"God's Work, Our Hands Sunday"

Mark 7:31-37

Last month when Jamie and I drove downeast to visit our daughter Casey in Wilmington, we went by way of Raleigh. If you aren’t familiar with the eastern part of the state, that is not the most direct route between Shelby and Wilmington.

If you had a map and followed Jesus as he left Tyre and went through Sidon and down to the region of the Decapolis, his route would look a lot like the one we took.

Taking this route, Jesus left behind the familiar Galilean countryside and traveled to the large, heavily Hellenized cities of Tyre and of Sidon, twenty-five miles to its north. These were commercially magnificent port cities on the Mediterranean coast, well north of Galilee, in modern-day Lebanon. And then he continued on to the Decapolis which was a confederation of ten cities to the southeast of Galilee. In these urban settings, Jesus and his disciples would have encountered people, sounds and sights that were strange and sometimes hostile.

Just as his journey takes Jesus into new territory geographically, his ministry also takes a visible turn, as he widens his audience to include not only traditionally Jewish followers but the whole world. As a Jew in these cities Greek in culture and dominated by Gentiles, Jesus would have been an outsider but the division between insiders and outsiders is one of the first casualties of the Gospel that makes no distinction between Jew and Greek, slave or free, male and female. (Galatians 3:28)

Today’s gospel includes two different encounters and I’m going to focus on the second one which begins in verse 31, when people bring “to [Jesus] a man who was deaf and could hardly talk” and they ask Jesus to heal him. (Mark 7:32)

We don’t know a lot more about the man and because this account is unique to Mark’s gospel, we can’t even turn to the other gospels to find clues. We can look at what is missing. Sometimes in the gospels when Jesus meets a person in need of healing, the community has questions about the sin they have committed or that their parents committed. The question that gets asked is, “What did they do to deserve this suffering?”

Sometimes, the person is possessed by an evil spirit or a demon, and has been cast out, shunned and made unwelcome.

But, here, perhaps because this meeting takes place in the Decapolis, outside the religious community, this man isn’t subject to any of that scrutiny. His need is simply made known to Jesus, and meeting him, Jesus says,

“Be opened.”

And maybe that’s all we really need to know about the man.

After all, as Lutheran pastor David Lose writes, “Because whatever else we don’t understand, we do know what it is like to be stuck, to be closed, to be blocked.”[i] There is a dark and heavy powerlessness that covers you when you are frozen by uncertainty or doubt, trapped or unable to move, or blocked by obstacles that overwhelm you. And, while physical or bodily healing, cures and remission from disease are not always possible, God’s healing presence is always offered to us in Jesus.

Throughout his gospel, “Mark emphasizes the powerful acts of Jesus….[showing that] in Jesus, God has intervened in human history.” (Nissen, 39) Despite often being commanded by Jesus “not to tell anyone” about these encounters, people cannot resist sharing the stories of their experiences with the Son of God. They bear witness to the transformation that Jesus brings: to the restoration of hope and to the confidence in God’s promises. And people notice! Their eyes, too, are opened to God’s healing presence in the world.

With abundant and indiscriminate mercy, God, who created us for life-giving relationship, renews and restores us.

Today, on this “God’s Work, Our Hands” Sunday when Lutheran congregations across the country are engaged in projects that proclaim the Good News of Jesus in our communities, the description of Jesus’ physical actions– thrusting, spitting, touching, looking up, sighing, speaking – emphasizes the importance of our physical presence and witness in the world. Ours is a living and active faith.

Later in worship, after the offering, you are invited to be anointed for service in the world. Anointing is rooted in ritual that proclaims the presence of Christ in our lives as we come before God in prayer and prepare to embody God’s love in our community. I’ll stand at the font with the oil and the words:

“I anoint you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. May the work begun and continued and ended in and through you bring glory to Christ in his holy church.”

Today, and every day, “God’s Work, Our Hands” isn’t just a slogan; it is how we live out the gospel, showing up so that people will know the unlimited love that God has for each one of us.

Let us pray…
Holy God,
Thank you for the gift of Your Son Jesus who shows forth your love and mercy.
Open our hearts to love as we are first loved and open our eyes to see your children as you see each one of us, whole and healed.
Send us into every corner of the world, united by your love.
We pray in the name of Jesus,
Amen.

[i] In the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2012/06/mark-7-31-37/ accessed 9/6/2018