Preached at Holy Cross, Seend; St Peter’s, Poulshot; and Christ Church, Bulkington
James 2. 1-17; Mark 7. 24-37
“…he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’”
A few weeks ago, an acquaintance messaged me out of the blue to tell me he was thinking about his relationship with God, and asked my advice on the best way to start reading the Bible. I gave him my usual advice: start with Mark’s Gospel – as it happens, the source of most of our Sunday Gospel readings in 2024 – then Genesis, then Revelation, then John’s Gospel, then Acts… and if you’re still keen at that point, it’s time to subscribe to some Bible Reading Fellowship notes.
This acquaintance is a journalist, and it was obvious from some messages he sent me as he started his journey through Mark that he was comfortable with the rich multi-layered symbolism of the story, and indeed enjoying it greatly.
Then, a few days ago, he asked if I knew any disabled biblical scholars or theologians who were worth reading. As it happens, my acquaintance is disabled, and one consequence of his disability is a very severe speech impediment.
So, knowing that he had just read the section of Mark that I am preaching on this morning, I asked for his thoughts on a story of a deaf man with a speech impediment being healed when Jesus says: “Be opened.”
My friend, alert to the multiple layers of symbolism in the text, said this struck him as relating to being “open to and opened by the love of God”. As for healing, his disability is, to him, simply part of who he is—it must therefore also, he said, be part of his Christian Faith. “I don’t think Jesus would want me not to be disabled or spend every day hoping for a cure”, he wrote to me.
He has faith that God has made him as he is. Therefore, he needs no healing. Not from his disability, anyway—although, like all of us, there is doubtless much from which he does need to be healed.