A Reflection for the Memorial of Saint Scholastica, virgin
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!") (Mk 7:33-34)
Find today’s readings here.
Jesus wanders quite far afield in today’s Gospel. He departs from Tyre and hikes up by Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, finding his way into the district of the Decapolis, 10 cities stretching across northern Israel, modern Lebanon and into Syria, where he will continue to preach to all comers. One thinks of Jesus sermonizing demurely to his fellow Jews by lakefront or hillside, maybe getting the occasional temple gig.
But these brief verses suggest a prophet on the road to places mostly peopled by descendants of Canaanites, Phoenicians and Arameans, contemporary Greeks and Romans—definitely not the crowd we normally associate with Jesus. Was he expanding his audience or trying to demonstrate something else entirely?
I once visited the infamous Palestinian refugee camp of Zarqa in Jordan, a mostly oppressive place first opened in 1948 to the earliest Palestinian refugees and “infamous” because of its role as a cauldron of resentment and anger many years hence.
The unholy relationship among three great religions packed together in this tiny part of the world remains a remarkable scandal. Why not look instead for opportunities for solidarity and mercy?
I met an affable young man in Zarqa, a pharmaceutical salesman. “Bush is a liar,” he told me, pretty much out of nowhere, as if there were something he wanted to get off his chest—the War on Terror declared by George Bush still a sharp wound at that time. “And bin Laden is the same liar,” he added earnestly.
“A human being is a human being,” he said. “I am a Muslim, but before Islam my ancestors were Christians. We were sons of Jesus and then later sons of Mohammed. When they meet, they will never stop crying about what is going on,” he said.
Looking at a map of Tyre and Sidon and the cities of the Decapolis marching up to Damascus, the proximity of the communities of the biblical world becomes apparent. Jesus was able to wander this territory on foot during his short earthly ministry.
These days some of these city names stand out because of their contemporary associations with the tragedies of war and disaster that have befallen the modern iterations of these towns where Jesus once walked. That is all especially poignant this week, contemplating images of unspeakable suffering and loss emerging from Turkey and Syria in the aftermath of devastating earthquakes and aftershocks in those two troubled states.
I have to agree with my brother from Zarqa. The unholy relationship among three great religions packed so tightly together in this tiny part of the world remains a remarkable scandal. Why not look instead for opportunities for solidarity and mercy that should be natural to us? Like reaching out to the homeless, hungry and thirsty who have survived this dreadful week in Syria and Turkey.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus heals the man who cannot hear or speak. “Be opened,” he implores, groaning, presumably admonishing his troublesome senses. But I hear also a cry for all sorts of openness. Be open to what you hear and see, so you can hear the cry of the suffering and poor; open your heart, so it may be generous and merciful. Open your mouth, so you may speak for justice.
