“And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”
The Gospel for today comes at the very end of Mark Chapter 7. Chapter 7 of Mark and Chapter 15 of Matthew have many parallels and, in fact, only a few months back, on Lent II we had a portion of Matthew 15 given for that Sunday’s Gospel. That was the occasion when a Greek woman came to Jesus asking that he free her daughter from demon possession. You probably recall that his first response to her was less than encouraging: “it isn’t right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” But she was not dissuaded and her faith in Christ prevailed and her daughter was set free. The same event is recorded in Mark 7.
Let’s begin this morning by placing today’s Gospel in context. The healing of the man who was both deaf and had a disabling speech impediment is the last account given in Chapter 7. That chapter opens with the arrival, from Jerusalem, of an official delegation of Pharisees and Scribes who have come to inspect Jesus and his movement. After joining up with local Pharisees they confront Jesus with the fact that his disciples were not performing the proper ablutions for purification prior to eating. Good Jews, at least good Pharisees, were expected to wash with a handful of water before and after eating a meal. Now remember that Jesus has already turned the water into wine at the wedding feast making this ritual purification impossible at that event. Afterward his disciples took it up as a mark of discipleship not to perform the Pharisaical ritual. The Pharisees have come to pick a fight and they were about to get one. They complained to Jesus that his disciples were not being holy. Jesus replied that they, the Pharisees, knew nothing about true holiness. “You are all hypocrites and your so-called worship is worthless.”
One gets the impression from the text that he literally turned and walked away from them. He appears to be finished with the Pharisees. He called his followers together to teach them what the argument was all about. At this point things were about to change in a sweeping and deep-seated way that no one but Jesus could have imagined.
“There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him.”
This, as Mark saw, was sea change, a reversal that no Jew had ever imagined. Let me explain. Some scholars say that the washing issue is not an argument over the Law of Moses, but rather it is an argument over the “traditions” of the Pharisees that were added to the Law of Moses. They want to say that Jesus was not at all radical in his approach to the Law. Others, also want to deradicalize Jesus, say that the issue was that the Pharisees were applying the specific requirements of priests to the Jewish laity, which is probably true. It was part of the priest’s preparation in making a blood sacrifice to perform these washings. These folk are probably right about what the Pharisees intended. In a sense the Pharisees believed in a “priesthood of all believers” and from their point-of-view all faithful Jews were called to priestly purity. There are other explanations to what Jesus said and did on this occasion, but, they seems to me, attempts to pasteurize, to deradicalize what he finally did which was about to knock the Jewish world off the axis. Even if the “traditions” that he refers to are commentaries on the Law and not the Law itself, once he explained to his people what was at the bottom of the issue, all ambiguity vanishes:
“There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him.”
OK. But what is so radical about that? Mark declares the upshot of Jesus’ pronouncement in verse 19:
“Thus he declared all foods clean.”
This is what I want you to understand: Jesus did not claim that he was clearing up Israel’s muddled thinking on the issue of food and the Law of Moses. It was not that all this time they had misunderstood Moses. Nor was he saying that this was the inner meaning of the Law of Moses. No. This is what Jesus did: at that moment, in that place Jesus actually changed the Law by his apocalyptic pronouncement:
“There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him (Now, all foods are clean).”
Why was this so radical? The food laws in Leviticus were central to the whole concept of purity and holiness for Jewish culture and Jewish identity. Along with circumcision and keeping the Sabbath the dietary laws were a public mark of Jewish holiness. They were a peculiar people set apart for God, made holy and the dietary laws were an outward and visible sign of their holiness. The Law also made it impossible for Jews to share in meals prepared by non-Jews. It was a wall, a partition that divided the Jews from the rest of the world. This was the moment when Jesus himself eliminated that wall that stood between the Jews and the Gentiles:
“Thus he declared all foods clean.”
It should come as no surprise then that right after that Jesus leaves for the region of Tyre and Sidon, gentile cities. Jesus takes his ministry into pagan territory. When he arrived and entered the home of a resident a gentile mother approached him begging for the healing of her child. What is the Jewish Messiah doing in a pagan city? What is the Jewish Messiah doing entering the unclean dwelling of a gentile? He freed the gentile woman’s child from the demon and then he moved on; and yet he circles back around to the Decapolis, another non-Jewish setting. So here we have the context of the Gospel for today:
“And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.”
According to the text, Jesus healed the man and he could hear and for the first time in his life he could speak clearly.
“And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”
The people’s response to this healing was overwhelming. They were “astonished beyond measure,” according to the text. The miracle absolutely overawed those who were there and they responded almost like a chorus ending a story:
“He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”
Why were the people amazed beyond measure at this miracle? Mark was also overwhelmed and his allusion to Isaiah 35 is the clue to understanding their response:
“Behold, your God will come with vengeance… He will come and save you. The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped… and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy!”
And with that connection, Mark declares that this is the miracle that, according to the Old Testament, only God is able to perform. We have three big events in Mark 7 that I want you to take note of: First of all, Jesus declared a fundamental portion of the Law of Moses to be null and void when he declared that all food was clean. Secondly, he enlarged the horizon of the Messiah’s ministry to include all those non-Jews who had been excluded on the basis of the dietary laws. And third, he wraps it all up by performing a miracle that identifies him not only as the Messiah, but it also identifies him as God almighty.
I can tell you what the Messiah was doing; he was doing exactly what the Prophet Isaiah said he would do – he was busy saving his people. According to the Book of Genesis, God creates man in his own image and likeness. Man’s glory had been forfeited through the fall, he was wounded and as a result all manners of evil came upon us.
In the Prologue of John, it is written:
“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
In Genesis we have the narrative of man made in the image of God while in John we have God made in the image of man. In both cases, but especially in the Incarnation, we have the glory of God dwelling in flesh. And with the Incarnation we see not only the uncreated glory of the only begotten Son, but we also see the created glory of his creature man up lifted as never before. And I submit to you that the salvation and the uplifting of man and the bestowal of this glory was the purpose of the Incarnation. In the Gospel for today we have an apostolic memory of Jesus the Messiah breaking down boundaries, eliminating portions of the Law of Moses and performing miracles that only God himself could perform.
He who was once created in the image and likeness of God is bent and crooked, deaf, dumb and blind. What kind of image of God do we have in a person who is deaf and unable to speak? Before creation the Spirit of God moved over the face of the deep and according to the Bible God said:
“ ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
God spoke again and again and again and out of nothing the ordered cosmos came into being. Why? Because God spoke, that’s why. If God had held his tongue there would be nothing. But God speaks and flowers bloom, fire flames, the blind see and even dead Lazarus walks out of his darkened tomb. God spoke and the Word of the Father was made flesh, man’s glory was restored beyond measure. Man was created to bear the image and likeness of God, but now God has born up under the image and likeness of man. By becoming man God has now made it possible for man to truly bear the image and likeness of God. In the Gospel for today the narrative is that God’s love for his creature man is not circumscribed by the antique Jewish horizon. Jesus took the unclean man, marred by the fall and healed him. God himself loosen his stammering tongue, that once untied, would join all the ransomed of the Lord singing with everlasting joy upon their head.