In the gospel according to St. Mark 7:31-37, we find Jesus healing a person who is differently- abled, suffering from hearing and speaking impediments. The interesting part of this healing for me is the role of a community or a group of people who played a very important part in the healing of this person. If we carefully read through this healing, we see that the healing is taken place in an unknown place (no clear place is mentioned), the healing happens to an unknown person (no name or identity of the person is mentioned), the people who bring the sick person to Jesus was an unknown community (it is only mentioned as ‘they, no other clue of who they are), and Jesus uses an unusual way of healing (taking aside the person to a private place, putting his fingers in his ears, touching his tongue with his saliva, looking up to heaven, sighing and saying ‘Ephphatha’), and transforms the person to a known one as his own one.
The emphasis I make in this episode is on the role of the unknown community, which played a vital role in the whole healing process. Here is where I strongly feel the relevance of this community for the church today. This unknown community, I would like to call them the “Ephphatha Community” and this community was primarily instrumental in making the unknown place to be a known one, for it would remain as a historic place for healing. This community transformed the person, his life and his future. I wonder whether Jesus would have been marvelled by the faith of this community of people and healed the person. By the way, ‘Ephaphatha’ means ‘be open’ and one can decipher the openness of this community to the needs of their neighbour, for they held the needs of their neighbour as top priority to be addressed. The community’s faith would have been the news headlines in their days, and if the writer of Hebrews would have known about this community, there will be no surprise to see if he/she would have added this community in the heroes and the sheroes of faith mentioned in the 11th Chapter in the book of Hebrews. This community was a group of unsung heroes and sheroes, who did not crave for their name or banner, but rather concentrated on their neighbour and his healing. Kudos ‘Ephphatha Community’, you really are an exemplary one for all generations!
Therefore, today I pray that our church will be inspired to be like the ‘Ephphatha Community’, concerned deeply for their neighbours and be an exemplary one in its journey of mission and witness. To summarise the characters of the ‘Ephphatha Community’ are, which in a way explain their openness.
It was an unknown community – for no identity is mentioned.
It was a voicing community – for it voiced for this voiceless person.
It was a faith community – but for their faith, the person was healed.
It was an open community – no barriers for it, even the sick & weak were members
It was a proclaiming community – zealously proclaimed the healer & the healing
It was a loving community – its concern for the neighbour
I cannot but find a greater one than this ‘Ephphatha Community’ to be a role model for our church today. How are we as a church becoming the ‘Ephphatha Community’ of our times, addressing the needs of our neighbours? The potential in our congregations needs to be harnessed and used creatively, missionally and contextually to make our church vibrant. ‘Openness’ is one of the key ecclesial characters that define the being and becoming of our churches today. How open are we to the needs of our neighbours? How open are we to the perspectives of our neighbours? Or to put it the other way, if we are closed to the needs, perspectives and ideas of our neighbours, perhaps this text, this unknown community whom I want to celebrate as ‘Ephaphatha’ community challenges us as churches to be open to people’s needs around us. If there is at least one thing this text calls us as people of faith, it is, that we are called to be with open arms receiving all people of God, respecting them, caring for them and attending to their needs and striving towards the healing of our neighbours. Our openness to God, to our neighbour and to our creation determines our faith in Jesus Christ today. I am reminded of the words from the song, “Jesu, Jesu,” where the writer explains this love for the neighbour so well, “Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love, show us how to serve the neighbours we have from you,” for we learn how to serve our neighbours from the life and witness of our saviour Jesus Christ.
As we begin the ‘Time for Creation’ during this month of September, as on the 5th of September it is observed as ‘Climate Sunday’ in the UK, and as the international community gears up towards the CoP26 Climate change summit in Glasgow, it is time that we as churches express our solidarity with our creation and strive for climate justice today. For me, creation is our immediate neighbour, who is badly wounded and is on the grave margins, and to her needs we are called to attend to. It is time that we reflect climate justice as a faith issue. With the climate crisis so real today, we are called to address climate justice as a matter of urgency, striving like the ‘Ephphatha community’ for the renewal of our neighbour, the creation.
‘Ephphatha community’ had to make immense sacrifices when they brought their neighbour to Jesus Christ, they did not bring their own needs to Jesus rather cared for their neighbour and voiced their need to Jesus. In the context of climate change, we are called to sacrifice our pleasures and are called to care for the resources around us carefully and faithfully. Solidarity with Jesus, solidarity with creation, solidarity with the victims of climate crisis, solidarity with climate activists is the need of the hour today. To respond to the call of solidarity is to affirm life and to learn to live in true solidarity. Daisy L. Machado says, “Solidarity allows us to see the imago dei in the faces of those not like us, and it gives us the strength to reach out to those we consider foreign, to “the other” and to attempt to build community. And it is solidarity that condemns the radical individualism that pervades the lifestyle we find today throughout those nations that enjoy wealth and power, where the value of a person is measured in how much she or he can buy.``[1] Therefore the grace of God calls us to praxis and is calling us to be in solidarity with all those striving for liberation and justice today. If a transformed world in God’s grace is to be possible, firstly transformation needs to take place within us. If a transformed ME is possible, then a transformed world in God’s grace is possible. If a transformed world is to be possible, a transformed and re-formed church has to happen. It is time that we green our minds, green our faith, green our churches, green our pulpits, green our hermeneutics, green our theologies and green our actions so that we as a church can participate in making a difference to our world today. May we as churches dedicate ourselves to re-form as the 21st century ‘Ephaphatha’ community, open and relevant for our times today.
Our mother earth bleeds because of our greed,
Justice is when we protect her seeds and care for her needs,
She is our neighbour to whom we proceed,
‘To love is to save’ we live it through our deeds
Raj Bharat Patta,
2rd September 2021
[1] Daisy L. Machado, “James 1-5” in By Grace You Have Been Saved (WCC: Geneva, 2005) Pp. 83-84.
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