Trinity 12
How often do you stop and listen to the sounds of life?
While back in Minnesota with my family the past couple of weeks, I encouraged my children after four-wheeler rides to just listen to the world around them - the sounds of creation, the humming of bugs as they flew by, the wind was whipping across the southern Minnesota prairie as the sun set in the west.
It was peaceful and tranquil.
But then the sun set. And darkness, along with the sounds of coyotes and other temporal threats, disrupted the tranquility. A stark reminder that death is not far from us as we live out our days in the shadow of Eden’s shattered bliss and the inherited sin of Adam flows through our veins, misplacing our words and actions from the Christian life we have been called into.
Martin Luther wrote regarding our Gospel today:
A Christian life consists in this: that, first, we believe and trust in our Savior, Christ, and are assured that we are not forsaken by Him, no matter what need or danger happens. Second, every Christian should also act toward friend and enemy the way he sees that Christ is so willing to help everyone. Whoever does this is a Christian. Whoever does not do this, however, may be called a Christian but is not one. These two cannot be separated; the fruit of faith must follow, or the faith is not real.[1]
So, all this leads to a dichotomy, are you a person whose heart is being turned towards God, or is your heart orientated towards the world you have immersed?
Reflect on the words you spoke this past week, the emails you sent, and the tweets you tweeted. Have they been filled with the fruits of the faith? What did they confess? Who did they confess?
Many of us have roles, positions, and occupations that require the use of written and spoken words every day – but do these words reveal a Christian who truly sits, listens, trusts, and receives the wisdom and Word of Christ Jesus? Or are these words a reflection of the shattered world we believe we can save through our verbal sparring and conniving?
Jesus says in the Gospel of St. Matthew, “By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:37)
In today’s Gospel, we heard, “Then they brought to [Jesus] one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged [Jesus] to put His hand on him.”
You have a man who has probably experienced being deaf and having a speech impediment since birth. He could not communicate or be understood. Yet, this man had true friends willing to bring him before Jesus, ready to plead and beg on his behalf, "Just put your hand on him, and he will be healed."
Do you bring the needs of your neighbors before God in your prayers with such vigor and humility?
Or do you pray the familiar words of Psalm 141, “Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity.” (Psalm 141:3-4b) In other words, do not incline my heart to join the company or the mobs of wicked people.
Interestingly, Jesus takes the deaf man aside. He takes him away from the multitude. He doesn’t ask the man any questions either. The Scriptures simply say, “[He] put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’”
In one sense, the manner and method in which Jesus heals the deaf man (by touching his ears and tongue) confesses His two natures – He’s true God and true Man. He is physically and tangibly involved with His creation.
But then Jesus sighs, not an audible expression of exhaustion or relief, but a groan of discontentment with creation. So St. Paul says to the disciples in Rome, “We also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8.23).
And this is what the deaf man receives, adoption and redemption.
You also receive this through the waters of Holy Baptism, adoption, and redemption.
Now, many of you recall these words of Jesus from the baptismal rite at Immanuel, “‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened,’” these are not words required for the Baptism to be valid. Instead, they teach that the faithful Christian is one who continually listens and receives God’s redemptive Word through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Gregory the Great, the bishop of Rome in the sixth century, whose commemoration was yesterday, wrote some fantastic words regarding today’s Gospel, “The Spirit is called the finger of God. When the Lord put his fingers into the ears of the deaf mute, he was opening the soul of man to faith through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.”4
Likewise, this occurred for you in Holy Baptism. The Holy Spirit is given through the water and the Word spoken into your ears. The gifts of faith are bestowed upon you as a treasure and gift – like the man in the Gospel, you could only receive.
And this leads to a significant difference between the Christian and the unbeliever.
Through today’s Gospel, we see and learn how the ears become the eyes of the heart. The ears hear, and the heart believes. The tongue then confesses this faith of the heart.
Truthfully, if one was to do away with the tongue and the ears, there would be no difference between the kingdom of heaven and this world. Like the unbeliever, you, the Christian, toils, eats, sleeps, and strives through life. But for the Christian, the ears and the tongue are the difference between you and the unbeliever – because the ears listen and receive the Word made flesh, while the tongue confesses His glorious death and resurrection throughout all creation, throughout all the days of life. (Martin Luther)
So what are we to do? We must become better listeners, not just to our friends, family, or enemies – but first and foremost, to God’s Holy Word. Because where God’s Word is present, so the Holy Spirit works and creates faith in each of us – “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” (Romans 10:17)
As Paul goes on to say in Galatians, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23) The world should see and hear this when we speak and confess our Jesus. Our Savior.
Still, we are not without sin. We grow discontent with the world we have immersed ourselves and the broken relationships our words continue to cause. When this occurs, we should sigh and groan with Jesus. We should lament and beg for God's mercy. And then rejoice because through your Baptism, you have received adoption and redemption. You have been set apart to live as new creations.
So let us put away the noise of this life and turn back to God our Father’s creative Word, listen to His Son, Jesus Christ, who has the Words of eternal life, and pray for God the Holy Spirit to guide you into the way of life everlasting. The way of charity and love. +INJ+
[1] Luther, M. (2016). Luther’s Works: Church Postil V. (B. T. G. Mayes, J. L. Langebartels, & C. B. Brown, Eds.) (Vol. 79, p. 37). Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House.
