There are a couple of curious things in today’s Gospel. Jesus is preaching in “the district of the Decapolis,” 10 Greek cities outside the territory of Israel. Archaeological evidence suggests that Jews and non-Jews lived in these areas, and that Jewish healers were held in esteem. People bring Jesus a deaf and speech-impaired man to heal. Why does Jesus use strange actions like spitting to heal the man? Perhaps, one Scripture scholar suggests, Jesus was using touch and gestures to communicate with this man who could not hear or speak. Or perhaps he was using actions that other faith healers of that time used. In the Gospel passage just before this one, Jesus healed a Syrophoenician woman’s daughter. Considering these two “outside of Israel” miracles together, it seems clear that Mark’s Jesus intends the healing Good News to be for everyone, and not just for his own Jewish people. A second puzzling part of this Gospel is that after the healing, Jesus “ordered them not to tell anyone.” Why? Perhaps because hostility was building up toward Jesus. But he wanted to remain free because he had so many people he wanted to reach; “his hour had not yet come.” Next week we will hear him again cautioning his disciples “not to tell anyone about him.” A third puzzling thing is the word Jesus uses to cure the man: Ephphatha — be opened — a word usage unique to Jesus and to this miracle. So today, with these Gospel nuances in mind, what do we pray for? We pray to be healed. We pray to be healed from our human self-protective defense that makes us see outsiders as threats, and instead to become more comfortable about sharing our good things with people who are not “our own.” We pray we can open our eyes and ears to see and hear better the other ways we need to be healed. And we pray to be open for that to happen.
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia
