Reading 1 IS 35:4-7A
Thus says the LORD:
Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the steppe.
The burning sands will become pools,
and the thirsty ground, springs of water.
Responsorial Psalm PS 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10
(1b) Praise the Lord, my soul!
The God of Jacob keeps faith forever,
secures justice for the oppressed,
gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets captives free.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
The LORD gives sight to the blind;
the LORD raises up those who were bowed down.
The LORD loves the just;
the LORD protects strangers.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
The fatherless and the widow the LORD sustains,
but the way of the wicked he thwarts.
The LORD shall reign forever;
your God, O Zion, through all generations.
Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
Reading 2 JAS 2:1-5
My brothers and sisters show no partiality
as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
For if a man with gold rings and fine clothes
comes into your assembly,
and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in,
and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes
and say, “Sit here, please, ”
while you say to the poor one, “Stand there, ” or “Sit at my feet, ”
have you not made distinctions among yourselves
and become judges with evil designs?
Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.
Did not God choose those who are poor in the world
to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom
that he promised to those who love him?
Alleluia CF. MT 4:23
- Alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the kingdom
and cured every disease among the people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MK 7:31-37
Again Jesus left the district of Tyre
and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,
into the district of the Decapolis.
And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment
and begged him to lay his hand on him.
He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!”— that is, “Be opened!” —
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly.
He ordered them not to tell anyone.
But the more he ordered them not to,
the more they proclaimed it.
They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well.
He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
There are some things we do in life, we enjoy doing them immediately but their effects on us eventually are usually disastrous.
Today, I want to mention five of such. These five misconducts are ways we often attract curse on ourselves.
- Theft
- To betray/hurt someone who trusts us so much.
- To maltreat or disrespect one’s parents.
- To treat God’s ministers with scorn or contempt.
- To oppress, disregard or be unjust to the vulnerable (children, aged, poor, needy, physically challenged persons, helpless widow, defenceless orphan etc).
I want to make this fifth point my gateway to today’s reflection.
Dear friends, there is a tendency in many of us that God is calling us today to correct. The tendency to treat some persons with honour and to treat others with scorn according to their states and conditions in life.
Often times, we are tempted to treat with disrespect those we call poor, those who can’t dare us, those we are stronger than, those we think has nothing to offer us, those we think nature has humiliated, those we think are sub-humans because of some noticeable defects, those we call ugly, those who are at the lower margins of social status, those we think we are better than.
In the other way, we treat with honour, respect and sometimes we begin to worship people whom we call wealthy, people who are powerful, connected, those we believe have what we lack, those to whom we look up to for assistance, those we think are better than us, those who can displace us, those we call pretty etc.
The Lord is calling us today to a change of attitude.
Three points we must keep in mind:
- Those we think are useless and helpless are especially loved by God. In Jesus’ manifesto, you see that there is a preferential option for them (Luke 4:18-19).
- Our attitude to them can either gain us blessings or curse. They are very sure means of obtaining blessings from God (Prov 19:17).
- Only God knows tomorrow. Those we term unfortunate today may become our benefactors tomorrow, those we think are blessed today may become miserable tomorrow (remember Luke 16:19-31- Lazarus and the rich man).
With these in mind, we can now go through the readings.
The First Reading: Isaiah 35:4-7
The first reading of today is a prophecy of hope for the people of God in exile. They were poor, miserable, banished and humiliated in the land of Babylon but then the Lord through the Prophet Isaiah showed that He cares for them, they are His people whom He loves and He is coming soon to liberate and restore them.
Though poor and miserable, they are loved by God.
The Psalm – Psalm 146
The Psalmist of today also proclaims God’s love for the oppressed, hungry, prisoners, the blind, the stranger, the widow and orphan.
Second Reading – James 2:1-5
The second reading of today tells us to avoid all forms of discrimination between classes of people. St James sternly warned against treating the rich with respect and the poor with disdain. He ended by telling us that the poor have a special place in the heart of God.
Gospel: Mark 7:31-37
In today’s Gospel, we have an encounter between Jesus and a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment.
The kind of men most of us will not want to have anything to do with.
Before I proceed further, let us pause and do two things;
A. Let us imagine how it is to be deaf and dumb. Imagine that you see or think of something and you are unable to express it in words or someone says something and people are laughing and you are just there looking because you can’t hear. It is like the person is cut off from life, he can only see but can’t say or hear. It’s terrible.
B. Let us thank God for the gift of our senses and their functioning, let us pray that the Lord will preserve our senses and we pray for those whose senses are malfunctional, may they experience the loving-kindness of God.
Back to the discussion, look at the attention that Jesus gave to this man. He took him aside. To give him special attention and to teach us from his example to do good without seeking glory and people’s applause.
Put his fingers into his ears as if to remove that which has blocked his ears and touched his tongue with spittle to loose that which has tied his tongue.
He looked up to heaven and sighed… Looking up to heaven to give the Father praise for what He is about to do.
By sighing, he expressed his pity for the miseries of human life and his sympathy for the afflicted in their afflictions.
He said to him “Ephphatha,” that is “be opened.’ Jesus spoke with authority and power went with his words. These are the same words used at baptism to impress on us that internal impediments of the mind are removed by the spirit of Christ just as those bodily impediments by the power of his word.
I believe many of us here need this kind of miracle as well. We need God to open our minds and hearts as he did to Lydia (Act 16:14) so that we may understand, accept and treasure his words.
We need God to open our ears so that we can hear the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
We need God to touch and open our mouth and cure us of all bad words, lies, curse and immodest talks so that we may begin to use our tongues to proclaim his goodness and speak what glorifies him.
Let us leave the rest of the story so that we don’t deviate so much. Our main focus here is on the special love and attention shown to the miserable man.
Dear friends, let us thank God for his words and make up our minds today to begin to love, to care for, to be kind to and treat with respect all those whom society relegates to the margin.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Okami on Sunday, September 9, 2018.