BE OPENED!

The Twelfth Sunday after TRINITY

30 August, AD 2009

TEXT:  II Corinthians 3:4f and St. Mark 7:31f

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

“You, yourselves, are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.  And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on ‘tablets of stone’ but on ‘tablets of human hearts’.”  (II Cor. 3:3)

“And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly . . . And they were all astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well.  He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’”  (St. Mark 7:35, 37)

There is a reason why the Christian season of Trinitytide is green.  It represents growth – especially spiritual growth in all of us as followers of Jesus Christ.  We have not received the Word of God for it to lie fallow in our souls, but to germinate, then sprout, and then grow into such a large tree, like that of an oak, that we can come to build our spiritual house among its branches through the gift of faith which even the strongest gales cannot destroy.  It is this growth, this progression of our spiritual relationship with God, that St. Paul reminds the Corinthians of in what has come to be known as his second epistle to that particular community of believers.  But before we examine his message to the Corinthians, we need to be informed through the actions of Our Lord in the healing of the deaf-mute Gentile as recorded in St. Mark’s Gospel.  As St. Mark presents it, this is the second miracle of healing that Our Lord performs on Gentile soil.  A man who was deaf and had a speech impediment was brought unto Jesus and the text says that “they begged Him to lay His hands upon him.”  Jesus acquiesces, but takes the man aside and after touching his tongue and putting His fingers in the man’s ears, Jesus looks up to Heaven, sighs, and says, “Ephphatha”, which means to be opened.  And immediately the man was able to hear and could then speak plainly.  Our Lord’s action immediately brings to mind the words of the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel who speak of the coming Messiah who will usher in the Kingdom of God upon the earth at which time, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.” (Isaiah 35:5) and Ezekiel 24:27, which reads, “And on that day your mouth will be opened . . . and you shall speak and be no longer mute.  So will you be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the Lord.”  This fulfillment of prophecy speaks not only to the man’s physical healing, but also to the spiritual healing of one’s spiritual deafness and inability to speak.  Jesus sighed and looked up to Heaven when He healed the man on account of the stony hardness of men’s hearts and the physical weakness that had arisen because of mankind’s Fall from Grace.  That was the spiritual state of humanity which Jesus addressed, not only to this particular man, but to all who were even minutely able to hear His words to them.  So is it, then, that we turn to St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians.

As we study them, we find that they are almost a commentary on the miracle we have just examined in St. Mark’s Gospel.  St. Paul holds up before the Corinthians the picture of who they are now as Christians of the New Covenant by contrasting who they were as members of the Old Covenant. More precisely, he drives his point home by comparing the old law, written on tablets of stone, to the new law of Grace, written on men’s hearts.  St. Paul reminds the Corinthians that the old law only points to mankind’s sins and showed them that they had to obey God, but that the law, written on tablets of stone, had no means to bring about that obedience to God.  Therefore, the old law could only increase one’s knowledge of the guilt of sin, thereby killing the hope of the attainment of righteousness before God.  In other words, the old law was powerless to bring about the salvation of mankind.  It had glory.  It was given by God, Himself, to Moses, and it revealed the demands of God, but could not save in and of itself.  The New Covenant given through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, remits that guilt of sin and, by the presence of the Holy Ghost in our lives, helps us to work toward righteousness and the attainment of the salvation of our soul through Grace and Faith.  St. Paul reminds the Corinthians of this when he tells them, You, Corinthians, are the personification of the new law of Grace, because it no longer is written on stone tablets, but it is written on and in your hearts.  Our condition before Our Lord’s atoning work on the Cross was that of having stony hearts.  They were not receptive to God’s word or His Spirit.  But the word given to the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah was that God would give us new hearts – ones that would be able to hear, receive, and grow, even, perchance, be opened to God’s Spirit; that He would work within us so that we could become His, forever.  Ezekiel writes in chapter 11:19, “And I (God) will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them.  I will remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”  And again in Ezekiel 36:26-28, “Thus says the Lord God . . . I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful of my rules.  You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people and I will be your God.”  The prophet Jeremiah further describes our new hearts and the ends to which they will lead us.  In chapter 31, verse 33f, we hear, “But this is the new covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:  I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.  And I will be their God and they shall be my people.”  This change, this transformation from hearts of stone to living hearts of flesh in which God’s Spirit dwells, is what became a reality on the day of Pentecost and St. Paul is reminding the Corinthians that that has happened to them, as well!  They now have the ability to be ministers of the New Covenant by the way they live their lives and manifest the Love and Grace of God to one another because of the Holy Ghost who now dwells in their hearts!  But why St. Paul is speaking to them in this manner may not be so obvious.  There were some in the Corinthian Church, who were not being open to the Word of God and who were even slandering St. Paul, himself, and the Gospel of which he was an Apostle.  The words of the prophet Zechariah are appropriate here, “But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear.  They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets.” (Zech. 7:11-12).  The spiritual state of some of the Corinthians was the same as the physical condition of the man that Jesus healed.  It is a shame, really, that while we have had bestowed upon us such a wonderful gift of redemption – even God’s own Holy Spirit who dwells within us, that so many do not let Him melt the stoniness of their hearts by the fire of His Love.  They are content to be closed rather than opened.  That’s really the key to all of this.  Jesus used the word “ephphatha” which means to be opened, but in Greek it means far more than just to be open as when we open a door or when the heavens open during a rainstorm.  The word that Jesus used to heal the deaf-mute means not only to be opened, but it also means to make understanding possible.  To enable one to perceive, to make the mind comprehend.  This is the spiritual healing which the man received and which is available to all of us.  Jesus, by the power of God, through the Holy Ghost, has given us new hearts, yes, but they have to be opened, used, exercised, and given the opportunity to grow so that our souls will grow into the fullness of the Love that God has for us.  No longer are our hearts to be engravened, like cold, hard stones, but emblazoned with the fire of the Holy Ghost to continue to live the message of the Gospel of Salvation in this world; so that we may attain unto it in the next.  This is our mission as individual Christians and as a Church, especially during Trinitytide; to become open to God’s Word and Sacraments and use them for our spiritual nourishment and growth.  Jesus says to each one of us, “Don’t close yourself off, be opened!  Be opened to me and step into the eternal relationship with God that He has prepared for you from the beginning!”  The Grace to accomplish this has been freely given to all of us.  He is the Holy Ghost and He dwells within our hearts.  Strive to keep your living heart open to Him!

And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever; world without end.  Amen.

SOLI DEO GLORIA – JEU+