Day: September 7, 2025

“He hath done all things well;
he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak”

Mark does not tell us who “they” were that made this comment about the healing of the one that was deaf and dumb. Yet we can reasonably assume that they are those who lived in the region of Decapolis, an area in eastern Palestine circumscribed by ten (or more) cities established in league with one another under Roman rule following Pompey’s conquest in 63 BC, and distinguished by a rich and vibrant Hellenistic culture. This Gospel story follows immediately upon Mark’s account of Christ’s healing of the Syrophoenician’s daughter who was “possessed by an unclean spirit.” These stories belong to the convergence of Hellenistic culture, Roman rule, and Hebrew religion out of which Christianity emerges; in short, to the abundance of God’s mercy which is “more than we either desire or deserve,” as the Collect puts it.

These stories belong to the theological concept of making known what is universal in and through the particularities of culture and human experience. This is not about reducing theology to the historical and cultural, a common tendency, but its opposite, the gathering together into the unity of God of all that belongs to the truth of our common humanity. Simply put, we are more though not less than the historical, cultural, social, and ethnic aspects of our embodied being. These stories signal the restoration of our humanity; the healing of mind, hearing, and speech are all part of the healing and perfection of our humanity.

The Gospel illustrates Paul’s great insight that “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” That awakening to spiritual life is an essential feature of Christ’s ministry of teaching and healing. It happens in and through his encounters with our wounded and broken humanity. As such it is not about a flight from the particularities of human experience into some vague abstraction of indeterminacy but the redemption of our humanity by its being gathered into its truth and perfection as found in God. This theological point counters all forms of relativism and reductionism and highlights the overarching theme of the sanctification of human life through its being transformed by God’s grace that is made known or opened out to us in Christ.

Paul alludes to the story of Moses whose face shone from his talking with God in the giving of the Law. This was so frightening for the people of Israel that he had to veil his face from them. Paul is suggesting the greater transformation from fear to joy and wonder for us in the encounter with Christ. Quod Moses velat, Christus revelat; What was veiled in Moses, is unveiled or revealed in Christ. My point is that this does not negate the particularities of cultures and experience but redeems them. They are all gathered into the mystery of God in the unity of the spirit. Something happens in and through the divine engagement with our humanity.

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