Ephphatha!
Mark 7:24-37
Rev. Ha Na Park (Immanuel United Church, Winnipeg)
Today’s scripture tells us two stories.
The first story tells us about a Syrophoenician Gentile woman, in Tyre. Tyre was a large Phoenician port city in Syria. This story centers on an important question of Jesus’s time: “Is the mission to the Gentiles appropriate?” The focus is not on the exorcism, the miracle of casting the demon out of the woman’s daughter, but on the question: “Are the Gentiles worth the good news?” Jesus says to the woman, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Here, children means the Jewish people, the children’s food, the mission, and the dogs, the gentiles.
The woman’s response is provocative, and signals that the earliest church community understands that Jesus’ mission to the Gentiles is a distinct priority. Here’s her answer: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Dogs are clearly inferior to children, yet we can see that the woman’s statement is bold and daring - this woman is challenging Jesus, saying, “Those who are considered inferior, disgusting, those who are dismissed — these underdogs — will be the agents of the new era of Christian mission.” This Syrophoenician woman expresses her conviction. Change the custom. Challenge racism. Establish a new priority.
After the Syrophoenician woman’s story, we hear another miracle - Jesus curing the deaf-mute man of the Decapolis. In this miracle story, Jesus uses a series of healing gestures, which I invite you to try using on your own body, Let’s try them ourselves. (Actions) Jesus thrusts fingers into ears, touches tongue with saliva, casts eyes heavenward and sighs. And utters the mysterious healing word ephphatha. It is in Aramaic, Jesus’ native language. It means, “Be opened.”
The first ephphatha I would like to share with you happened in Korea, the moment that I felt, “I see.”
This summer was a fabulous holiday for me. My eyes, mind, heart and understanding were opened in many ways, in different places. I hope to share those moments with you over time.
This summer, I took a month-long vacation in Korea with my family. My husband, Min-Goo, had not been to Korea in five years, but for my two sons and me, it had only been one and half years. We have been fortunate to be able to visit Korea pretty frequently. The most important reason for going back is that I deeply value the strong bonds my children make with their grandparents in Korea, and to foster their understanding and love of their country of origin and its ancient, beautiful cultural heritage. Also, my parents love their grandchildren. For my parents, my sons are their second children. My parents have a very special love for the boys and they want to express it lavishly. Another important reason to visit Korea is my hope that my kids maintain and strengthen their bilingual skills. Whenever we visit Korea, as it is our own home country, we never feel it is foreign or strange. This year, we had no expectation of surprises except for the usual summer weather - hot and humid and very un-Canadian - which we were ready to dive in and enjoy. If it is hot, it is what it is – you just have to accept it. Korea is a hilly peninsula, of which three sides are surrounded by the sea. Traditionally we call ourselves, “The beautiful land of Korea, far and wide, of mountains and rivers as if being embroidered on silk.” Always beautiful, with the seasons as familiar to us as our own skins.
However, in the first week of our arrival, August 1st, we were shocked. We were startled. I couldn’t believe what Korea was going through. It was hot, but it was not a good kind of summer heat, normal, expected. It was a bad, overwhelming kind of heat, alarming us to think about what was going on. I wrote to my friends, “Warm greetings from Gwangju, my hometown in Korea. I mean, really really ‘warm’! Climate change dramatically changed the weather here. Unprecedented, unpredictable weather due to a persistent heat wave. It has been lasting now for a month without a break, without a single day of rain. People’s lives are threatened, if there’s no air-conditioning for them. Air-conditioning saves lives. Animals suffer; some farm animals are dying.” I told them it was like the Sci-Fiction movies depicting the future of our planet. I have never seen (and all Koreans screamed, unanimously, “We’ve never seen or experienced this before”) the temperature over 39, 40, 41 degrees Celsius in Korea! All Koreans agreed, "This is the first time!”. In our first week there, Min-Goo, the gourmet, wanted to eat some hot local sea food in the city of Mu An, famous for its tideland. It was a hot day, which, in the normal summer days, we could consider a perfect day to go to the beach. The reality: there…, we saw a banner hanging between the trees: “Our beach is closed.” It was closed for being so unbearably hot not just for that one day, but for the entire summer. Dangerously hot. We stood speechless on the blazing asphalt, looking down the seashore… which looked like a desert.
There, my eyes opened… “Ephphatha.” My eyes and mind and understanding opened. Climate change is in front of us! It is real and dangerous. I knew about climate change mostly from scientific theory and from the news. I watched the heart-wrenching video of a polar bear clinging to life, its white hair limply covering its thin, bony frame. They starve and struggle to find food, because climate change breaks up the ice, and with melting ice, it’s hard for them to find their prey. I click the like button on Facebook posts about climate change and global warming. I support the indigenous communities which strive and protest for the earth and environmental justice, because it is at the core of their survival and well-being, their spirituality and their way of life. I did these actions in my mind and heart, but without taking concrete action. The Earth is our God’s, the Earth is the Creator’s body. We do not own it, but it is our home, and we have no other. The Earth is the Mother of all. I know all of this, but all of my knowledge has been safely and conveniently contained in theory and agreement, but not translated to action. I needed the experience climate change's effect on my skin, standing on the asphalt, looking down at the seashore, all of which was like being roasted inside a furnace. We are all connected through this crisis, and the Creator’s and the creation’s call — not divided by the global south and the global north. Later I learned that August 1st (the date of my family’s arrival) was marked as “Earth Overshoot Day.”
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when we (all of humanity) have used more from nature than our planet can renew in the entire year. In 2018, it fell on August 1. We are using 1.7 Earths. We use more ecological resources and services than nature can regenerate through overfishing, overharvesting forests, and emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ecosystems can absorb. #Hashtag… #Movethedate, moving from August 1st — to December 31 or none. It sounds impossible, but we are desperate. Some places on Earth will become uninhabitable if “Hothouse Earth” becomes a farther and wider reality. The report, published on August 6th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences came amid a heatwave that pushed the temperature above 40 C in Europe this summer causing drought and strengthening wildfires, including blazes in Greece in July that killed 91 people.
Our Mother Earth shouldn’t be treated like an underdog or like “dogs” who have to be patient until the children have taken what they wanted.
Jesus says, Ephphatha! — our hands, our mind, our eyes, our ears, our mouth... “be opened.” I believe that this mysterious healing word should be used and reframed for the restoration of all senses of our body, mind and spirit in order to create peace, to be peace, to build peace, for all children on the Earth, for the Earth itself, including animals, plants, water, land, rocks, wind and rains, all in the air and all under the sea.
Let us Ephphatha. Be opened.
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