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SERMONS

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 7, 2003

As I am sure many of you did, I spent a good bit of this past spring watching the war in Iraq on television. One of the things that struck me repeatedly as I watched was the utter desolation of that part of the world. The great majority of the land of the entire Arabian Peninsula is desert in which little grows and where survival is a constant concern for animals and for people.

Yet the emptiness is not complete. For in some areas plants have been built to turn salt water into fresh water. With a supply of water for irrigation, crops can be planted in the desert. With adequate water plants flourish under the bright, constant sun of that part of the world. Land that was brown and barren becomes green and alive. Life is brought forth out of death.

In the chapter of the Book of Isaiah that immediately precedes the passage we just read, the prophet was describing the vengeance that the Lord would take on the land of Edom. This was a land just south of the Dead Sea, and of the southern kingdom of Israel. The description is reminiscent of those images of last spring from Iraq.

"For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into brimstone; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up for ever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.... Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches, and wild beasts shall meet with hyenas."

In the passage that we did read, Isaiah described the way in which the wilderness would be transformed in the day of the Lord. The renewal of creation that would occur when the Lord returned to restore his chosen people to the land of promise: the eyes of the blind shall be opened; the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped; the lame man shall leap like a hart; the tongue of the speechless shall sing for joy; waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool; and the thirsty ground springs of water.

The image is one of almost unstoppable growth. Of new sight and of new sound. Of life bursting forth at the command of God. Of a flood of creation to almost rival that story of the first creation. Of life from death. An image of the final victory of the Lord over those forces standing in opposition to him. Of the ushering in of the kingdom of God.

This is the image that the writer of Mark's gospel almost certainly had in mind as he recounted Jesus' healing of the deaf man. The incident took place in the region of the Decapolis, a gentile region east of the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee. A man who was deaf and who had difficulty speaking was brought to Jesus. And he healed him. A simple act. One Jesus seemingly performed several times a day. And yet so much more. For this act was an act of the kingdom, a sign of the end times. An indication that the reign of God was already at hand, already breaking through. At the word of the Lord, "Ephatha ... Be opened," the ears of the deaf were unstopped, the tongue of the speechless sang for joy.

The Lord said, "For as rain and snow fall from the heavens, and return not again but water the earth, bringing forth life and giving growth, seed for sowing and bread for eating, so is my word that goes forth from my mouth; it will not return to me empty; but it will accomplish that which I have purposed, and prosper in that for which I sent it."

The word of the Lord. Sounding the breaking in of the kingdom. Bringing forth life, new life, where there was death. And once spoken that word was not swallowed up by the silence, as so many of our words are. Mark tells us that those who witnessed the healing were charged to tell no one. Yet the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

The word cannot be contained. It cannot be controlled. It cannot be silenced. We have been given that word. It has been spoken to the church and to each of us as members of the body of Christ. But we cannot hold it. We cannot keep it as our possession. We have been given the word so that we may speak it. We have been given the word so that we may proclaim it from the roof tops.

James reminds us: "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.... He who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing."

The word compels us to action. It works continually to bring in the kingdom of God, to call forth new life, to raise up the dead. And it calls us who have experienced that new life, who are a part of the kingdom, who have seen a glimpse of the glory of God -it calls us to give ourselves over to it, to allow ourselves to be drawn up into the kingdom, to be transformed.

The task sounds overwhelming, beyond our capability. But the writer Frederick Buechner has a suggestion. He say, "Don't try too hard to feel religious, to generate some healing power of your own. Think of yourself rather (if you have to think of yourself at all) as a rather small gauge, clogged up pipe that a little of God's power may be able to filter through if you can just stay loose enough." We don't have to supply the water. Perhaps we can think of ourselves as the irrigation pipes - small, a bit rusty, clogged up. But adequate for the job, not of watering the entire desert, but just our little corner.

And we are not called to our task alone. We are called to work together each of us helping the other. So that the desert may rejoice and blossom with joy and singing.

David Christian
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi

Isaiah 35.4-7a
James 1.17-27
Mark 7.31-37