by CCW | 3 September 2017 15:00
It is an Aramaic word translated by Mark into Greek and by extension for us into English, all the while keeping before our hearts and minds the original word, Ephphatha. Aramaic was probably the language which Jesus himself spoke. The Christian Scriptures as a result retain a handful of Aramaicisms.
The story in which it occurs is unique to Mark, though the Greek word translated into English as “Be opened” is the same word used by the other Evangelists, especially by Luke in the Resurrection accounts about how Jesus opened the minds and opened the understanding of the Scriptures to the disciples. And so too something is being opened to us.
Guarda è escolta. Look and listen, Beatrice tells the pilgrim Dante in the poet’s great poem, the Purgatorio of the Divine Comedy. Look and listen to what? The pageant of Revelation in a sacramental form. It is not too much to say, perhaps, that Mark’s story here is the scriptural fons et origo of such imagery. For here is a story which speaks directly to the meaning of the Scriptures and in a way that is inescapably sacramental. In other words, we are being reminded of an essential feature of our own Catholic and Reformed Christian tradition, namely, the interplay between Word and Sacrament, the Word audible and the Word visible.
There is a kind of wonder in encountering this story in the midst of the Trinity season. It is one of the few Gospels from St. Mark in the classical eucharistic lectionary during the Trinity season; there are only three Gospel passages from Mark out of twenty-four or twenty-six Sundays. It speaks, I think, wonderfully and directly to our current confusions and uncertainties which are really about a kind of closing of our hearts and minds. “Ears have they and hear not; eyes have they and yet they see not.” Here we are being opened. Opened to what? What is it that we do not hear and see? What is it to which we are closed in our hearts and minds? To the presence and truth of God in our lives. We are closed to the very principle of all life, God. Here we have a powerful story about what God seeks and wants for us: our being opened to his transforming grace in our lives.
Here is a story, too, which reminds us of both the power and the limitations of language. You might say that the power and the truth of language actually is found in our recognition of its limits. Such is the meaning and nature of translation. Translation opens us out to the Word behind the words, if you will. It is an important feature of Judaism and Christianity that there can be and must be translation. And yet that doesn’t excuse us from appreciating and even learning other languages, even ancient languages. It means, however, that truth is not the sole property of any one language.
This helps us to recall that the languages of the cultures and peoples of the world are all part of the pageant of creation and redemption. The story of Babel properly speaking is about the attempt to impose one language, one culture upon the God-given differences between cultures and peoples and languages. In other words, we have in the story of the Tower of Babel, the attempt by some – a ruling elite – who are in power to control the use of language and by extension to exercise a kind of thought-control; in short, a form of tyranny. The same tendencies play themselves out in our confused and conflicted world. We are closed to the wisdom which this Gospel story presents to us; namely, the power of language to open us out to the truth and presence of God with us that in turn allows us to engage properly and respectfully with others. It challenges us about how and what we say. That can only happen when we are opened to truth, the truth which cannot be the captive of a particular political or social agenda but is always more and greater than ourselves and our cultures.
Here is the deep point. Through the particularities of cultures and languages we are opened out to the deeper truth of God for our common humanity. This is shown to us in a most powerful and poignant way in this story. It is not simply about what happened to the “one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech” – don’t we all, really? It speaks to our being deaf to God and his word in our lives and confused in our speech about the truth and wonder of God.
It happens, well, sacramentally, by which I mean that Jesus uses the things of the world to open us out to the things of God. It is wonderfully graphic, even medical though without the contemporary tendency to medicalize every aspect of the human experience which is often at the expense of a moral discourse. In the manner of a physical examination – our bodies in all of their parts matter – Jesus “put his fingers into his ears, and he spit” – okay we might be a bit uncomfortable about that! He “touched his tongue”, all very direct and intimate. But then, and this is a wonderful moment, “looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha”. There is a total and complete engagement of Jesus with our humanity and for what end?
A healing, to be sure, but that healing reveals what God seeks for our humanity – our ears being opened, our tongues being loosed that we might speak plain. Not just to hear anything or to say whatever, but to hear the Word of God’s truth and to speak that word in our lives, it seems to me. “He hath done all things well”, the multitude proclaim. It is a witness to the truth of God in Jesus Christ with and in whom all is more than good for all is well and we are made whole.
We are opened to the truth and presence of God in our lives. The Word proclaimed and the Sacraments celebrated help us to live with a greater awareness of that truth and presence. It is the counter to all our distresses, to all our fears and anxieties. Look and listen, but above all, Ephphatha, Be opened!
Fr. David Curry
Trinity 12, 2017
Christ Church
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2017/09/03/sermon-for-the-twelfth-sunday-after-trinity-4/
Copyright ©2026 Christ Church unless otherwise noted.