23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s gospel passage of healing recalls the words of Pope Francis, turning from a culture of indifference to a culture of engagement stands at the heart of an authentic Christian spirit. So, too, is the mission to heal. Jesus is no longer in Israel but is in pagan territory. What this geography means is that, with this story, Jesus shows his desire to preach beyond Israel, to the Gentiles. Mark uses this information to show his readers Jesus’s fuller intention to preach to all nations repentance and the coming of the kingdom of the true God.
As in other stories in Mark’s gospel, people brought the sick to Jesus. In this story, we must presume that the people knew enough about Jesus and his powers to expect a cure from him. Their begging for a cure is further sign of a certain favorable attitude toward Jesus. In asking for a cure, the crowd looks for a laying on of hands as the method of healing. But what did Jesus do? [Recall that Jesus was outside of Israel and was aware how the healing process worked in pagan territory]. Instead, He took the man away from the crowd, put His divine finger into the man’s ears, touched the man’s tongue with His own sacred saliva and the man was cured. At first, the act of putting your finger into someone else’s ear and touching their tongue with your own saliva may seem repulsive. Normally it would be. To understand these two actions, we must understand the symbolism.
The image of a finger is used a number of times in the Scriptures to refer to God’s power. In the Book of Exodus after the plague of the gnats, Pharaoh’s magicians said that this was clearly done “by the finger of God” (Exodus 8:19). On the mountain when Moses received the Ten Commandments, we know that it was also God’s finger that wrote them (Exodus 31:18). In the book of Daniel, a finger appeared and wrote a prophetic message on a wall (Daniel 5:5). In the New Testament, Jesus cast out a demon “by the finger of God” (Luke 11:20) and in today’s Gospel He healed this man’s hearing with His finger. The “finger of God” is understood as the power of God and an action of the Holy Spirit. Thus, by using His sacred finger to heal, Jesus was symbolically revealing that He fully exercised the power of God and acted in perfect union with the Holy Spirit and the Father.
The image of saliva is also interesting. Perhaps you have noticed that when an animal has a wound it often licks that wound. This is a natural instinct but also one that makes sense. Saliva has a certain medicinal power of healing. It contains antibacterial agents. Therefore, since normal saliva can help heal a wound, Jesus’s saliva is able to heal in a supernatural way. Recall, also, that Jesus healed a blind man by spitting on the ground and then smearing the mud on his eyes (John 9:6).
Did Jesus need to use His finger and His saliva to heal this man? Certainly not. He could have done it with a mere thought. But He chose to use His body as an instrument of His healing power. Doing so reveals to us that Jesus’ humanity became the source of unity between God and man. Even His finger and His saliva unite us to God. Everything about the Son of God in His human form dispensed grace, healing, and mercy. Even that which may, at first, seem most repulsive.
When the man’s life is restored and he is able to hear and to speak the crowds are overwhelmed at Jesus’ healing power: “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” As followers of Jesus, we too are called to be healers and are empowered to do so. Healing in the Gospels include physical and psychological healing. And so, it embraces the work of all medical professionals. Our call to heal includes our respect and empathy towards those who suffer, our efforts to relieve the plight of those who hunger and thirst. Therefore, every act which promotes human dignity contributes to the healing mission of Jesus.
We are called today to deepen our belief in this Jesus. We do this by listening and following the message of today’s gospel. Yes, we are often deaf and we are often dumb. We have lost the capacity both to hear and to speak. We have lost the ability to recognize the voice of God calling to us in the many changing situations, both good and bad, of our society. God is shouting at us through the happenings in our society today. So, let us pray today for the gift of hearing, to hear the voice of God calling to us in everything that will happen this day. Let us pray for the gift of speech, that is, to be so filled with the liberating experience of knowing Jesus that we simply cannot refrain from sharing that experience with all those around us.