the deaf and mute man, “Be opened,” and at the heart of our calling as baptized Christians is evangelization, spreading the good news of Jesus Christ? Our Gospel and baptismal call to “be opened,” ephphatha, presents us with challenges both in the Gospel account of Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man itself and in the world in which we live. In Mark’s Gospel, as soon as Jesus heals the deaf and mute man, commanding him to “be opened,” he orders the crowds “to tell no one” about the healing. Do these two commands not contradict each other? And in our world today, how do we evangelize; spread the good news of the truth and beauty of our faith in Jesus Christ, while honouring the human beauty and dignity of those people to whom we communicate our faith; the dignity of people of other faiths; people who differ or disagree with us; people who may be resistant to our Christian message, even when proclaimed lovingly and reasonably? Is evangelization not out of place in a world as pluralistic as ours is in terms of faiths, cultures, politics, and worldviews?

Let me suggest that our response to these questions and challenges presented by our Gospel and our world might begin best with our attentiveness to the order of Jesus’ actions in healing the man in our Gospel reading today. This order of actions, by which Jesus touches the man’s ears and then his tongue, is reflected in the order of the ephphatha in our Rite of Baptism: “May [God] soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith”…

As in Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man in Mark’s Gospel, and from the moment of our baptism, Jesus opens our ears to hear before he opens our mouths to speak. If our evangelization, our proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, “to the praise and glory of God the Father,” is to be effective, it must be heard attentively before we are able to speak it with any authority. And if we are hearing God’s word attentively, it will become something heartfelt before we ever speak a word.

This is the message of the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading, of which Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man may have reminded the crowds following him in our Gospel reading today. For Isaiah and for Jesus, the word of God is a message to be taken to heart. Isaiah’s first address today is to “those who are of a fearful heart.” Only then does Isaiah proclaim that “the eyes of the blind shall be opened… the ears of the deaf unstopped,” that “the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”

If we remain “of a fearful heart,” we risk becoming paralyzed; closed in on ourselves by our fears. We risk closing our hearts to the Word of God and its invitation to us to “be opened.” When I speak of fear in this way, I speak not of fear as a legitimate response to the unfamiliar and even terrifying, but when we allow fear to take over our other senses so that we are attentive to nothing but our fear, which ends up destroying us from within. It will not matter, then, what we sense with our eyes and ears; the actions and words we communicate will be joyless, faithless, and meaningless, self-centered instead of God-centered.

Do most or all of us not know people who are so overtaken by fear in this way; people who are afraid to move beyond limited situations in which they are comfortable? Pope Francis has often lamented the number of Christians who are like this: “Like Lent without Easter,” Francis describes them in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium; with “faces like pickled peppers,” he said in an audience within his first months as pope. But the symptoms of fear that has taken over the heart and closed it off to God’s presence, closed us off to effective and joyful evangelization, can be more subtle.

From the moment Jesus enters into the pagan territories between Tyre and Sidon and the ten cities “of the Decapolis,” Jesus leads by example as to what he will mean in commanding the deaf and mute man to “be opened.” Before he heals the man the crowds bring before him or even speaks a word in today’s Gospel, Jesus actively shows us the true meaning of evangelization; of proclaiming the presence and good news of the Word of God in person, but in a strange land, not among his own people. There, we witness the healing of the deaf and mute man: “Ephphatha,” “Be opened,” ears first, to hear the Word of God attentively, and only then the tongue, to proclaim this Word of God with joy.

But all this presupposes an encounter of hearts between Jesus and the man, before any opening of his other senses is able to take place. “Jesus took him aside in private,” Mark’s Gospel says. Jesus takes the deaf and mute man aside, away from the noise of the crowds, away from his fears, but also possibly away from his comfort in the support of friends among the crowds who had brought him to Jesus. “Ephphatha”—“Be opened”: This invitation is effective only if a heart-to-heart with God takes place first. Only then will our efforts at evangelization be effective. These heart-to-heart encounters take several forms: Private prayer, examination of conscience, public worship, the celebration of Eucharist other sacraments, particularly the so-called sacraments of healing, reconciliation and the anointing of the sick, spiritual direction, even more informal private conversation about matters of faith, and so forth.

We encounter God heart-to-heart in the love of one another. We encounter God heart-to-heart in any moment that moves us beyond ourselves. We may even encounter God heart-to-heart, in ways in which our hearts are opened to deeper truths about our own faith, through encounters with people of other faiths or Christians who struggle with teachings of our own faith. To open our hearts is often discomforting. But this is necessary for any evangelization we do to be any more than mere noise; the mere noise of the crowds that Jesus orders to silence (albeit unsuccessfully) in today’s Gospel.

Evangelization, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, requires us first to open our hearts to this good news. With our hearts open, we are then able to have our ears opened to hear God’s Word attentively, and only then to have our mouths opened to proclaim it, not for our own comfort or glory but, according to our baptismal calling, “to the praise and glory of God the Father.”

Homily for Sunday, 6 September 2015

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 146:7, 8-9, 9-10; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37

“Ephphatha”! …“Be opened”!

How many of us remember our own baptism or have been to a baptism that we remember? Most of us here were probably baptized as infants and so do not remember our own baptism. But if anybody here has attended a child’s baptism recently, do you remember this strange but beautiful prayer over the ears and mouth of the newly-baptized child? We pray, touching the ears and mouth of the child: “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the mute speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father. Amen.”

This prayer is called the “ephphatha,” or “be opened” prayer. It is one of the oldest prayers of the Rite of Baptism of Children as we know it. The “ephphatha” in our Rite of Baptism is drawn from the Gospel reading we hear today, from Mark. We hear of Jesus’ encounter with “a deaf man who had a speech impediment.” Jesus takes this man “away from the crowd.” He puts “his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, [touches] his tongue.” Jesus says to the man in Aramaic, “ephphatha”‒ “Be opened”! The man is able to hear and speak again. The crowd is astonished: “He has done all things well,” they exclaim. And the people who witness Jesus’ healing give us the words we hear to this day at children’s baptisms: “He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

For me as a priest, at least some of the beauty of the “ephphatha” prayer at baptisms is not so much in the words of this prayer. But often at the moment I touch and pray over the child’s mouth, the baby will try to suck on my thumb. It is as if the baby, newly alive; baptized into Christ, is saying, “I’m opened, alright… And your thumb tastes way better than my pacifier”!

Is it not most beautiful that, from the moment of Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man; from the very moment of our baptism, we are called to “be opened”? And in what ways are we called by our baptism to “be opened”? What are some of our obstacles to being “opened”; to hearing and proclaiming the Word of God; the faith of Jesus Christ?

I ask you these questions. But in my two years here at St. Kateri, my diaconate and first year of priesthood, you have shown me; shown one another; shown our communities and our world in countless profound ways what it means to “be opened.” You show time and again by word and action what it means to live out the baptismal calling we have in common. The number of ministries and devotions here at St. Kateri is truly astounding. We have people here who visit and bring communion to the sick and homebound. We have people who accompany those who have lost loved ones; who help to prepare and assist at funerals. We have people who prepare the many aspects of our liturgies day after day; weekend after weekend. We have people who care for our young people; who prepare “care packages” for our college students; who are involved in Faith Formation and sacramental preparation. We support a lively parish formed from five parishes. We support St. Kateri School. We have the Ladies’ Guild, the Knights of Columbus, many other groups who build friendship; build social justice; build up the Kingdom of God. So many times I have entered one of our churches and seen a prayer group meeting here; a rosary or a novena being prayed there; somebody praying in private; in silence…

It is impossible for me to list all the ways in which we live here at St. Kateri by Jesus’ words: “Be opened.” If I have not named you here I certainly hold you in grateful prayer. I am blessed to be ordained a priest for you; for our universal Church; to have served here for these past two years. Yet my and my brother priests’ ordained priesthood exists to lead; to unite us in our common priestly, prophetic, and royal baptismal vocation. And if I may say this again, I believe we live this vocation very well here at St. Kateri. By ordination I am your priest; in baptism I am forever your brother in Christ.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, you are my great teachers in being “opened” as we are called in baptism. And yet we still may experience obstacles to fully living out our baptismal calling. What are these obstacles, and perhaps some remedies to what keeps us from being fully “opened”? One of the greatest obstacles we face to being opened, to hearing and proclaiming Christ, is fear. Isaiah speaks in our first reading to a people living in fear; people who were living in exile in the prophet Isaiah’s time. Isaiah says, “Be strong, fear not”!

What or whom might we fear? Do we fear speaking the truth; speaking for our faith in Christ, even if (as hopefully is the case) we speak and act with love? Perhaps we fear somebody with power over us. Perhaps we have experienced fear of those who disagree with us; those who are different from us. Perhaps we fear our own weakness; our own sin. Isaiah speaks to our fears the same words he once spoke to the people of Israel in exile in Babylon: “Be strong, fear not”! Here is your God. He comes with vindication. With divine recompense he comes to save you.” Isaiah’s prophecy of the deaf hearing, the lame leaping with joy; the tongue[s] of the mute singing is realized in Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man in our Gospel reading today.

Even more importantly, this prophecy is realized in us. In baptism we are called: “Be opened”! But there is another obstacle, related to fear, to our being “opened” to hearing and proclaiming Christ. This obstacle is undue “partiality”; exclusion of people or groups. St. James speaks in our second reading today of this kind of partiality in our churches; the temptation to give the rich places of honor while poor people, if they are present in our worship spaces at all, are sidelined and excluded: “‘Stand there’ or ‘Sit at my feet.’”

I do not see this kind of exclusion here at St. Kateri. Yet I invite us, in light of St. James’ words, to continue and to strengthen our effort to welcome those who are poor. I invite us not only to go out to our streets; to the House of Mercy; to Bethany House and the Catholic Worker to meet those who are poor and homeless but to take increasingly active steps to welcome the otherwise socially excluded into this worship space. In this way we make St. Kateri Parish not “our” space into which we allow a foreign group of people (“they” or “them”), but God’s space in which “they” become part of “us.” This takes a constant conversion of our hearts to be welcoming; a constant effort to “be opened.”

But if the horrific image this week of a drowned Syrian refugee boy on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea is any indication, our world presents us with many temptations against being “opened.” We hear cries from many countries to close borders; to limit the number of refugees and immigrants accepted; to build walls and prisons to keep the unwanted out. We hear attitudes, spoken or silent, shouted forth in their increasingly harmful effects on our society: Be closed to the right to life from conception! After all, some regard the unborn as mere commodities to be bought and sold. Be closed to those in need of social assistance! Be closed to racial integration! Be closed to the elderly; to the sick! Be closed to those who struggle to practice every teaching of the Church to my satisfaction! Be closed to reconciliation in our relationships; our families! Be closed to peace! Be closed to protecting the dignity of all creation! “Be closed”: This attitude is a direct countersign to the Gospel that calls to us, “Be opened”! And only death can result from being closed.

Our Gospel calls us to life. Christ’s Gospel; our Christian baptism calls us: “Be opened”! Isaiah’s prophecy of the deaf hearing; the mute speaking; the lame leaping; social need being met with justice and kindness; God’s “vindication” and “salvation” present and alive in our world is not something of the distant past. Isaiah’s prophecy was not only realized once, two thousand years ago when Jesus healed a deaf and mute man. This prophecy is being realized in us here and now, to the extent we live our Gospel; our baptismal calling: “Ephphatha! …Be opened!”