Sermon for the 12th Sunday after Trinity, 2020

Trinity XII

Dcn. Bill Johnston

Jesus healed people that He never met. While He was in Capernaum, an official from Cana came and begged Jesus to return with him, for his son was at the point of death. Jesus simply said, “Go thy way; thy son liveth.” The boy, 17 miles away, was immediately healed.   

The healing recorded in our reading for today’s Gospel, however, is very different. In fact, it is one of the most personal and detailed healings recorded in the Gospels. This alone should get our attention. There is a second reason, however, we should take careful note of this passage. It shows us how God gives grace to His people today. 

Mark 7, verses 31-37 is found on page 206 of the Prayer Book. A man who is deaf and has a speech impediment is brought to Jesus by an unnamed “they.” He is living in a world of complete silence, and unable to speak to people. This man, so isolated from the world around him, is taken aside privately by Jesus. In contrast the healing of the official’s son, this healing occurs in stages. First, to heal his deafness, Jesus puts His fingers into the man’s ears.  Then to heal his speech impediment, He spits on His finger and touches the man’s tongue. Finally, He looks up to heaven and says “Ephphatha.” Since the Babylonian Captivity, Aramaic had gradually replaced Hebrew as the common language spoken by the Jews.  So that his Gentile readers would understand, however, Mark translates this for them in Greek, “Be opened.” Now the multitude returns. When they hear the man speaking plainly they know a miracle has happened. Isaiah had prophesied that when the Messiah came, people would know Him because “the ears of the deaf [shall be] unstopped” and “the tongue of the dumb [shall] sing for joy.” So when the crowd says of Jesus in the final verse, “he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak,” they weren’t saying “this is amazing” but “He has come.” 

Notice the broad outline of this healing. Jesus initiates the healing, taking the man apart from the crowd. Jesus uses something physical – in this case, His own fingers and His own spit. He then offers a prayer. These happen in steps. The man’s faith is activated. The result is complete healing. The Son of God uses something physical joined with prescribed actions and words to produce an intended effect. This effect is the bestowing of divine grace – God’s power working in the human soul. The broad outline of this miracle describes the sacramental principle - the basis for the sacraments. It has three components. 

The first sacramental principle is God is the one who acts. As the late Fr. Louis Tarsitano explains in his book that is available on that table, the sacramental principle involves God’s use of a created, visible thing as an indicator of his grace. Did you note that? “God’s use of a created, visible thing.” It is God who acts in the sacraments. You will hear this later during the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist, when a prayer is offered that the Holy Spirit would bless and sanctify the physical elements of bread and wine to become means of grace so that we could obtain all that Christ has done for us.  The Ministers are human instruments. It is God who bestows the grace, and it is His promises that are fulfilled in the sacraments. 

Second, God makes use of matter to convey grace. Some of you, like me, grew up in churches where the sacraments were absent or infrequently offered, and perhaps not completely understood. We may have the assumption that the physical world and the spiritual world, while not opposed to each other, at least don’t cooperate.  To correct this misunderstanding, we should first remind ourselves that God created matter. “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” God desires that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.  Is it so incredible to think that God would make use of the created world for our salvation? James 5:14: “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” Let them pray, and anoint with oil. Praying and anointing. Why would we consider the prayer as essential, but the oil as an unnecessary embellishment? Why can’t wine, water, bread, and oil be means to carry His grace? The border between the physical and spiritual worlds are wherever God establishes them and we should not always presume to know where that is. 

The third and final sacramental principle is that of pledge or promise. Can God give us His grace without the use of sacraments?  Of course - God can, and does, work directly in the soul. We should be continually growing in grace. But we have dry spells. God seems distant.  Nothing much seems to be happening with our prayers. We get depleted and discouraged. In those times, am I still experiencing His grace? The word “sacrament” comes to us from a Latin word meaning “oath.” The Church adopted the word “sacrament” because in the sacraments God offers us a pledge, or token of His mercy seen in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament. In the words of the Prayer Book, a sacrament is a “pledge to assure us thereof” that we have received His grace. We do not need to rely on the presence of pious feelings to know whether or not God loves us and is abiding in us. The sacraments are signs and pledges of His grace. You may not feel any more spiritual when you leave today than when you came. When received with faith, though, the sacrament itself is a pledge, a promise of God’s grace given to you in the sacrament. 

We see these three components of the sacramental principle at work in today’s Gospel. First, Christ initiated the healing – He is the one who acted. Second, His fingers were the physical elements to convey the grace of healing. Finally, this man, who could not yet hear, would feel those fingers in his ears and on his tongue, as pledges and signs of his healing. Christ conveying grace through His Body did not stop at His Ascension. Now His mystical Body here on earth, the Church, offers the sacraments as means of His grace. 

But sacramental grace is just that – grace.  As with all grace, our cooperation is necessary.  They do not work magically. Later this morning, the Church will offer us one of two sacraments initiated by Christ Himself – Holy Communion.  “This do, in remembrance of me.” What are we to do?  We should follow the teaching and ancient Liturgies of the Church. These have been incorporated into The Book of Common Prayer. We will first be asked to confess and repent of our sins, lest we eat and drink unworthily as warned about in I Corinthians 11:27. Following Lamentations 3:41 we lift up our hearts unto the Lord. In the praise and adoration of Isaiah 6:3 – “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts” – we then render to God all glory for the perfect and all sufficient sacrifice of His Son upon the Cross for the redemption of the world.  And we will offer ourselves, bodies and souls, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice as found in Romans 12:1. We will then pray the Prayer He taught His disciples. After Communion, having been assured of His favor and goodness towards us in these holy mysteries, we ask Him to assist us in the good works which He has prepared for us to walk in. 

“Jesu, my Lord and God bestow

All which thy sacrament doth show, 

And make the real sign

A sure effectual means of grace,

Then sanctify my heart, and bless, 

And make it all like thine.”