September 8, 2024
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
I am Open, I am Opened
It’s September, and we can feel the coolness of the coming Autumn season in the air this morning. I love the promise of change that I always sense as Autumn approaches. From Jeanne Marcus I understand you all are entering into a season of recommitment at Seekers, in a year with the theme of Being Opened.
I take note that the phrase is “Being Opened” (not “Being Open). However, I would like to add my perspective, which is that to really be opened and to take in that experience, consent is required. Whatever internal resistance that may be present must yield. We say “yes” somewhere along the way – for me, this is the essence of faith and committing to the inward work a spiritual journey.
I told a story of my shoulder injury, and my own need to make room for the possibility of healing by prayer before that could happen.
So, in that context, my understating of the invitation this year before you is for you to consider recommitting to membership at Seekers by thinking about what would “being opened” mean to you. Where are you seeking transformation? And what resistance will you need to let go to consent to that experience.
In today’s Gospel reading, we see how “Being Opened” manifests itself through two miracles performed by Jesus, both involving healing and the act of “opening.” In both stories, the beneficiaries, the daughter of a Gentile mother, the mother herself (first story), and a deaf man and perhaps even the crowds who witnessed the miracle (second story), experience life-changing transformation, from their initial isolation and marginalization (through cultural understanding or disability) to the center of attention, as Jesus takes the time to engage with them personally and compassionately, recognizing their humanity, responding to their faith (openness) and tending to their individual needs (desire to be opened).
Although these stories are different, they do share this common theme: they show us how being open to God’s power (the act of faith that made transformation possible), despite all external circumstances, can lead to extraordinary experiences of transformation, of Being Opened. Let’s look at the details.
The passage begins with Jesus withdrawing from the crowds, and being found by a Syrophoenician woman, whose desire for healing for her daughter has given her to courage to cross cultural divides to ask for help from a Jewish Rabbi. Jesus first probes her motivation and then responds to her pleading for “just a crumb” by extending his ministry of healing to include both her and her daughter. Existing definitions of who belongs and who deserves grace are erased, as Jesus, once again, extends welcome, healing and belonging, this time to include Gentiles, women and children. She took a risk of reaching out in faith, she opened her heart to him exposing her vulnerability, and everything changed.
In the second story, Jesus encounters a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. The crowds urge Jesus to heal him. Jesus guides the man to a more private setting, and through intimate connection, first through touching the man’s ears and tongue, and next through looking up to Heaven and saying “Ef-fa-tha” (be opened) the man is restored to wholeness. To everyone’s amazement, his isolating conditions are resolved, and belonging is restored.
Beyond meeting the immediate needs of the afflicted girl and her mother or the deaf man, these stories also reveal to us how Jesus entered into all relationships. Throughout his ministry, through his actions, Jesus consistently recognized the intrinsic worth of everyone and welcomed into his community those considered outcasts, or less worthy, by society at that time (such as lepers, the disabled, women, Gentiles). Jesus’ ministry was an embodied example of what reconciliation and loving acceptance looks like – reconciliation to God, to each other and even to ourselves (I’m thinking about the woman caught in adultery in John 8, where Jesus told her to go and sin no more).
We are all worthy of God’s love; and God desires wholeness for us all, although I will say that God’s definition of wholeness may not always reflect our own expectations. Jeanne shared with me a reflection by Nadia Bolz-Weber with a story which illustrates this point beautifully.
It’s about an evangelical quadriplegic, Joni Eareckson- Tada, who accepted all offers for healing prayer that were sent her way:
From her wheelchair Joni says to them, I would love some prayer, but could you instead please pray for healing from the times when I cherish inflated ideas of my own importance … the times when I fudge the truth … the times when I manipulate my husband to get things my own way…sin…ma’am, if you want to pray for me pray that I receive the power of resurrection to put to death the things in my life that displease God.
What I appreciate here is Joni’s deep expression of faith, her openness to being opened to a deeper relationship with Christ, a deeper understanding his world, of his reality (God’s reality). This is one example of transformation that we can experience if we say yes. Joni shows us how this openness to being opened beckons us, like Jesus, onward, to becoming an embodied express of God’s love and reconciliation in the world.
In today’s context and this season of recommitment for the Seekers community, I invite you to draw upon these examples of Being Opened to consider your own situation.
- In what aspect of your life might you need to open yourself to receive Christ’s presence?
- Are you open to how God might be working towards transformations beyond your wildest imagination?
- Where might you be closed off to God’s voice or truth?
- Where might you be spiritually deaf or mute?
- Where might your resistance to God’s leading lie? Bottom of Form
- What do you need to let go of to make room for something new
This season, as you consider your commitment or recommitment to Seeker’s Church, consider also how willing you are to consent to Being Opened to God’s Reality, to the needs of others, to your own needs.
