There is a lot of talk about our need for resilience these days. I don’t know about you, but it conjures up for me, images of having to try harder, be braver, and have more positive thoughts, the latter of which has always been difficult for me. I’m more likely to cry out to God with the psalmist, “To my words give ear, O Lord, give heed to my groaning, attend to the sound of my cries…” (Psalm 5: 1). And often it seems there is no answer, at least not the certainty of receiving direct instructions as to which way, I need to turn. I am left it seems without hope and my mind spins down the spiral into despair.
What if we were to encourage each other by realising that the mind can never get what we want? Yes, it can be useful and needed but it can also become very busy and distracted by multiple thoughts and activities that pull us in all different directions. It is usually about ‘me’ and how well I am doing and what I think I need to do to ensure my safety, that I’m in control and to shore up my self-image as a ‘good’ Christian (sigh). None of it, however, stands up to any kind of scrutiny for long because if we look under the covers, we can be as naked and vulnerable as the day we were born.
Recently Nadia Bolz-Weber (ELCA public theologian) gave a delightful sermon in a women’s prison based on the story of the healing of a deaf man in the seventh chapter of Mark. As we too live in prisons of our own making, this story is also for us. We want solutions quickly and sigh when it appears we receive no answers, but Jesus sighed even more. The text reads, “He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (which means ‘Be opened’) but he didn’t rebuke him.
Jesus knew he was no different from the supposedly well people who had brought him to be healed in the first place. He touched the deaf man’s wounds and spoke and, ‘At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak plainly’ for he had heard the God who longed for him.
Although powerless to heal our deafness, we nevertheless are a participant in the process. We’re needed! Jesus says to us, ‘Be opened’. Not just our ears but our hearts! The first couple of lines in the Rule of St Benedict is, ‘Listen carefully, my child, to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from one who loves you; welcome it and faithfully put it into practice”. We are to welcome Christ coming to us just as we are.
Remember Jesus says ‘Be’ and then ‘opened’, for all our doing and thinking needs to come from a place of stillness, where we have no expectations as to the outcome. Like an opaque glass of water, which has been turbulent, we can learn to settle and to receive so the light can finally get in and shine in our darkness.
From a still, expansive space, with our hearts open, we have a greater capacity to hear the message of love that is coming to us from our brothers and sisters, from nature, music, art, and scripture. The Son of Man is always coming but so often we fail to notice the support we are being given in each moment. Even love comes from those people we find difficult and those very different from ourselves for often they help us to see our reactions and our need for grace.
In Hebrews we read, “God scourges those whom he loves (12: 6) and it seems that way when we are suffering. We may want to hide again under the covers, but I wonder if the greater truth is, amid failure and hardship, we are being drawn ever closer to a Love that never ends.
So dear readers, please let us hear once again Love’s longing for us, where we are, as we are. We are accepted as Paul Tillich would say, and if we are a coward, we are to be a coward. If we are not strong, we can be weak for nothing can separate us from the love of God who is even now, opening us up. Let us ask for the grace to be curious and to wonder how Love may be seeking to break through the walls of our hearts. How is God wanting to loosen our tongues so that we can speak plainly? As Jesus touched the deaf man, we need to learn first to receive and then to give the touch of Love, so we speak truthfully for the sake of the greater good.
Prayer:
Thank-you Lord that you know us and long for us. May we learn to be still; to receive Your touch so the ear of our heart can hear You in the cries of our brothers and sisters and be open to Your truth and Your goodness no matter what, for we cannot fall out of Your heart of mercy. Amen.
