The healing of the deaf and mute person becomes a metaphor for a deeper and more difficult healing, the changing (if not the character, then at least the attitudes) of those touched by the Healer. And all have been touched. This sermon suggests that being deaf (being closed) happens in more than one way.

Biblical and contemporary examples flavor the meaning of the biblical "Be opened," and the contemporary "Be open."

The fluidity of response to the crucified and Risen Christ breaks barriers, which, if unbreached, would be a denial, or at least a blunting, of what God intends through us, no less than through the Christ. Being deaf, in the sermon’s way, is really to miss something - if not almost everything - in life.

Is there a word or command that represents the heart of the gospel? One that capsulizes the message? For many, "Love your neighbor as yourself" is such a word. For others, "Your sin is forgiven" represents the heart of Jesus’ message. This morning I want to suggest to you that the command that is at the center of the gospel is embodied in the words that Jesus spoke to the man who was deaf and had a speech impediment: "Be opened." In those two words lies the center of what the gospel brings.

The incident unfolds in three stages.

Stage one: Mark sets the background in just a few words: "They brought to Jesus a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech." We have become more sensitive to how isolating handicaps are. If they are so today, they were even more isolating in Jesus’ day. No special consideration was given to the handicapped. They were limited to the most basic and often menial work, if work was available at all. Often the only means of livelihood open to them was begging. Theirs was a life of poverty. The handicap had social and economic implications as well as personal and physical ones.

Stage two: Jesus draws the man aside, performs an act that is symbolic and effective and speaks the words, "Be Opened" - Ephatha! - just as though he were addressing not the man but the ear and tongue themselves.

Stage three: The result of the act is the proof of its effectiveness: "His ears were opened, his tongue was released and he spoke plainly." His isolation was broken; he was no longer "handicapped;" he was now able to participate fully in that community. And it was as though the tongues of all had been released, for "the more he charged them to tell no one, the more zealously they proclaimed it." The miracle had spread.

There was much more to being opened than the healing of one man (important as that was). Writers of the New Testament applied the command not only to ears but also to eyes and minds and hearts. I want to cite a few examples so that you can see what a primary experience that was.

As Jesus walked unrecognized with his two companions on the road to Emmaus after the Crucifixion, there was an "opening up" experience. Jesus explained or "opened up" to two men the meaning of the scriptures, how the Son of Man had to suffer and die. Up to this time they did not know who it was who had been talking with them. As they sat at the table, the eyes of these two men were "opened up" so that they recognized the one with whom they had been walking. Through that encounter their minds were opened to understand the scriptures.

Those writers of the New Testament also saw another example of being opened in the experience of being able to listen and receive what another had to say and give. Lydia was a woman who lived in a town in Greece. She worshiped God but was not Christian. When Paul came to town, "the Lord opened her mind to pay attention to what Paul was saying." As a consequence, she was baptized.

But being opened means not only open to receive but also open to give. In a fit of frustration, Paul had exclaimed to the Corinthians, "Our heart is wide open to you ... You are not restricted by us but you are restricted in your own affections. In return, I speak as to children, open your hearts to us."

That experience of being opened was as good a metaphor as any to describe the encounter with Christ and the result that it had for the one who responded to it. The early Christians saw that. It referred not only to ears and eyes, but also to understanding, to seeing unrecognized reality, to establishing new relationships, to being available to others as well as receiving from others. One heard, saw, related, perceived, gave - all in a new way. "Being opened" resulted in a boldness and confidence in speaking of Jesus and following him.

In the internship program at Trinity Seminary we have a student assigned to a Lutheran Church named Hephatha. It is an English form of that Aramaic word for "Be Opened." The student who was assigned there did not miss the importance of that word in the Christian experience. He spoke of how he had been opened up through the love and commitment of that congregation. He had gone there a shy, withdrawn person, not given to showing much emotion and not very available. He did not return to us a social gadabout, but there is a greater openness in him both in giving and receiving. And he does not fail to associate that change with the ancient liberating command of Jesus Christ: "Ephatha, Be Opened." That is the Christian experience of being freed, of feeling the blocks, fears, cautions melt away; of being released to act fully in fellowship as giver and receiver. That ought to be the experience in the Christian fellowship: Ephathah!

That word speaks to each one of us at the point where there are blockages of fear, of blindness, of ignorance and paralyzing caution, in whatever areas where we are not open, available, giving, and receiving. If your life is like mine, they are many, depriving us of the joy of freely participating in the life around us, handicapping us. In Christ that becomes, rather than a dead-end beyond which we cannot move, an opportunity for his freeing and healing grace. It invites us to take risks and try new behavior that moves us beyond where we have been, to enjoy a fuller life that is not isolated, burdened, or handicapped. It invites those who are bold and self-confident to become the strength of the hesitant and uncertain.

One cannot live a closed, unavailable, unresponsive life and be living a Christian life. That is not to speak with judgment and call a person to change; it is to point to a reality of bondage from which one must be freed. Paul had an additional way of speaking about it; he spoke of life in the Spirit. In two places he deals with the gifts associated with being spirit-filled. One is Romans 12:1

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: [All of us have gifts but what is the fear, caution, closedness that gets in the way of exercising them?] if prophesy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

As important to the Christian life as is a finely tuned moral sense or even a broad sense of commitment, even more important is the ability to invest yourself, to expend yourself, to give yourself away. One cannot do that and be closed. Christian living calls for liberality, zeal, and cheerfulness in exercising the gift that God has given us. Christ cannot be served guardedly or with caution. Thus the word which we need Christ to speak to us is the word, "Be opened" - "Be released" from all that holds you back from giving what you have to give; or holds you back from receiving all you need to sustain you. "Be Opened" to hear a new word - absorb a new understanding. "Be released" from all that stunts and deprives.

Beyond your personal life I would like to challenge you to be open to the existing things that are happening in the church today. In Louisville, Kentucky, LCA held its national convention. It approved by overwhelming majority union with the America Lutheran Church and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches. By January of 1988 there shall be within the United States a Lutheran church of five and a half million people. The fulfillment that it will represent is breathtaking. There is excitement in that for those open to it.

One of the excitements of being part of the Christian Lutheran fellowship is that our lives are always being lifted up into that which is greater and larger than any one of us is. The effect of our own individual living is magnified by being part of the church; it gives us an arena in which our individual contribution is added to that of others and the result of that is far greater than any one of us alone. It is the mystery of the fellowship. It is the result of being opened to each other and to the future. To every ear and every mind I would say "Be opened" and to every tongue "Be released to proclaim it" and to every life "Be opened to participate in it."

Notes from the Homiletician

This sermon was preached in a congregational setting. It emerges clearly out of the text. It deals with the handicapping conditions which keep up from fully participating in life. Those conditions may be physical, marital, relational, or perceptual. The Markan account forms the basis for this unfolding. Openness to realities of a corporate and personal nature is invited as a conclusion. By developing fully the text, with its theological and social dimensions, it is possible to form linkages with the theological and social dimensions of the contemporary scene.

- Russell Seabright