Be Opened to hear and proclaim the Word
Twenty-Third Sunday - Year B
Isaiah 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37
Isaiah's mission was to make people's ears dull (Is. 6:10) and Ezekiel was made dumb by God so he would not reprove the people for their offenses (Ezek. 3:26). Deafness and speech impediment symbolize the inability to hear and proclaim the Word of God. It is God’s punishment for our lack of conversion. When Isaiah asked how long his mission should last, God replies: "until the cities are ruined" (Is. 6:11 ). The dumbness of Ezekiel lasted about seven years, until the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. But, the story does not end there.
Isaiah, who before in the name of God stopped the people’s ears from hearing, now announces the coming of God to save us (Is.35:4). This prophecy has been fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. He came to open our ears to listen to His word and release our tongue so that we may "praise the Lord" (Ps. 146:1). We witness the beginning of a new creation. The One who "has done all things well" (Mark 7:37) is the same through whom the Father created the world and declared it to be “very good” (Gen. 1:31).
“Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis“ (Mark 7:31). Jesus was there once (Mark 5:1) and freed a man from the power of the "Legion". That healed man was commanded to proclaim the Good News among his relatives and friends (Mark 5:19). Obedient to that command, he announced in the Decapolis “how much Jesus had done for him" (Mark 5:20). One can wonder whether he was among those who brought the deaf man to Jesus.
“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment" (Mark 7:33). The healing has a liturgical aspect. To receive the sacrament of baptism, we must first be able to hear the preaching of the Gospel and then confess our faith in Jesus with our lips. If we are spiritually deaf, we will also remain spiritually mute. The old liturgical rite of the Ephphatha heals us from this spiritual illness. A presbyter acting “in persona Christi” touches the ears and the closed lips of the mouth of candidates for baptism saying "ephphata". Now they are ready to hear the Gospel and emboldened to proclaim it.
The test that our ears were opened comes in the second reading. “Show no partiality as you adhere to the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ" (James 2:1). Unfortunately, there is that human tendency to be partial to the rich. “Hear, brothers and sisters” (James 2:5). Saint James opens our ears to a beautiful message that God chose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith. Moreover, they are heirs to the kingdom that God "promised to those who love him" (James 2:5). In a world that shows partiality to the rich, the Church is called to proclaim that human dignity does not depend on possessions and that in baptism we are all one family - God’s children and brothers and sisters in Christ.