Today's Gospel

The Gospel today was the story in Mark in which Jesus heals a deaf-mute. It also just so happens to present us with one of the few instances in the Gospels when an actual Aramaic word is quoted: “And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.”

Our sermon quickly cut to the metaphoric significance of the deaf man. People are deaf to the Word of God and, to hear it, their ears must be opened.

So, I was listening for what message people were not hearing and needed to be opened to: perhaps God’s acceptance and forgiveness, the command of love, the call to service, the empty promise of material things, the virtue of humility, or some other common Biblical theme. But, no. Today, our pastor skipped over that. The best he could do for examples of where the divine voice cries out from the depths and yet falls on deaf ears were the evil of co-habitation before marriage and the ban against non-Catholics taking Communion at Catholic weddings and funerals. As someone once said in another context: "If this is your god, you have a severe ontological problem."

“If Jesus Christ came back today and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.” Woody Allen