MORE POWER! MORE GLORY!! MORE SPIRIT!!!
SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 7:31-37
Although many scholars continue to follow Jesus’ journey in Mark
on a map, some believe that Mark’s geography is more spiritual than it is real.
I agree that Mark is more concerned with proclaiming the Good News than he is
about the exact geographic movements of Jesus. I have already pointed out the
uneven number of crossings of the Sea of Galilee Jesus and the disciples
undertake. (See Rome Improvement, June 27, 2021.) More recently, we have
discovered Jesus taking a detour on his way to Bethsaida. (See Rome
Improvement, July 25, 2021.)
When Mark tells the story of Jesus, he not only speaks of Jesus’ lifetime; Mark also reveals the spread of the Good News along the Mediterranean coast during his own lifetime. It is important to remember that he is not trying to get us “to the cross”. Mark is always leading us to encounter Christ where he has promised to be—in Galilee (and beyond).
If Mark’s Gospel is only speaking of Jesus in a way that leads him to the cross and his resurrection, then his account of those who embraced the resurrection creates a narrative problem: why does Jesus take this detour. But, if this is an account that proclaims the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, then, although the disciples are confused and not able to embrace the resurrected Jesus, Mark gets to show us how this Good News begins its spread throughout the world.
Tyre, one of the first cities to embrace Christianity, was particularly ready to accept the resurrection as a fact. In Greek mythology, the king’s daughter, Europa, was kidnapped. Her brothers went out into the world searching for her. They were well intentioned, but not overly diligent. Each of them eventually gave up the search, settling in another land, which was then named after them. One of her brothers, Phoenix, was consumed by fire and rose from the ashes. The land named for him was—wait for it—Phoenicia.
Melqart, identified with Hercules in Greek mythology, was the Phoenician protectorate god of Tyre. Each year, Carthaginians and Tyrians would come together to celebrate the resurrection of Melqart in a festival referred to as ‘the egersis’. An effigy of him, was placed on a raft, and ritually burnt as it was sent out into the Mediterranean. Revived by the smoke, Melqart was reborn and returned to live in his temple in Tyre for another year.
So, when the Tyrians heard of Jesus, with the cross and his resurrection, they were ready to embrace Christianity. This is said to have happened shortly after Stephen was stoned. Paul, or another Christian who has remained nameless throughout the ages, brought the news of Jesus’ resurrection. I believe that Mark reports this spread of early Christianity through this account of the journey Jesus takes into the world beyond Galilee. As part of the journey, we meet the deaf man this week.
READING THE BLUEPRINT
And again, having gone out from the territories of Tyre, [Jesus]
went through Sidon into the sea of Galilee up the middle of the Decapolis. And
they carry to him deaf [man] and [who] speaks with difficulty [stutter, stammer].
They call upon him in the name of God in order to set on him the hand. And
having taken him back from the crowd apart by himself, [Jesus] cast/threw his
fingers into the ears of him, and having spit, he touched the tongue of him.
And having looked up into the heaven, he sighed [prayed inarticulately], and says to him, “Ephphatha”, that is, be opened completely. And were opened to him the hearings, and immediately was loosed from the chain/bond of his tongue, and he was speaking straightly. And he commanded them in order that to no one they should tell. But, as much as he was commanding them, the more excessively they were proclaiming. And beyond measure they were overwhelmed, saying, “All he has done well. The deaf he makes to hear and those with difficulty speaking to speak.”
ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE
I think that it is worth pausing here to remember that Gospel
of Mark begins with the opening words of Genesis, “In the beginning of.” While
the genitive of time is left open for creation in Genesis, Mark fills it with “the
Good News of Jesus Christ”. The goodness of creation is transferred to the
goodness of Jesus.
As creation is recounted in Genesis, so now Mark tells us that a new creation is coming into being. This new creation includes the reconciled restored reign of God. As Adam and Eve are barred from the garden in Genesis, the resurrected Jesus opens Gennesaret (garden of the prince). As Adam and Eve go out into a broken world, Jesus brings new wholeness there to those whom the people lay before him. As Adam and Eve learn of the unclean world, Jesus cleanses the daughter with an unclean spirit. As the world is unable or unwilling to hear God’s word of hope or speak God’s care and concern for all of creation, Jesus comes to Sidon where he speaks and acts in ways that the deaf can hear and then plainly speak of God’s caring for us.
As Jesus fed the five thousand with two fish and then sent the disciples to Bethsaida, house of fish, now we find ourselves with Jesus at the gentile city of Sidon (place of fish). It is also one of the stops Paul makes along the way to his trial with Agrippa (Acts 27). Coincidently, Paul encounters adverse winds following his departure from Sidon. Could this be the mirror image of the adverse wind the disciples encountered?
In this Sidon ichthus place, Jesus meets the man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. Again, Jesus demonstrates the fullness of the active reign of God that is “engaged”, not before the cross, but after the resurrection. If we are to know the Word of God speaking in the active reign of God, then, first thing, we must hear the Word. When the Good News is known, then we must be able to speak the Good News plainly so that others can hear. "They brought to him a deaf man and asked Jesus to lay hands on him,” bless him, speak to him in a way that he could hear. Jesus takes the deaf man to a place apart, and then all of the good stuff begins.
PUTTING UP THE WALLS
To travel from Gennesaret to the regions of Tyre, and then
to Sidon on the way to the Sea of Galilee back through the middle of the
Decapolis, requires the reader/hearer to understand that this is a spiritual
journey fraught with trials (impossible tasks). This is not a new theme in
Mark. These trials began with the forty days of temptation in the wilderness. In
spite of these trials, Jesus continues to reveal the “engaged” reign of God, creating
new community in the midst of world division.
We see evidence of newly justified community when Jesus completes the “impossible tasks”—the leper is no longer shunned; the man with the withered hand is welcomed into Sabbath time; a series of events raise the importance of women—Peter’s mother-in-law, Jairus’ daughter, the woman with the hemorrhage, and the Hellenist, Syrophoenician, woman and her daughter. In addition, the disciples encounter two storms on the sea; a man is living among the dead at Gerasa, and the pigs run into the sea; five thousand men are fed, and Jesus heals all those people laid before him.
Through completing these seemingly impossible tasks Jesus creates faith communities. While we are focused on the individual healings, the true healing is brought about in the restorative wholeness to the community. The gifts of the disenfranchised are able to be recognized in the “engaged” reign of God and embraced. There are more trials yet to come, but the reader/hearer of Mark can greet and enter into the journey because we know that the ultimate trial has already been accomplished. The cross is history; the tomb has been opened; life in the presence of the bodily resurrected Christ is here.
The astonishment of the people begins to sound more like incredulous frustration rather than laudatory exclamations. “He does all things well, darn it. Even the deaf are made to hear and those who stammer and stutter, who cannot plainly speak, are able to bear witness to the wholeness known in God’s eternal reign.”
I do not dismiss the healing of the man living with deafness, but the healing of the community is what I believe Mark is trying to emphasize. The man who was thought to be in need of corrective procedure is no longer held as “other” but regarded as being part of the community again. What would our world be like today, if we took the time to communicate in a way that the deaf could hear/understand?
HANGING THE TRIM
Jewish Festivals, Mozeson
Morning blessing
Living God,
Help me always
to feel
Like the blind,
to see
Like the deaf,
to hear
Like the mute,
and to love
Like the dying
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