The Gospel writer, Mark provides us with a host of stories presenting Jesus as the teacher for those who are following him. In chapter 7:31-37, Mark describes Jesus moving through the Decapolis region. This is a Greek, Gentile area. We see Jesus encountering a man who is both deaf and unable to speak. He is in many ways closed off from his world. Jesus heals the man and opens the way for him to the world around him. This is a story of Jesus as the healer – the one who brings wholeness, completeness to the man and his world.
Mark’s story is more than a miracle story. As always in the Gospels, the writer is presenting us with one of the many signs of the Kingdom that Jesus brings in word and in action. Every healing, every reconciling of relationships in the Gospels is a sign that Jesus brings the presence of God’s Kingdom, God’s dream into the world. Jesus is releasing the strength of God’s loving Spirit, a gift of God to all. This gift of Spirit lives in all Creation. In Jesus, Creation is coming to that state of wholeness and fulfillment that has been God’s dream from the very beginning.
The story in Mark leads us to a reflection of how as disciples or followers of Jesus, we bring his Spirit to life in our world. It is a little manual of discipleship for us. The steps of discipleship might be seen in the unfolding story of Jesus’ encounter with the deaf and mute person.
Step 1: Jesus goes beyond his comfort zone. He takes a risk to reach to the Decapolis, a Greek and Gentile area, outside of his familiar space of synagogue and Jewish communities.
Step 2: Jesus encounters a crowd who are expecting a miracle, a wonder to astound them.
But Jesus, respecting the man takes him apart, in private, to allow him to receive a cure from within.
Step 3: Jesus puts his fingers into the ears of the man, taking him further from the outside world and leading him inward to his heart. To do so is to respect the inward strength and dignity of the man himself.
Step 4: Jesus then spat and touched the man`s tongue. He conveyed something of his own heart, his own Spirit to the heart of the man.
Step 5: Then, Jesus speaks in very simple terms: Be opened. ``Immediately the man`s ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.`` The man can hear and speak. He is no longer cut off from his world. He has received the gift of God`s Spirit from Jesus and now lives in wholeness, a sign of God`s reign in all its fullness.
What we see in Mark’s account of Jesus is the story of every disciple who brings Jesus’ Spirit into the world, respecting the other and conveying something of the Spirit within us to others. It is how each of us lives as a disciple and a sign of the presence of God’s dream for our world. To follow this “little manual of discipleship” is to work at the call to bring healing, wholeness, reconciliation and peace to a wounded, fractured and divided world. God bless you and all disciples.
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