I don't like to gossip, so listen carefully

Mark 7:32-37

          I can recall a scene from The Music Man where one of the townswomen said 'of course I shouldn't tell you this but.....' and then blabs the whole story.  Gossip is such a constant in our culture, perhaps in some places more than others but some people seem to thrive on it. Perhaps they just can't help themselves. I love the face book posting of the Victorian clad woman who says, ' I don't like to gossip, so listen carefully, I'm only going to say this once!' It seems minding one's own business or keep confidences is a lost art and no longer respected. Perhaps it never was. The more Jesus admonishes the  crowd not tell in today's passage, the more they do.

             Commentary on gossip aside, there seems to be a dichotomy here between the two halves of this passage. There is the deaf mute  who then becomes a speaking, hearing person.

             Sometimes we tend to look at someone with maladies (or so judged by society) and say how sad it is. Yet the person if healed, falls into a trap of  taking things for granted and perhaps stunting their sensibilities to others so 'afflicted'. I would never argue not to help someone we can help but can I play the fine line here and say that there is a giftedness in some adversities that we have to go through? Think Stevie Wonder, Andre Boccelli.

           I wish my nephew never had the heartache and trials of being a severe arthritic. But I am astounded at the magnitude and love that he has shared with the world. He rises far above anyone I have ever met.

           When my own mother suffered for 10 years in a extended care facility, a shell of her former self, I had said it was the worst 10 years of my life, not to mention hers needless to say. But even though I would cure my nephew if I could or take the pain away from my Mom, I know there is a sacredness to each situation that reveals God's love, the strength and still fragility of life that we must embrace. Those ten years became blessed years when I see them in a better lens.

                Do we embrace adversity and accept it? Do we say it is because of some one's sins or the sins of a father or grandparent? No, that makes no sense. We do not resign but we choose to see adversity through the lens of love and faith. 

           

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. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’