|
|
|
|
It's a Secret: Don't Tell Anyone I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anyone. Just don't say you heard it from me. I knew if you read that first paragraph you'd read the second. Secrets are as fun to hear as they are to tell. This problem faces Jesus in the Gospel these next two Sundays. The two episodes happen almost a chapter apart in Mark, but in each case, Jesus is trying to get people to just shut up. First we meet a person who is hearing impaired and has a speech impediment (7:31-37). By this point in the Gospel, we can predict what will happen. The problem is identified, Jesus cures it, proof of the cure happens, and the crowd reacts. Once the evangelists found this formula to tell the healing stories, they rarely changed it. A closer look reveals some interesting tidbits, though. For example, the story begins with some geographical references. Look these cities up sometime. Mark has Jesus going in circles. It makes us wonder why? Did Jesus get lost? Did Mark lose his map when he wrote this section? Or is Jesus walking all around Gentile territory as a teaser for the future ministry of the church? So far, Mark has kept Jesus in Galillee, working with the Jews. All that will change shortly. This is the last episode before the big switch in Mark's Gospel--but I'm getting ahead of myself. Jesus takes the disabled person off alone, a hint that he'll be trying to contain rumors about what will follow. Then, he conducts the most bizarre ritual in the Gospel: He sticks his fingers in the deaf ears, touches the enfeebled tongue with spit (Does he spit in this person's face?), groans loud enough for heaven to hear, and then says, "Ephphatha." (Kids, this is for professionals only. Do not try this at home.) It works, however strange his method. The proof of the miracle comes in the demonstration of good diction. "Ephphatha," incidentally, is one of those words left untranslated in the Bible--like Alleluia, Hosanna, and Amen. It probably had come into liturgical usage early on, and people preferred the actual expression to a translation--just as the animals serving the Lion King prefer saying "Hakuna matata" to "No worries." We may still say "Ephphatha" when we pray over babies and adults being baptized. (I don't know why, but we say the word before baptism for adults but after baptism for babies.) In baptism, it's a prayer that the new members of the church will hear the word and proclaim it. Finally, Jesus asks the crowd to tell no one what happened. Fat chance. They're off telling everyone he makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. This is an important proclamation, because it reminds people of prophecies in Isaiah which foretold the Messiah would do the same. That brings us to next Sunday's Gospel (Mark 8:27-35). Jesus asks who the disciples think he is, and Peter says "You're the Messiah." This episode is the watershed of Mark's Gospel, coming almost exactly at the story's middle. Everything's been leading up to this point, which launches the rest of the narrative. Even the geography changes. This conversation takes place up in the north, in Caesarea Philippi. Now Jesus heads south to Jerusalem where he will meet his death. The first part of Mark's Gospel has asked who Jesus is. Once Peter tells us, the second part of the Gospel spirals down toward the inevitable finish of the Messiah's earthly life. The word "Messiah" means "anointed." In Greek, it's "Christos", the word which gives us Jesus' title, Christ, and the name for the oil we use in our most solemn anointings, chrism. Kings began their service after being anointed with chrism. To call Jesus Messiah is to proclaim him king. But a fussy Jesus wants the disciples to pipe down about the whole business. No one will understand what kind of king he will be. The disciples hope for good connections in Jesus' court. But Jesus tells them immediately that he will suffer and die before he rises again. He will be a king who bleeds. Wanting none of that, Peter suggests that Jesus change his image. Jesus, furious, gives Peter another title, much less glorious than the one Peter just gave him. Jesus calls Peter Satan. Those who reject the suffering Messiah have no part of his life. Jesus' desire to hush people up shows his fear that they'll get the story wrong. They'll think he's a magician, a miracle worker, a political leader, a blueblood. He is not. He's his kind of Messiah, and people would not understand it till he rose from the dead. Why did they reject the idea that their master would suffer? Partly because they loved him. Partly because they feared that one of his secrets might well be true: What happens to the master, happens to the disciple. [Published in the Catholic Key 9/4/94 for the 23rd & 24th Sundays in Ordinary Time] |
