Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
Mark 7:31-37 New Revised Standard Version
“Passion and Compassion”
That so well expresses the truth about Mark’s gospel. It is so fast paced and packed with things that tell us about God and Jesus and ourselves, that if we are not careful, we might miss the whole thing.
32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him.
If we don’t stop and look around in Mark’s gospel, we miss lots of stuff. All the words here are very carefully selected. The word for deaf here, in Greek, is kwfo,j (kophos.) That could either mean deaf or mute and is translated both ways in the New Testament. Here in Mark kwfo,j is deaf.
32They brought to him a deaf (kwfo,j) man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him.
In a different healing account in Matthew’s Gospel the same word is translated as mute.
22Then they brought to him a demoniac who was blind and mute (kwfo,j) and he cured him, so that the one who had been mute could speak and see.
So the word can mean deaf and mute. And practically speaking, at least in the time when this was written when medical science wasn’t what it is today, those two things go together. But Mark doesn’t say deaf and mute. Mark writes that the man was deaf (kwfo,j) and then uses another, very particular wording “had an impediment in his speech.” The word Mark uses here is mogila,loj (mogilalos.)
32They brought to him a deaf (kophos) man who had an impediment in his speech (mogilalos); and they begged him to lay his hand on him.
What is interesting about this word is that it is not used anywhere else in the entire New Testament. The only other place you can find this word is in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint.[1] I don’t want to make anyone’s eyes glaze over, but let me point out that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. At some point the Old Testament was translated into Greek and that is what we call the
Septuagint. This word mogila,loj (mogilalos) is found in Isaiah, 35:6:
6then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless mogila,loj (mogilalos) sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;
Alright, so you might be asking, what does all this mean? Why did the author of Mark’s gospel choose this very odd word to describe the man’s condition? And, why is Pastor Will telling me way more than I wanted to know about this. Well just hold onto to that thought for a moment and let’s continue on in Mark:
32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue.
Jesus has done this before in Mark’s gospel, healed in private, where the crowd can’t see. Is this just a move of compassion? We all like a little privacy when we are trying to get better. Or is there more going on here?
Then Jesus does something interesting. He put his fingers in the man’s ears and then spat and touched the man’s tongue.
Alright, this is a little odd. If I walked up to someone, put my fingers in their ears, then spat and touched their tongue, someone would try to have me fired. Some of us have trouble sharing from the same loaf of bread during communion, this is over the top!
But, we have to remember our context. In Greco-Roman writings, these seem to be some fairly common healing practices. Spit was considered to have healing properties. Which still makes it a little odd for Jesus to use these practices, his power to heal comes from above. However, this man is deaf and can’t hear what Jesus is saying, so perhaps, Jesus is trying to show him what is going on. I mean really, this is the Son of God. He could and scripture supports this, he could have healed him from the other side of town.[2] But he stopped and touched him, and healed him. That is compassion.
34Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." 35And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
I don’t really get why Jesus sighed, and I don’t know why sometimes Mark’s author uses the Aramaic word and immediately translates it as in:
"Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."
It does, however, remind us that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek and certainly not King James English. Jesus never said “thou.” Whatever the reason, the man’s ears were open, literally, “the bond was released from his tongue and he spoke the right way.”
It is so tempting to stop here. This is a story of the powerfully compassionate Jesus Christ. I think it is a huge thing when people get this part. I love it when Christians reach a point in their journey when they really start emulating the compassion of Christ. There is a ton of healing and world changing that happens when people just care enough to share the pain of others around them, when people turn outward and seek to truly love as Jesus loves.
But, I have to tell you, we as individual Christians and as the church are missing out if we don’t keep reading.
36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
This happens elsewhere in Mark’s gospel including in chapter 1, Jesus heals a leper and then says:
43After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 44saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
Now volumes have been written about why Jesus says “don’t tell anybody.” But let me give my quick answer to what is going on here. While Jesus had the power and compassion to heal, his mission on the earth was larger than that. If the word got out too much about his healings, all he would be doing is healings. The healings were not his mission, but they spoke to, gave witness to his mission and to who he was and is.
This is more than just compassion.
37They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."
Alright, you remember a few minutes ago when I tried to make your eyes glaze over by explaining how the word the author used in this passage for speech impediment was only used here and in Isaiah 35:6? Well guess what? This looks like a quote from Isaiah 35:5:
5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the
deaf unstopped;
The Isaiah passage is a prophecy that dealt, in its own context, with the redemption of the Israelite people and their return from exile. It is being referenced now to show the coming of God’s kingdom into the world in Jesus Christ.
You see, we can so easily miss it if we don’t stop and look carefully. This healing, is about way more than just healing. This amazing act of compassion is about way more than compassion. It is about God’s breaking into our world, it is about the coming of the
And now this line makes even more sense:
36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
When a passionate pastor gets to a new church and sees an amazing amount of untapped, world-changing potential, if that pastor is smart, she begins by just being a good chaplain. She starts by showing that she is compassionate. At some point she starts to share her vision for the church, a vision that usually includes lots of change. When she starts sharing that vision and people start getting excited about it, the pastor often has to say, “don’t tell anybody, yet.”
Jesus knew what he was up to and he knew it was going to get him into trouble, real trouble. Not just a dirty looks from the church elders or a nasty letter in one’s file trouble, but real Roman punishment kind of trouble.
Jesus’ overabundant compassion was already raising questions with the authorities, but being overly compassionate will never lead you to the gallows. It is that other thing, that passion for God’s mission.
Mark’s not so subtle illusion to the prophecies of Isaiah, and Jesus’ constant attempt to keep people quiet about it, show us the revolutionary and dangerous thing that is going here. Those who choose to follow aren’t just taking on the happy task of healing; they are stepping into the midst of a revolution.
As Christians, as a church, we need to be radically compassionate, but we cannot stop there.
Jesus message, Jesus purpose is about much more than that.
It sounds kind of strange, but compassion can stop us dead in our tracks if it is compassion only. It can leave us as a church of well meaning, polite friendly folks, too afraid of ever hurting anyone’s feelings to ever take a chance at creating world changing ministries.
I cannot tell you the number of stories I hear from other pastors and leaders of other churches. They are stories that always start with bright eyes and excited tones. They are stories that talk of ideas of revolutionary ministries that spread the gospel, feed the poor, change oppressive systems, but then, eyes turn downward, voices lower and I hear why this ministry isn’t occurring. “Well Mrs. Smith is in charge of that area and she doesn’t want us to do anything else and no one wants to offend her.” or “We would have to replace Mr. Phelps to do that and he is such a nice person.”
We cannot going trotting roughshod over peoples emotions, hopes, loves and dreams as though our savior is someone other than the deeply compassionate healer Jesus Christ, but we cannot let that compassion stand blindly in the way of changing the world.
When we practice compassion only, without a willingness to embrace the prophetic world changing ministry that Jesus is with us to create, there actually becomes a limit to how compassionate we really are. Take a peek at your morning paper or turn on CNN. In between all the entertainment news, you may hear of the millions dying from poverty and war. Look around you neighborhood and see all the people who have never had a chance to really, I mean really hear the good news of God.
Compassion can stop us dead in our tracks if it is compassion only. It can leave us as a church of well meaning, polite, friendly folks, too afraid of ever hurting anyone’s feelings to ever take a chance at creating world changing ministries.
We can be so afraid to offend anyone that we never move forward and we can also be so afraid to offend anyone that we won’t truly challenge anyone to deepen their own relationship with God. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago how skittish pastors have become. Years ago, if you were a member of a church and didn’t come for a while, the pastor would show up at your house. Now, and I am probably more guilty of this than anyone, we are afraid to even call and say, “how come you aren’t coming to church?” We are certainly afraid to ask “Are you praying every day? Are you giving back to God out of your abundance? Are you reading scripture? What are you doing to deepen your discipleship?” Can you imagine if we started doing that? What if it wasn’t even just the pastor that asked those questions, what if we asked each other? We might offend someone. Or, maybe, we would start fanning the flames of ministry in the church and move from just being compassionate to being revolutionary.
We become afraid to challenge people to deepen their discipleship because we are afraid to “offend them.” We end up with a bunch of, yes very compassionate, people going through the dull motions of being church, taking care of each other while millions never even hear about Christ, while millions die of hunger, while the only message of Christianity that really gets spread is that of an angry, hateful, vengeful God.
So often we are stuck on being only compassionate. It gets in the way of our ministry and it is not really following the whole message of Jesus. Jesus, being the Son of God was more powerfully compassionate than I can ever hope to be. Jesus also had a larger mission, to bring redemption, to bring justice, to bring the
A little later on in Mark, we find a passage that makes us nervous:
“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?
But you have made it a den of robbers.’
Jesus doesn’t say “I am terribly sorry, and I don’t mean to offend you but…” Or, “These people need to stop doing this, but I don’t want to make them mad.” Instead passion, fire for the work of God.
You know, this you might not like, but there should be a large number of agitated people in the church. There is a man that you may have heard of. It not, you will. His name is Don Nations and he was in the Corpus Christi District this week to visit our churches and begin a process of transforming our congregations, so many of which are barely maintaining or even slowly dying. Not everybody likes Rev. Nations. He is constantly offending people. He is so bold as to walk into a church that is barely maintaining itself and in the midst of decline and say to them, “You are going to have to change.” He has been known to talk about sacred church traditions and furniture and programs as things that just need to be thrown away. He makes people angry and I bet he has made people cry. You would think that he has not one ounce of compassion. But he is loaded with it, along with a dose of passion for the Gospel that means he will do whatever he can to let more people be touched by the revolutionary message of the Gospel, even if that ruffles a few feathers.
We should be agitated. Agitated enough to truly seek out our calling, our part in the larger mission of Jesus, even if that means change or discomfort, or we will just end up being polite. Polite is nice, the Gospel is revolutionary.
Let me end with this. Please don’t go home and say, “Will said we don’t have to be nice anymore.” Be radically compassionate, Jesus was, God is, we are called to be. But don’t let compassion be the end all, let the passion for God’s message drive you farther.
Where that will be, I don’t know, but I will risk offending you to help you get there. Pray more, worship more, read more scripture, join a small group, talk to your Christian brothers and sister about what they think is next for you. Be more open to where God is leading you and where God is leading this church, even if that leading seems to be toward a place that you personally don’t like.
And be aware that our compassionate God is with you for the journey, transforming you baby steps into giant leaps, consoling you when you step backwards and catching you when you fall.
36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
One last thing. If you are really getting this, if you really understand that this is about revolution, not just religion. If you see that is about compassion and passion, if you are ready to let God transform you, the church and the world, shhh, don’t tell anybody.
