"Miracles in Motion": A Reflection on the Gospel for September 9th, 2018: Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

​Mark 7.31-37 

Returning from the region of Tyre, Jesus went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.

They brought to him a man who was deaf and who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

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I grew up in Toronto. Riding a Toronto subway has a distinct unspoken protocol. You are alone in a crowd. You are packed in practically cheek to cheek, but no one is really there. We’re all pretending, very proficiently, not to see or hear each other. And we’re certainly not talking to each other. (I’m pretty sure this isn’t a big city subway thing, it’s a Toronto subway thing. I’ve been travelling along in a Boston subway, and it’s practically a moving party of people who just met each other.)

So much of what happens in the Gospel according to Saint Mark is in transit — on the way to somewhere else. As Jesus was going somewhere, he came alongside someone, or someone came alongside him.

This is where real life seems to happen — the stuff that lasts — that counts forever. As we go, and alongside. Between one place and another, and beside somebody, while Somebody is alongside us both. It’s right in the name Jesus gives to the Holy Spirit: παράκλητος, or 'Paraclete'. παρά meaning: right alongside, not distant, but cheek to jowl. κλητος meaning: calling out, to comfort or admonish or encourage or entreat or console.

There is an intimacy in this meeting between Jesus and the man; in the privacy, in the kind of touch, in the care, and in His instructions to not make a public case of this. Jesus doesn’t just reach out to the masses, like the Statue of Liberty, He reaches out and into one person. And changes everything for that person; reconnects him to the masses. This guy pulled aside to be with Jesus — having lived a life unable, literally, to hear anyone else. Unable to speak to anyone. Alone in a crowd his whole life. And he steps away from being in Jesus’ presence, able to hear and be heard. No longer alone. From now on, as he goes, he can come alongside anyone and make a connection. Because he has been with Jesus.

Something changes in me when I pull aside with Jesus and meet with Him, when I trust His presence and His touch. I am opened. Opened to the people around me and the chances given me to hear and speak. I can listen to the frustration my daughter has with me, and really hear the hurt behind it. And I can speak the truth to her that’s buried in me, giving voice to love and hurt of my own. This personal miracle happens, not in a planned meeting to discuss this topic, but in a moment between events in life. And the connection between us — with our God alongside us — means more than the topic or the events on either side of this moment. Thanks be to God. ​

​Noreen Smith

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"Something changes in me when I pull aside with Jesus and meet with Him, when I trust His presence and His touch. I am opened." - Noreen Smith (Ora Reflections)

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