September 2009 Sánchez Sunday Commentaries & Sample Homilies (B)
TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)
September 6, 2009
Seeing Beyond Appearances
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez
Isa 35:4-7
James 2:1-5
Mark 7:31-37
In April, during the first-round competition of “Britain’s Got Talent,” a self-admittedly “frumpy” 47-year-old woman took the stage before a panel of judges and a live audience. As she walked to center stage, a rumbling of comments and giggles could be heard from the audience, and the judges — who have a reputation for critical and even caustic assessment of the contestants — looked both amused and apprehensive.
Nothing happened to disperse the cynicism in the air during the short interview. When the woman announced that she wanted to be a professional singer like Elaine Page, her words were almost drowned out by derisive laughter. But when Susan Boyle opened her mouth and began to sing “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables,” the audience grew hushed, then flabbergasted, and then they were on their feet cheering and clapping.
They had thought they knew what to expect because they were judging Boyle based on her appearance. When she began to sing, their expectations and their judgments were proven to be completely wrong. Not only could she sing, but she proved herself to be an extraordinarily talented person in a quite ordinary body.
In today’s second reading, the author of James addresses this human penchant for making hasty and faulty judgments of others based on preconceived notions and outward appearances. He encourages his readers to make their own the mind and heart of God, who does not show partiality. Indeed, God chooses the poor and those whom others may regard as unworthy or incapable “to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.”
Indirectly, the first reading from the prophet Isaiah and today’s Marcan Gospel press home a similar point. Both sacred texts are concerned with the well-being of the blind, the deaf, the lame and the mute, whose natural afflictions were exacerbated by the treatment they received at the hands of their contemporaries. Because all physical, psychological and emotional ailments were attributed in some way to sin and were regarded as deserved punishment for sin, members of the community who preferred to remain ritually clean avoided people who suffered with these problems.
As Gail Ramshaw has pointed out, such erroneous judgment has recurred repeatedly in history (Treasures Old and New: Images in the Lectionary, Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2002). Even today, there are some who continue to perpetrate the untruth that AIDS is a punishment for a particular lifestyle. Jesus did not judge by appearances but worked to restore wholeness to broken human bodies and spirits. Remembering his compassion should motivate his followers to withhold judgment and serve the needs of all without partiality.
Happily, most of us do not judge a person as sinful because they contract a disease. The deaf, the blind, the lame, the mute are no longer outcasts, but neither are their needs fully met. Withholding judgment continues to be a work in progress. The words of James continue to demand a hearing when we decide a person’s worth by the color of their skin, the slant of their eyes, their accent, the neighborhood in which they live, the car they drive or the clothes they wear.
What is your reaction when you see a person dressed all in black, with their hair in spikes, wearing a dog collar, chains and several body tattoos? We might be shocked by their outward appearance, but when they begin to tell us of their volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity or their efforts toward preserving the environment, they prove our preconceptions wrong. And although clothes certainly do not make the man or the woman, even serial killers know that their manner of dress may have some influence on a jury. To that end, they appear in court clean-shaven, well-dressed and with hope that their physical respectability will somehow speak more loudly than the truth of their crimes.
Prejudice can also be prompted by age. Older persons who have grown physically feeble are sometimes judged to be feeble in other ways as well. We tend to talk louder to them; we call them “Sweetie” and suppose that their wrinkles reflect a diminished intellectual capacity. Then they surprise us with their wisdom and sharp wit. Young people, too, with their unique fashion sense and physical demeanor, are sometimes misjudged by others who present themselves differently to the world.
Because of our tendency to size up others with eyes that are not always illumined by grace, James’ challenge remains relevant. All who hear him today, whether we have come to this gathering wearing fine clothes or shabby ones, are reminded that faith in our impartial God invites us to see as God sees, to judge as God judges, and to discover and respect the inherent value and dignity of others, however these God-given qualities may be presented or disguised.
Isa 35:4-7
Paired with the Gospel, this Isaian text underscores the human need for wholeness and the divine passion for making it so. Although fear and brokenness are the plight of humankind without God, this plight is also a perfect venue for God to manifest healing and comfort.
The plight of Isaiah and his contemporaries came in the form of oppression from Assyria. Having warned against the threat of conquest, Isaiah witnessed the fall of Israel and dedicated most of his literary efforts to warning his fellow Judahites that a similar fate would befall them unless they believed and trusted completely in God. Counseling against other alliances, the prophet continually called for covenantal fidelity and warned of the consequences of failure in this regard.
A consensus of scholars suggests that because of their apocalyptic character, Isaiah 24-27 along with 34-35 should be evaluated separately from the rest of Isaiah 1-39. These chapters seem to have been added to the eighth-century B.C.E. prophet’s writings by the Isaian school sometime during or after the Babylonian exile. When set against this historical background, the message of hope, healing and restoration in these passages can be more readily appreciated.
These chapters are similar to the writings of Deutero-Isaiah, and so some scholars attribute them to that unnamed prophet, who endured the exile with his contemporaries. Christopher R. Seitz has called Isaiah 35 the “redactional bridge linking the two Isaiahs” (Isaiah 1-39, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1993). In the depiction of a restored Israel, the blossoming wilderness, the opened eyes of the blind and the healing of the deaf, the mute and the lame, we are given a glimpse of the joy that will characterize Israel’s reconciliation with God and restoration to its own homeland. Centuries after the exile, when other oppressors threatened the well-being of the Israelites, visions like this one fed the hopes of the people; they awaited a messiah, a vindicator who would intercede on their behalf.
Christians understand that Isaiah’s promised vindication was accomplished in the person and through the mission of Jesus. This understanding is cleverly affirmed by an interesting connection between this Isaian text and today’s Marcan Gospel. In sharing this vision of hope, Isaiah used the term mogilalos to describe the deaf. The term is a hapax legomenon; that is, it appears only here and nowhere else in the Hebrew scriptures, However, the same term, mogilalos, is also a hapax legomenon in the Christian scriptures, appearing only once, in today’s Marcan Gospel. By using this specific word, Mark assured his readers that their messianic expectations were being fulfilled in Jesus and that wholeness is made available to all who will believe and bring their brokenness to him for healing.
James 2:1-5
If you go to a hospital or clinic and see a person wearing a white coat over street clothes, it is safe to assume that they are a medical professional. If you are seated and served in a restaurant by a person in a uniform and apron, you are probably correct in identifying them as a member of the wait staff. If you glance into the kitchen and see someone with a tall, starched white hat, it’s probably the chef. As you leave the restaurant and walk to your car, you might see scantily clad young women and men flagging down cars that cruise slowly by; their makeup and demeanor lead you to suppose that they are pursuing the world’s oldest profession.
If you make your way through an airport, you can easily recognize flight attendants and pilots by their uniforms and insignia. So also are police officers and military personnel readily identified. Clothes may convey information about what a person does for a living. Clothes may even offer a hint as to a person’s monetary wealth, but clothes can never be a true gauge of character or personal value.
This was the point that the early Christian author of James was making for his readers. Expensive clothing and fine jewelry reveal nothing of a person’s inner self; neither do shabby clothes tell the truth that lies within. Therefore, the manner with which each person is welcomed and treated cannot and should not be dictated by their wardrobe.
Advice similar to that of James can be found in a second-century Ethiopian document called Statutes of the Apostles, which attests to the persistence of this sort of problem. “If a man or woman enters in fine clothes … while the presbyter speaks the word which is concerning God … you shall not respect persons, nor leave your ministering to command places for them … and if a poor person should come and there is no place for them, you presbyters make a place for such with all your heart, even if you will sit on the ground.”
James had a fear, insisted William Barclay, that snobbery would infiltrate the Christian community (“The Letters of James and Peter,” The Daily Study Bible, The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, U.K.: 1976). In the ancient world, the church was one of the few places — if not the only place — where social distinctions were not tolerated. No doubt it produced a certain awkwardness when believing slave owners found themselves sitting next to their slaves who also believed and followed Jesus. In its early years, the church was comprised predominantly of the poor. For that reason, it must have been tempting, when a rich person converted to Christ, to make a fuss and treat that person as a special “trophy.” Nevertheless, James insisted that such distinctions and judgments regarding the worth of a person were contradictory to Christianity’s all-inclusive embrace.
Mark 7:31-37
Mark’s description of Jesus’ itinerary in this Gospel can only be described as circuitous. Sidon was north of Tyre and not on the way to the Sea of Galilee; the Decapolis was north and west of the sea. Some scholars attribute this roundabout route to Mark’s lack of knowledge regarding Palestinian geography. Others point to a theological motive, suggesting that Jesus’ forays into gentile territory illustrated his intention to make unnecessary the barriers that separated gentile from Jew. This latter suggestion is probably more correct, given the fact that the Marcan Jesus had just set aside the laws regarding clean and unclean (7:14-22) and opened the way for unity between Jew and gentile in the kingdom he had come to announce and establish.
Because Jesus was in gentile territory, it is safe to assume that the deaf man brought to him was not a Jew. Although Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries would have judged the man to have been doubly disadvantaged — first by his ethnicity and then by his physical challenge — Jesus saw beyond appearances and welcomed his encounter with the deaf man as an opportunity to bring healing and wholeness into his life. The man’s gentile background and handicap were not disadvantages. They proved to be a venue for manifesting God’s universal saving concerns.
In telling of the man’s cure, Mark was also pressing forward the “messianic secret” motif, which threads throughout his Gospel. Jesus took the man off by himself, away from a crowd that may have wanted to make him a king. Once he healed the man, Jesus ordered him to tell no one. This order is almost comical: The man had just been made capable of hearing and speaking normally. Nevertheless, the Marcan Jesus would be fully revealed only later, on the cross, for his was to be a messiahship of suffering and service.
Although the techniques Jesus used to heal the deaf person may seem unusual (some suggest an air of “magic”), they were well-attested among other healers of his day. A similar method of healing is recounted in Suetonius’ Life of Vespasian, where the protagonist cured a blind man. By looking up to heaven, Jesus signaled the divine source of his power to heal. His sigh could be understood as a wordless prayer of trust in God.
However, those translations that describe Jesus’ action as a groan suggest that he was battle-weary. Each of his healings is represented as a confrontation with evil, because the ancients believed that every malady could be attributed to a demon. With a word (“Ephphatha!”) and through his actions, Jesus showed his superior power over evil in all its manifestations.
In verse 37, the comment on this encounter combines two texts from the Hebrew scriptures. The first, “He has done all things well,” references the verdict of God upon creation (Gen 1:31). The second comment about the deaf and the mute being able to hear and speak reprises and fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah (35:5-6). Through his words and works, Jesus embodied the creative and recreative power of God, which continues to bring healing and salvation to a broken, needy world.
Sample Homily September 6, 2009
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time