"Open Our Ears and Loosen Our Tongues"
Mark 7: 31-37; 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31
January 21, 2007
Week of Unity through Prayer

It says Jesus put his fingers in the deaf man’s ears. Usually that’s what we do when we don’t want to hear what’s being said. But Jesus does it as the beginning of restoring this man’s hearing….his opening up to a new possibility and new speech…and Jesus does so in private.

Hmmmnn…. I like that Jesus takes him aside…for privacy…perhaps so Jesus could focus, perhaps so the other felt no pressure from anyone else, no hint of humiliation or pridefulness.

Jesus’ action has me wondering what it is I should resist hearing….not be listening to. I’m thinking what he would have me stop listening to are all those voices that are doing harm by shaping a false perception of what’s really going on, closing me and others down…our energy, our desire, voices manipulating my thinking, feelings, actions.

If Jesus walked along side me through my day, when would he stick his fingers in my ears so I would be able to resist the false messages going on all around me…about me, about others, about God? Would he stick his fingers in my ears when….there’s that big push to get the kids up out of bed and it’s getting late and lots of tones change? When an off color joke is told at work or school? When there is gossiping going on around me? When there is an argument, accusations, manipulations happening in front of me? I wish Jesus would stick his fingers in my ears!

If I didn’t get hooked by what I hear, I just might be opened to a new possibility for me in the moment, for the day…

Would I, like the deaf mute man, then be freed to speak plainly?
If released and opened, would I really speak at all…speak up that is?
Would my ears be opened and my tongue loosed?

Not only hear, but listen. Not only look, but see. This is the healing that is offered.
And the call?
Not only think, but speak! Not only desire change, but be the change.

What is it we are being called to hear and see, say and be?

Given Paul’s words to us this day, maybe we begin to get a sense of our call when we realize God has intentionally made us each unique, we are not alike…and that’s a good thing….each one of us honored and valued in God’s eyes…and needed for the body of Christ to be able to function to its whole potential.

We are called to stop striving to be a foot when we are a hand, an eye when we are a bowel, brain when we are a heart. Rich when we’re poor. An A student when we’re a B student. Happy when we’re sad. A follower when we’re a leader. …Called to accept ourselves and then others.

Why?
Cause when anyone is not heard, or doesn’t speak up, not honored, when one suffers, we all suffer….this is what Paul says. Do you believe it?

Last week someone came in and shared with me that they have so much freedom in their lives to do and not do whatever they like that it is as if they are accountable to no one…not even themselves. I resonated with that. And then what came to me is simply this: each of us, you, are accountable to the hungry child in China each time you eat that extra piece of bread, to the teenager in Afghanistan desperate to be in school each time you get lazy with what you know, to the homeless mother and family in Brazil each time you fail to recycle your newspaper. For as their hunger, poverty, need for education continues….it affects you right where you live. In selfish terms, it affects your taxes, our import/export status as a country, the possibility of yet more wars of desperation. But more importantly, it affects the heart of God placed within you….it fills with sadness instead of delight, exhaustion instead of energy, unrest and sleeplessness instead of peace.

You are accountable…to the world….to each other…that one by you in the pew this morning, over at Tippe, bowing at the Islamic Center and chanting in the synagogues.
And we have a way to begin to move into that reality with power and grace because we don’t do it alone….we are held in communities…where we can practice being human beings, living from the heart of God within us, and given the ability to really listen and really speak…..using our gifts, striving for the greater gift….real love, real love.

What is it you are being called to hear and see?
What is it you are being called to say and do?
How are we to be an interfaith community….now?

Today we gather around our prayer for Christian and Interfaith unity. It is easy to profess our love of God and acknowledge God's love for us....love for all people. But unity is not easy, it is hard! It almost seems too hard to wrap our hearts and minds, our ears and tongues around....too hard all of us becoming one, until we remember God works one moment, one person, one prayer, one pew, one miracle at a time....that's how God changes the world. Let this be the one moment, the one prayer, and let each of us be that one person and let the miracle begin in each one of us as we share our real lives with the One Who Loves Us….whose got his finger stuck in YOUR ear this morning!