Be Open

This is a excerpt from a sermon Nadia Bolz Weber preached in Nashville, TN at the Festival of Homiletics. Having read her blog for quite some time, I really wanted to go and hear her live but it didn't work out. I'm really glad she posts them! You can read the entire post here...


Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into 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.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.  -Mark 7


...Because when Jesus showed up in Decapolis and THEY brought him the deaf man, Jesus didn’t play into the whole “we’re fine but here’s the broken guy” thing – instead he took the deaf man away from the THEY. He removes him from that whole system of designated well people and designated sick people. And then, Jesus, in yet another example of having obviously failed his boundaries workshop in seminary,  sticks his fingers in this man’s ears and spits and touched his tongue and then looks to heaven and the text says he sighed. Of course he sighed.  He was probably sick to death of this nonsense.  He looked to heaven and sighed. And the thing is, Jesus didn’t then rebuke the man or his deafness…he didn’t say I cast out the demon of deafness.  He just removed him from the supposedly well people, touched him, looked to heaven, sighed and said “BE OPEN”.