Trinity XV
September 28, 2025
 
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon (St. Matthew vi: 24)
Our Gospel lesson appointed for today comes to us from the Sermon on the Mount. And like all the lections of Trinity Tide, it helps us to understand our habituation to virtue. Today’s lesson is hard to study because it involves our relationship with two necessities of life, food and clothing. And our anxiety over these essentials is abruptly dismissed by our Lord. Jesus is far more concerned with the spiritual food and raiment that will nourish and clothe our souls for Heaven. He insists, You cannot serve God and mammon. (St. Matthew vi. 24) Simply put, you cannot serve God if you are more devoted to Mammon. He condemns the idolatry of mammon because He insists that if we first serve God, He will take care of the rest.

Perhaps we can better understand all of this if we recall the main reason for Jesus Christ’s Incarnation. Christ came down from Heaven to conquer our sin and reconcile us with God the Father. Moses’ depiction of Original Sin in the First Book of the Bible is brilliant. Man preferred to take a bite from a piece of fruit rather than obey God’s command. Man tempted his fate with something as small as a piece of fruit. Sin is always about preferring the little things of the creation to the will of the Creator. The frailty of man without [God] cannot but fall, we read in today’s Collect. Thinking that we are strong and can decide what is good and what is evil, however, reveals our true weakness. We obsess over small things, created natures, more than over our relationship with God.

And to be sure, God the Father knows our weakness and has mercy for us. You will remember that in Genesis I, God does not abandon Adam and Eve but confronts them. He does not leave us helpless but continues to be with us, even though He makes it clear that our journey back to Him will be difficult. Man’s return to God is a journey as long as the Old Testament. In it, God’s people, the ancient Jews, spend centuries being prepared for the coming of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ. Even when Christ comes down from Heaven, most men reject Him and prefer the created things to the visitation of the Creator.

Now, of course, it is not as if all ancient men neglected the soul’s knowledge and love of God. Great philosophers, like Aristotle, taught his students that all men by nature desire to know (980 a21), and that man naturally seeks happiness. (1097b) Not all men are incurably obsessed with food, drink, clothing, and material riches. Restless men have always sought out deeper spiritual happiness and knowledge. But even in ancient Greece, such men, like Socrates, Plato, and our Aristotle, were either executed or exiled. Pursuing spiritual truth threatens earthly-minded men in all ages. Aristotle himself insisted that knowledge and goodness alone satisfy the man who knows himself and lays to heart wisdom for happiness. Even the Ancient Jews persecuted their own prophets who tried to recall Israel to God. When the Jewish prophets, priests, and kings tried to warn Israel about the dangers of neglecting the spiritual life and the pursuit of God, they too were either abandoned, imprisoned, or put to death.

The problem is that human beings are not just souls but souls in bodies. We depend upon earthly things to live and survive. But survival is one thing, while making gods out of earthly things is quite another. We acquire what we need by way of food, drink, shelter, and clothing. But we are not satisfied with what we need. We become desirous of material luxuries. They, too, however are unsatisfying. And we might be tempted to keep buying in order to temporarily bring happiness to ourselves.

But wise men in all cultures and ages know that man’s true satisfaction comes from finding God and learning more from Him about true happiness. Jesus came into time and space not only to defeat sin but also to help us to embrace a kind of spiritual death that opens a great spiritual horizon to us. Every one of us should know that sin separates us from God. For this reason, Jesus comes down from Heaven to help us to work out our sins and work in his righteousness, not only to avoid damnation but to find true joy and happiness. Today we pray for things profitable for our salvation, and such things bring a happiness that begins now and can be found forever in the happiness of Heaven.

But we do well to remember that Christ became men so that He might identify with our condition and help us to embrace His healing of it. And He did this not only to be tempted as we are tempted, but to reject sin because something more satisfying is intended by God for us. Always, He points us to life in the creation, not only as something negative and potentially damning but also positive and potentially saving! Consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. Jesus tells us to slow down, leave behind what we need, and open our eyes to nature. Look at nature, the flowers, the animals, and the birds of the air. We haven’t made nature or the animals. We don’t keep them alive. And for the most part, all are satisfied with the simplest things. God feeds, sustains, colors, beatifies, informs, and defines all of creation. Neither nature nor animals, birds, or fish are complicated. Each unique nature is defined by God the Father’s wisdom and enlivened by His ceaseless loving care. The birds neither sow nor reap and my Father feeds them. The lilies neither toil nor spin, and Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed by my Father like one of these. (St. Matthew vi. 26-29) Jesus brings before us the created things of this world and shows that they hang entirely upon the Father’s Wisdom and Loving Care for their being and beauty. He shows us that God orders all of nature providentially. He reminds us that the birds of the air are anxious over nothing and are fed. Similarly, the lilies of the field emit utter beauty without the slightest effort or toil. God provides for them and would do the same for us, if only we would have faith and trust in Him. Christ tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things shall be added to you. (St. Matthew vi. 33) Faith in Christ means following Him, through nature and then beyond it, up and into the transcendent loving truth that enlivens and informs all things.

Why do we find this so difficult? We are too comfortable with mammon. Our souls have grown cold and have been dulled by the worship of creaturely comforts and earthly joys. We have been rendered slothful because we have forgotten whence we come and whither we go? Are we possessed by Mammon? Mammon is a false god or idol. We treat things as false gods or idols when we allow them to have lasting and essential importance in our lives. Idols, or false gods, are created things or creatures that might lend us some happiness and joy but, in the end, threaten our worship of the one true God. If we wish to stop worshiping Mammon, we must tend to the good of our souls.

Today, Jesus tells us that we cannot serve God and Mammon. Is not life more than meat, and the body made for more than raiment? (St. Matthew vi. 25) Jesus knows that Mammon has gotten the better of us and causes us to toil and spin with fear of losing it and anxiety over keeping it. We toil and spin because we have become so at home in this world that we have forgotten that we were made for another. Mammon has made a mess out of us all.

Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. (Idem) O how great is thy goodness that thou hast laid up for them that fear thy name. There is a loving kindness in God that is better than what meets our natural needs and provides earthly happiness. Redeeming Love enables us to feed on Christ’s victory over our sin and death. It promises to make us invulnerable to the pull of false gods. It settles the score of our fallen souls with God the Father and enables us to live not for things of the earth but for heaven. If we embrace it, earthly idols strike us as unreal and without value. We can become rich in heavenly things because their value is so real that it secures our salvation.

This morning, Jesus intends to anchor our minds and hearts in the reality of God’s Kingdom. With St. Paul we must try to glory only in God’s love. This love is perfectly expressed on the Cross of Christ. God forbid that I should glory save in Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. (Gal. vi. 14) When we glory in Christ’s Cross, we value the treasure of His death, through which we too can die to the false gods of this earth, to sin, and through Him seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. (ibid, 33) When we glory in His Cross, we are intent upon dying to false gods and rising in Him, living in the day. When we glory in His Cross, our souls are intent upon finding all things profitable to our salvation.

Amen.
©wjsmartin


 

For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
(St. Matthew ix. 13)

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, and we are called to reflect upon his life and find some inspiration from him for our own spiritual journey. And to tell you the truth, it is difficult to give you a complete picture of his life because the historical information that we have about him is fragmentary and scarce. But from the Gospels, we can try to put together a picture of who he was.

For starters, the four Gospels tell us that he was one of the original twelve Apostles. We learn too that he was the brother of St. James, both the sons of Alphaeus. They came from Galilee, which was home to Jesus during most of His adult ministry. In Jesus’ time, Galilee was part of the Roman Empire and was ruled by King Herod Antipas, who killed John the Baptist and played a role in the Passion and Crucifixion of Our Lord. Matthew’s name means the gift of God. Matthew is also the author of the first Gospel in the New Testament. In addition, we know that he was a tax collector for the Roman overlords. As a Jew who worked for the Romans, Matthew was considered a sinner by his fellow Jews. And in addition to working for the Roman foreigners, Matthew’s profession was despised because Roman tax collectors not only collected taxes for Caesar but were allowed also by the Romans to charge interest arbitrarily. The interest the tax collector demanded was his salary. Tax collectors were extortioners; they charged more than was morally reasonable because of their greed. As you might well imagine, Jewish tax collectors were despised. Tax collectors were viewed to be about as virtuous as prostitutes in the ancient Jewish world.

So, Matthew’s conversion was going to be a hard sell for the Jews. The Pharisees were already unhinged by Jesus’ tendency to offer men the forgiveness of their sins. The Jews considered this blasphemy. Then we read of what happened to Matthew. Jesus was passing by the customs house; he saw Matthew, busy collecting his taxes and tips; their eyes met, and Jesus said, Come follow me. Matthew immediately abandoned his work, mesmerized by Jesus, and followed Jesus. Later, when Jesus was caught eating a meal in Matthew’s house, the Scribes and Pharisees judged Jesus to be one who ate and drank with publicans and sinners. Publican is another name for tax collector. But, not only did Jesus offer the forgiveness of their sins, but he promised sinners that He could make them better.        

Thus, we learn that Jesus called all kinds of men to follow Him. He was especially interested in sinners whom the Jews had condemned and shunned. Jesus never excluded anyone from His friendship. He says in response to the Scribes and Pharisees, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (St. Mark ii. 7) Jesus knew Matthew and understood how Matthew must have felt as an outcast and alien to his own people. And while the religious Jews might have been scandalized, this didn’t stop Jesus from calling Matthew forth into the new life. Later, Jesus even uses a parable about the Pharisee and Publican to describe why Matthew would have been more interested in what Christ brought into the world than the Pharisees. The Pharisees, as Jesus tells it, were full of themselves, proud, arrogant, and self-consciously holy and good enough. The publican or tax collector, tended to be humble, wholly conscious of his own sin, torn and conflicted between the Romans and Jews, able only to pray, God be merciful to me a sinner. The publicans, or tax collectors, like Matthew, were wholly conscious of their sinful lives, their compromises, and their greed. They were totally aware of their sins against God and their fellow men. Because they were shunned by the religious Jews, the publicans were ashamed, sorry, sad, and lost, like sheep without a shepherd.

Until Jesus passed by the custom house. Then, Matthew’s eyes met Jesus, and his spirit was arrested; his soul was apprehended in the act of his sin; his heart was taken captive by one who seemed to call him forth to find a treasure much greater than money. Matthew was caught. Jesus’ eyes penetrated Matthew’s heart, and Matthew knew that the Lord knew him. Matthew’s sin was public, notorious, and subject to rejection from his own people. But Matthew sensed that Jesus knew the secrets of his heart. Matthew knew that while his sins were many, God’s mercy in Jesus Christ was more. Unlike the rich man who couldn’t sell all he had, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus because he loved his money more than God, Matthew forsook all and followed Jesus. He didn’t flinch or hesitate, but dropped everything, left the custom house behind, and followed Jesus.

And we might ask ourselves today, how could Matthew do this? Can a man just drop everything –his job, livelihood, and earnings– to follow Jesus? I think the answer is found in St. Matthew’s soul. Matthew was honest about his own sin. The Jewish priests condemned his occupation, hated him for it, and banished him from the temple. Matthew knew that his life was conflicted and that he had betrayed his own people. To the Jews he was a Roman quisling; to the Romans he was a useful tool. And so, he must have been inwardly torn, sad, and lonely, a friend to all but a friend to none. And then came Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus didn’t judge or condemn him. He merely said, Come follow me. Jesus was interested in Matthew in a special way.

So, where does this leave us today? Jesus is passing by today at St. Christopher’s. He is looking at every one of us. He sees into our hearts. He knows that we are often torn, sad, and lonely. He wants us in a special way. He knows that we, like Matthew, have preferred to worship the gods of this world. He knows that we have divided loyalties, are conflicted, and have even worshiped money and mammon rather than God. But the message for today is that Jesus wants sinners for His Kingdom. Matthew was a self-conscious sinner who needed Jesus. Will we need Jesus also?

St. Matthew and his fellow Apostles forsook all and followed Jesus. The first Apostles were remarkable in their faith, hope, and love. Of course, not everyone will achieve their level of otherworldly austerity and self-renunciation. Jesus knows this too. But I would like to suggest that we can at least try to be a little bit more like them. With them we should try to begin to see that Jesus offers us something not temporary and uncertain but eternal and sure, not imperfect but perfect, not for the here and now, but forever in Heaven.

St. Matthew was arrested by a love that called him from the receipt of custom and into the new life that leads back to God. In our own ways, we too can be arrested and called by Jesus Christ. To be sure, St. Matthew had the benefit of being called by the historical Jesus. But Jesus calls us too from the pages of the New Testament. The New Testament is not just a history of ancient man’s relation to Jesus Christ. It is our story, and in it we can find ourselves. If we cannot relate to those whom Jesus called long ago, I would suggest that we have some real problems with arrogance and pride. By reading Scripture, we might just find that Jesus is calling us to know ourselves, be honest about our sins, confess them, and follow Him. We can learn too about what virtues He wants us to embrace. In so doing, the same love that arrested and possessed Matthew, might begin to repair, redeem, and save our lives for Heaven. 
 
Of course, if we would be more like Matthew, we must also remember what Christ has done for us. With Matthew, we must thank Jesus for dying for our sins and putting them to death. We must also ask Him to help us to see death in a new way, not as the dreaded end of earthly life, but as a daily invitation to spiritual new beginnings. We must ask Him to help us to be dead to sin but alive to righteousness. We must ask Him also to plead our cause with our Heavenly Father, and to assist through all our spiritual struggles, as we strive to reach His Kingdom.  

Today, my friends, we are called to consider how Jesus arrested and called St. Matthew. With St. Matthew, let us pray that we shall be unafraid to call ourselves publicans and sinners. Let us then be intent upon embracing the help and salvation that Jesus Christ alone brings into this sorry world. Let us be courageous enough to spend a less time on earthly treasures and temporal concerns and more time on pursuing Heaven’s riches and our eternal destiny. Then we shall be more diligent in allowing Jesus to take us, as he did St. Matthew, from sin into righteousness, from sickness to health, from brokenness to spiritual repair, and from the threat of Hell to the hope of Heaven.

Amen.
©wjsmartin
 



 

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.
He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one,
And to thy seed, which is Christ.
(Gal. iii. 16)
 
         As we have said, Trinity Tide is all about the application of God’s goodness to the heart of man. Our Collect for today insists upon the fact that God’s gift alone comes so that His faithful people might do unto Him true and laudible service. (Collect: Trinity XIII) The point of faith in God’s Grace is that we might praise Him. But our obligations to God don’t end with our relation to Him. The Collect continues to pray that we might faithfully serve Him in this life, that we fail not finally to attain His heavenly promises. We aim to translate our praise of God into virtue. The heavenly promises can only be fulfilled by those who have faith in God’s Grace praising Him and embracing His goodness.
        
So, we must turn to St. Paul for an explanation of faith in God’s Grace. Turning to the Old Testament, St. Paul reminds us that promises were made to Abraham and his seed. (idem) Seed means offspring. And Abraham was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. When he was first called, he was named Abram, which name meant exalted father, shield, and protector. Abram lived around 1900 years before the birth of Christ. He was married to Sarai, who was barren. He was called by God’s Word to leave Ur of the Chaldees.

Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:  and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. (Gen. xii. 1,2)
 
God’s Word promised to Abram that if he had the faith to leave behind his blood family, in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. The Word of God calls Abram to have more faith in God’s Word than in family relationships and ties. Abram’s faith was to be rewarded spiritually by God’s Grace. His relationship with God would mold and define his relationship with all other men. Abram’s spiritual wonder made him a wanderer, more determined to find truth not in hearth and home but in spiritual pilgrimage. Abram was the first to interact largely with Gentile nations for the purposes of establishing relations in anticipation of a future in Christ where there would be neither Jew nor Greek. (Gal. iii. 28) So, Abram believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness. (Gen. xv. 6) His righteousness was the effect of his faith in God’s Grace. Abram’s name was soon changed by God to Abraham, which means the father of all nations or humanity. The alteration of his name would mean that the exalted father would become the father of all men.
        
What concerns St. Paul most in this morning’s Epistle is that we can become the sons of Abraham, in his son Jesus Christ, and heirs of His eternal kingdom, through faith in God’s Grace. The process is always initiated by God, lest we think that such a destiny can be achieved by our own good works. So, St. Paul says Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. (ibid, 16) God’s promises were made to Abraham in his offspring, one human family. The promises would be fulfilled and perfected through one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of St. Mary.
        
St. Paul emphasizes that the Law, given by God’s Word to the Jews 450 years after Abraham, could not disannul or cancel God’s covenant with Abraham. The Law was given to Moses for the purposes of disciplining the Jews, whose faith was to hope in the future coming of Messiah. If Abraham was to become the father of all nations, by faith, God’s children would not become heirs through the Law but by Grace. The Law was added because of transgressions or, as Monsignor Knox suggests, to turn our sins into transgressions, making us conscious of them as a breach in the divine law, and thus to show our need for redemption. (Knox Bible, Galatians iii) The Law was given to Abraham’s descendants to make them conscious that they were handicapped by the Original Sin that ends in death. Without faith in God’s Grace, in Jesus Christ, man could never hope to be saved by God’s love. St. Paul tells us then that the Law was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator, following the Jewish tradition that the angels gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. (idem, Knox) Moses was the mediator who carried the Law of God through angels to men. Since the Law came by angels to Moses, it was of less dignity than God’s Word of promise made directly to Abraham. If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. (ibid, 21) But God hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. (ibid, 22) The point is that the promises made to Abraham would be fulfilled only by the work of God to save us from the Law of Sin and Death through faith in the Grace of Jesus Christ.
        
In this morning’s Gospel, we find the theme of faith in God’s Grace continued and enlarged. Jesus says, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see. (St. Luke x. 23) Faith is a kind of vision into God’s power, wisdom, and love. Faith in God’s Grace was sadly misunderstood by the Jews, the children of Abraham. Christ says that

many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them. (ibid, 24)
 
Christ blesses those who have the faith to see the true spiritual nature of how He is the fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham. But the temptation is always, with the Jews, to think that the Law can save us. The lawyer in today’s Gospel tries or tests Christ with the question of what he must do to inherit eternal life? (ibid, 25) Christ asks him what is written in the Law since, as a lawyer, he would have been an expert in the law.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. (ibid, 26)
 
Christ says, this do and thou shalt live. But the lawyer, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? (ibid, 27)
Christ clearly knows that no man can perfectly obey the Law and is a sinner in need of the Saviour.
He reveals this truth in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
 A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. (ibid, 27)
 
Jerusalem is a symbol of the Kingdom of Heaven, where we all come from. Jericho is the sinful kingdom of this world. Man has fallen into the grips of the Devil and his friends, among thieves, who, as St. Augustine says, have robbed us of our immortality. They strip man of the clothing of God’s righteousness, his virtue. They wound him and ruin the gift of free will. And leave him half dead, pressed down with the death that sin brings. (Catena Aurea, Thomas Aquinas) That the Law and the Prophets do not love their neighbor as themselves, the man in the ditch, is symbolized in the fact that the Pharisee–the Law, and the Levite–the prophets, respectively pass by on the other side. (ibid, 31) The Law and the Prophets had long since forgotten about Father Abraham’s faith in God’s Grace. St. Augustine says that by the Law came the knowledge of sin but not its doing away. (idem) Christ continues.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. (ibid, 33-35)
 
Father Abraham would have found himself as the man left half dead in the ditch. The whole of his life was the story of how God’s Word, the good Samaritan, came to him with both miracles and promises. God’s Word prophesied that those who love their neighbors as themselves would be repaid in the end for their charity.
        
After telling the parable, Christ asks the lawyer,
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?  And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. (ibid, 36,37)
 
We can only and ever allow Christ the Good Samaritan to save us if we, like Abraham, have faith in God’s Grace. We cannot live up to the Law, and we cannot save ourselves. We find our salvation only in Jesus Christ, Abraham’s seed and offspring. As Prebendary Scott reminds us, Christianity was a reversion to the primitive type of religion, that of Abraham, and not the Law. Abraham had faith in God’s Grace. So, too, must we. Then too you and I, with Abraham, shall not be at home in this world but will prefer to join him as spiritual pilgrims and wanderers intent upon finding our way home to heaven.

Amen.
©wjsmartin
 
        
 
        
          

                 ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than
we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve…
(Collect Trinity XII)
 
 
The Collect for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity expresses a truth that is habitually rehearsed but rarely remembered. The truth it reveals is that it is God’s nature to be more ready to hear than we to pray because our condition is more often than not otherwise occupied and, thus, slothful in relation to our spiritual well-being. God hears to give, and what He gives is, as the Collect continues, more than either we desire or deserve. (Idem) The failure of zeal, alacrity, and dispatch is on our side. In desiring Him more, we shall receive the abundance His mercy and the intensity of its power. Thereby, we continue last week’s theme of embracing God’s Grace in the Trinity season. 
The deaf and dumb man described in today's Gospel is an image of that spiritual condition that neither desires nor deserves what God longs to give. The man can neither hear nor speak.  But just prior to this morning’s Gospel, we meet a Syrophoenician woman who had no problem speaking up and begging Jesus to heal her daughter, who had an unclean spirit (St. Mark vii. 25). She may not have felt that she deserved anything, but that didn’t stop her from desiring fragments of Jesus’ healing power for the healing of her demonized child. She was not a Jewish petitioner but a Gentile seeker. Jesus provoked her when he reminded her that [God’s] children should first be filled; for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs. (Ibid, 27) Jesus was intent on eliciting from her a spiritual gem.  She said, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. (Ibid, 28) Clearly, the Syrophoenician woman thought herself wholly undeserving of God’s Grace. But her faith persisted in procuring God’s Grace from Jesus. Her desire revealed a deep sense of God’s presence in Jesus which His own fellow denied. 

This morning, we encounter a Jewish man who cannot so much as express his desire, let alone think about what he might or might not deserve. He is in the sad and sorry state of being deaf. No doubt he feels great pain at his inability to communicate with the world around him. But there were some kind men who noticed his handicap and would help him to find a remedy. We read: And they bring unto Jesus one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.(Ibid, 32) Jesus finds goodness in at least some of the Jews who would help their suffering compatriot. As yet, Christ cannot communicate with the deaf man. So Jesus offers a silent prayer to His Heavenly Father. Next we read that Jesus took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed….(Ibid, 33, 34)

Jesus took him aside from the multitude. Too much noisy and senseless talk from the multitude, who can talk but should be quiet, threatens the silence that Jesus needs to impart God’s Grace to us. So Jesus took him aside so that, in solitude and silence, the deaf man might be better able to receive the lasting impression of healing. Jesus does this with us also, taking us into a quiet place to treat our sicknesses and heal our souls. This man needed to encounter God, in Jesus Christ, for the very first time. Thus, in a very elementary way, He heals the man by making use of his operative senses to understand the blessing. The deaf man sees that Jesus put his fingers into his ears, as if to show him that He will open them to hearing. Jesus spits and touches his tongue to indicate that He intends to enable the man to speak. Jesus looks up to Heaven to show he man the source of his impending healing. Thus, the man knows what Jesus intends and accomplishes.

In this morning’s Epistle, St. Paul reminds us that we are not sufficient of ourselves
to think anything as of ourselves; [for] our sufficiency [comes] from God. (2 Cor. iii. 4) My Grace is sufficient for thee. (2 Cor. xii. 19) Christ comes to the deaf man and heals him only after awakening his soul to the source of the healing. Thus, this man realizes that God enables him to see and feel, with wonder and awe, as the approaching God in Jesus Christ opens his ears and unlooses his tongue. There is a double kind of miracle going on here. The man is healed physically but learns spiritually that his sufficiency, or ability to hear and speak, comes from God.
We read also that Christ sighs or groans before He brings about the healing. Christ loves us all truly and longs for nothing more than to heal us from the sad wreckage that sin has caused in the world.

No doubt, we must conclude that physical handicaps like blindness, deafness, and others come from a fallen world. The sadness and sorrow we feel as a fallen race are real and palpable. With St. Paul, we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body… [For] we hope for [what] we [do not yet]see…[and so] we with patience wait for it. (Romans viii. 23) And so, as the Venerable Bede teaches us, [Jesus] looks up to Heaven to teach us that is from there that the dumb must seek speech, the deaf hearing, and all who suffer healing. He [sighed or] groaned, not because he needed to seek with groaning anything from the Father…but that he might give us an example of groaning, when we must call upon the assistance of the heavenly mercy…. (Ibid, 2). Jesus sighs to show us that we must, with deepest inward sighing and groaning, supplicate Heaven for whatever healing we desire. Jesus sighs or groans because He loves us more than we love Him and longs to give to us more than we desire or deserve. (Collect) 

The words of other men have started today’s miracle on course to fruition. But to become conscious of the power of God’s Word, we must ask it for ourselves. Our Collect reveals the kind of miracle that we need. Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. (Collect) Beyond and more important than our earthly handicaps, our souls fear past sins and the wreckage that we have wrought by them; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, and the burden of them is intolerable. (General Confession: HC Service, BCP 1928) When we are given spiritual ears with which to hear the truth about ourselves, we become conscious of the horror and shame of the past lives we have lived. Our consciences are afraid; they tremble before the presence of Almighty God. In the presence of God’s Word, Jesus Christ, we pray for those good things which we are not worthy to ask. (Collect) We do not deserve to hear, and yet God desires to open our ears. We are ashamed to speak, and yet His Word slowly but surely gives us those words that can establish friendship with Him.

Jesus says Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. (St. Mark vii. 35) Jesus hears the Word of the Father and speaks His Word. The man now can both hear and speak. The deep impression of God’s heartfelt desire for his salvation now opens his heart to follow Jesus.  

And he charged them that they should tell no man….(Ibid, 36, 37) The new miracle will take time to perfect. Without any fanfare or boasting, we must patiently allow God’s Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, to give us the words with which to approach Him. Perhaps, we are deaf to God’s Word and cannot speak His truth. But Jesus knows all this and wants to help us to learn to speak with Him. Ephphatha, Be Opened, Jesus says. Jesus longs to open the ears of our souls so that we might begin to desire what we don’t deserve but what He insists that we should learn to have.

In the simplest of terms, we begin to hear Christ’s words, Come follow me. Christ calls us to follow Him quietly in the journey up to His Cross. There, we shall see and hear how He offers Himself completely to us. There we shall see and hear how quiet He becomes as the whole world turns on Him. Of course, He isn’t deaf to the accusations of sinful men. Rather, He knows that they are deaf to God’s Word and so cannot speak the truth. So, He is intent upon accomplishing His own work as God’s Word, made flesh, spoken and shared to be heard by those who, in faith, will hear and understand the meaning for salvation. Then, with redeemed words, because we have heard, we shall exclaim, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. (Ibid, 37)
Amen.
©wjsmartin