The Word of God is a lot of Work.

If you have been reading the Lay Leader’s column in the

Trumpet Call very long you know that I have been trying to expand my reading

and understanding of the Gospel teachings by looking at the message from how I

understand Jews study the scripture.  Which

is by holding the scripture up like it’s a gem and then examining all the

different facets of the gem so they can decipher all the different meanings of

the scripture. To be frank, I honestly don’t know if this is how Jewish people

study the scripture, but it’s what I was told, and since I have been doing it

seems like the words have far more meaning than when I simply accepted them at

face value. So, let’s look at a scripture from Mark, chapter 7,

“…Jesus [went] into the region of the Decapolis. There

some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they

begged Jesus to place his hand on him.

After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus

put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue.

He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which

means “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened,

and he began to speak plainly.” 

Simple enough, a guy was deaf, some people brought him to

Jesus, he was healed, and he was no longer deaf and dumb. Good story, good

miracle, but…   If I am looking at this as if it were a gem, a

gem with 58 facets or more, what else is taking place here? What haven’t we

searched for?  What haven’t we

found?            

Terri and I have been watching the mini-series the Gospel

over the last couple of months and there is this sequence where two followers, Barnaby

who is crippled asks that his friend Shula, who is blind, be healed, which

Jesus does, restoring Shula’s sight after 10 years of blindness.  Good story, good miracle, end of story but….  Then Shula asks that Jesus heal Barnaby, who

declines, no don’t worry about me, maybe later, but not today, you’ve already

done so much.   And the TV Jesus says, okay some other time

then, and the two followers walk away rejoicing over the woman’s healing. But then

it gets better.  One of the disciples

starts to ask a question and Jesus holds up a hand and then says, “there it

is”, and then the second follower Barnaby suddenly realizes as he is walking

away with Shula, that he has also been healed. 

He throws his crutch away, lifts Jesus in the air, starts dancing, and now

we have a great story.  

The same week I am thinking about this scripture and the story

from the Chosen, God sticks another facet from this scripture in front of me. The

topic in the Guide to Prayer for the week is “Do you want to Get Well?”   let me quote the article therein from Pastor

Rueben Job,

“Do you want to get well? Is a shocking question. Of

course I want to be well! But then on closer reflection I am forced to ask, Do

I really want to get well? At times I am so attached to my illness (today we

could also say addiction) that I prefer illness to health. Possibly my illness

(addiction) keeps me from facing the real problem or my real self. My illness

could be the crutch I have used to hide or circumvent deeper spiritual problems.”     

Whoa, well that is uncomfortable. That is three different

thoughts on one scripture, one simple, one with a happy ending and then a third

with a question that requires some serious thought.  All this thinking could tire a person out and

then,  I’m looking at the scripture in

Mark in light of what Pastor Job had to say when Pastor Weber throws this

message into the mix. 

The scripture says that “There some people brought to

him a man…”  Some people, what

people? Who are these some people, friends, family, neighbors, and are they

asking Jesus to heal his problem, or their problem? Are they just tired of

taking care of him?  Because “just to

be clear: the text doesn’t say one word about what the deaf guy wanted.”  So, Pastor Weber asks the hard question,

were these people avoiding looking at their own issues by helping someone else.

“Hey Jesus – we, the people who are just fine, brought you the “broken” guy

so you can fix him”.   Pastor Weber

went on to say that “We tend to let the obviously broken people carry all

the brokenness for us. It’s quite the convenient system really.  Like when someone is obviously an active

alcoholic, we are thrilled not to have to look at our own drinking.” 

“This system we have where we all agree on who the real

drunk is and who the real liar is and who the real emotionally needy person is

works really well for us.  I bet right

now you could turn to the person next to you and give them the first names of

who of the designated drunks and liars and needy people in your unit are. And

like any dysfunctional system, it works. You know, until Jesus shows up and

ruins it.”  Because as Pastor Weber

says, “I can’t help feeling like it would have been more realistic if all of

the THEYs who brought the deaf man to Jesus would have also sought healing for

themselves.”

Good question. And then Weber goes a step further to support

her idea. She notes that Jesus then removed the deaf man from the supposedly

well people, touched him, looked to heaven, sighed, and said, “BE OPENED.”  No casting out demons or sickness, no attempt

to identify what’s wrong and curing it, Jesus just says be opened.  So, she asks if perhaps spiritual healing has

more to do with being opened than it does with being cured. “But Jesus says

to us, be opened. Be opened to knowing that your own brokenness doesn’t need to

be hidden behind someone else’s. Be opened to the idea that you are stronger

than you think. Be opened to the idea that you aren’t as strong as you think” “Be

opened to this whole Gospel of Jesus Christ thing actually, actually, actually

being real. And actually, being FOR YOU. Because maybe that’s what healing

really is. Because the radical reign of God that Jesus ushers in destroys the

systems of designated sick people and designated well people so that all that

is left is a single category of people – children of God.”    

Four facets of one verse, four gospel messages to be

considered. All obviously having the possibility of merit and truth, all worthy

of consideration, all calling on us to be better than we have been. And that is

only four out of 58 (or more) possible facets. Maybe there is a reason the Jews

are the chosen people.

Brad