Oh good, now we know who the REAL problem is

a sermon on healing for inside a women's prison

We are having a service of healing and anointing in the women’s prison today - and one of the members of our congregation is Deaf, so for this sermon I revised one I preached years ago at the Festival of Homiletics:

…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. - Mark 7

OK, don’t totally go to sleep on me, but I thought it would be fun to start this sermon with something we call Pastor Nadia’s American History Lesson. So here we go:  It is a little known fact that for most of the 18^th and 19^th century, long before it was a vacation spot, Martha’s Vineyard – that island off Massachusetts  - was a bilingual community.  It was a bilingual community because everyone spoke both English and, interestingly enough, not French, nor Spanish…but sign language.  See, deafness can be a recessive hereditary trait and at that point in history, Martha’s Vineyard was a pretty isolated genetic population which meant that any given person on the island could have both hearing and deaf siblings.  As a matter of fact, in the mid 1800’s there were areas of Martha’s Vineyard where 25% of the population was deaf.  So deafness wasn't a problem some people had, deafness was just a trait some people had, like blondness or tallness. And everyone spoke sign language, which means Deafness was also not a disability.

         I mention this because I’m pretty sure everyone didn’t speak sign language in the Decapolis where, in our Gospel text for today, the healing of the deaf man takes place.  Which means this guy’s deafness was not just a trait to them, it was a problem.  So much of a problem that the text tells us that  “THEY” whoever THEY is… THEY brought the Deaf man to Jesus and Begged him to fix the guy, begged him to fix their problem…um, I mean to fix his problem. Just to be clear: the text doesn’t say one word about what the deaf guy wanted. 

So I started wondering: if Jesus showed up in Martha’s Vineyard 150 years ago when deafness was just a trait and not a disease would the collective “THEY” have brought him a deaf man to heal? Because wouldn’t that kind of be like them bringing him a man born blonde and BEGGING Jesus to fix his so-called problem?

And I get that there was not a whole lot of talk about psychology and identity politics and disability rights in Biblical times…and I’m admittedly a hack when it comes to this stuff, but I couldn’t help thinking that THEY were using this man’s deafness to be what a family systems expert would call their “identified problem”.

Hey Jesus – we, the people who are just fine, brought you the “broken” guy so you can fix him.

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.

But that’s not how we operate, see.  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 when Jesus showed up in Decapolis and THEY brought him the deaf man, Jesus didn't play into the whole “we’re fine but here’s the broken guy” thing – instead he took the deaf man away from the THEY. He removes him from that whole system of designated well people and designated sick people. And then, Jesus, in yet another example of having obviously failed his boundaries workshop in seminary, sticks his fingers in this man’s ears and spits and touched his tongue and then looks to heaven and the text says he sighed. He looked to heaven and sighed. And the thing is, Jesus didn’t then rebuke the man or his deafness…he didn’t say I cast out the demon of deafness.  He just removed him from the supposedly well people, touched him, looked to heaven, sighed and said “BE OPENED”.

We so often think healing is about identifying what’s wrong and then having that thing cured, but I wonder if spiritual healing has more to do with being opened than it does with being cured.

There’s a famous Evangelical Christian named Joni Eareckson-Tada.  She became a quadriplegic from a diving accident as a teenager and went on to write a lovely memoir about that story and about her relationship with God.  Having lost the use of her arms she eventually learned to paint by holding a brush in her teeth and she was a real hero of mine growing up.  Which is why a few years ago, when I was watching 24 consecutive hours of bad Christian television for a snarky little book I was writing, I was pretty dismayed when Eareckson-Tada appeared as a guest on the 700 club…because even I can’t be snarky about this woman. It was like Jesus was sticking his fingers in my ears and saying “Be opened to experiencing some Gospel in, of all places, the 700 club”.

Jesus is just seriously the worst sometimes.

Anyhow, so, Joni Eareckson- Tada is simply a lovely human being and what she said in that interview forever changed how I view the issue of healing. Not surprisingly,  a whole lot of well-meaning and enthusiastic “prayer warriors” often offer to pray for Joni to be healed of her quadriplegia, and unlike me - who would likely roll my eyes and say give me a break - she never refuses prayer.  But from her wheelchair Joni Eareckson- Tada says to them, I would love some prayer, but could you instead please pray for healing from the times when I cherish inflated ideas of my own importance … the times when I fudge the truth … the times when I manipulate my husband to get things my own way…sin…ma’am, if you want to pray for me pray that I receive the power of  resurrection to put to death the things in my life that displease God.

         See, the THEY she encounters might keep praying for a cure but Joni Eareckson-Tada is opened. She’s one of the most healed people I’ve ever heard speak.

It’s simply a wonderful statement for healing isn’t it? Be opened.

It’s an image that’s stuck with me for awhile. But if I’m honest, if I pictured Jesus’ Holy and unwashed fingers in my own ears – if  He touched me, sighed, looked to heaven and said Be Opened. I’m pretty sure I’d said “oh. no thanks”.

Because, let’s be honest, it’s usually easier to not change and it’s painful to be open and healing can hurt. Like a frostbite patient … when the blood comes back into the extremities it’s incredibly painful.  It can actually be more comfortable to allow parts of ourselves to die than to feel them have new life.  Because sometimes healing feels more like death and resurrection than it feels like getting a warm cookie and glass of milk.

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 the fact that you may not ever get what you want and that you will actually be ok anyway.

Be opened to the fact that you are not what other people have said you are.

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.  And in this radical reign of God anything that I use to define who I am… and anything I use to define who everyone else is other than the gospel is going to be taken away and I’m going to hate it and It’s going to hurt like blood flowing back into my frozen fingers.

But fear not, good people of God, because whatever it is that you cling to: pleasing people, your insistence that you are totally fine, your victimhood, your resentments, thinking you can take care of that addict in your life and change them…whatever it is you cling to….it can never love you like your Jesus can love you.  A savior who knows damn well what healing you really need and who takes you away from THEM, opens your ears to tell you that you are whole, and you are loved and you are his and that nothing else gets to tell you who you are.  Not your family, not the other women in your unit, and especially not the Colorado Department of Corrections. Amen.

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