Sermon - Trinity XII 2023 - Mark 7:31-37

Christ  Healing a Deaf Man, Leonard Gaultier, 1579

God opens our lips

1. Words are important

1. We must guard our lips and ears from evil

2. God gives us the good words to hear and speak

Eight hundred years ago Saint Francis of Assisi supposedly said “Preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” Or as P.T. Barnum said: “Talk is cheap, until you hire a lawyer.” Both sayings ultimately mean the same thing: actions are more important than words. While it is true that we sometimes talk too much and fail to act, words are still very important. Francis of Assisi was wrong, you must use words to preach the gospel, actions aren’t enough. Talk isn’t cheap, as evidenced by how much we must pay lawyers and politicians to speak. Words are valuable, and they’re made even more valuable when God opens our lips.

That’s what happened in today’s miracle. It wasn’t complicated or hard to  understand, it was maybe a little weird at times, but the results were simple: a man’s ears and tongue were opened and released so that he could hear and speak plainly. God opened his ears and his lips. Jesus does this because words are important.

The deaf man’s friends knew that words were important, that’s why they brought the man to Jesus and begged Him to lay His hand on him. Sign language or charades or writing letters is a fine way to communicate with a deaf person, but it’s not the same as hearing a human voice. Think of it like this: would you rather see a picture or a silent video of your loved one every day, or be able to speak with them on the phone every day? Seeing them is great, but being able to speak with them is more important. A close relationship is built on words, not just sight.

Jesus’ miracle is a good illustration of the fact that words matter more than actions. Jesus did the whole sign language/charades thing with the man to communicate with him. He put his fingers in his ears. He spit and touched his tongue. I know it’s weird, but it was a way to communicate quite plainly that Jesus was going to heal the man’s ears and tongue. But in the end those actions weren’t enough. Jesus doesn’t just lay His hand on the man, but He speaks! Even though the deaf man can’t hear him yet, Jesus looked up to heaven and audibly sighed. Jesus spoke to the deaf man, saying: “ephphatha.” The man can’t hear it, and yet Jesus spoke it in the man’s Aramaic language!

The very word, the vocables, the sounds that came out of Jesus’ lips are recorded for us as well: Ephphatha. The spoken word is important. Even when there’s no one else to hear it, words are meant to be spoken. When God created the world He did so by speaking. Even when there was no one in existence yet to hear Him speaking, He still spoke. C.S. Lewis posits that God actually sang the world into being. No way to prove that, but considering the amount of singing in the scriptures, I think it’s quite possible. But the point here is that the sounds of words are important. The spoken/sung word is powerful! This is why the Divine Service is filled with the spoken word. We don’t just print the service and the sermon so that we can all read it quietly to ourselves, but it’s spoken outloud! The spoken word is powerful! 

When Jesus spoke the man’s ears were opened and his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. The spoken word had the power to miraculously heal the man. Just like the spoken word had the power to create the universe and everything therein. Even for us humans the spoken word is powerful. The words we speak have the power to change hearts and minds and lives, both for good and for ill. Think about it, with the powerful words: “will you marry me?,” “I do,” lives are changed for the better!

However, since we consider talk to be cheap, we speak with such disdain for words today. You don’t have to frequent a bar to hear coarse language, but it’s common today in nearly every venue, and we hardly bat an eye at it; half the time that coarse language flows from our tongues! We cuss, we make lude jokes, we use God’s name in vain, we tell lies and rumors, we gossip and destroy our neighbor’s reputation, and that’s just at the grocery store! Lord have mercy on us!

But since our words are powerful and important, we must learn to control our tongue and our ears. The Psalms and Proverbs are filled with these admonitions: “Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.” “An evildoer listens to wicked lips, and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.” “A fool’s mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to his soul.” Or St. Paul admonishes us: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.” 

Both the second and eighth commandments teach us to speak rightly. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. Both in the way we speak about and to God, and the way we speak about and to our neighbor, are eternally important. Two of the ten commandments are explicitly about speaking, so we should take this lesson to heart. Indeed, it is our prayer: “Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!”

In addition to guarding our lips we must guard our ears. “An evildoer listens to wicked lips, and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.” It’s not just that we need to be careful not to listen to lies or other falsehoods, although that’s important too; false theology is dangerous. Rather, we must not listen to wicked lips and mischievous tongues. Garbage in, garbage out, as IBM said. What you put into your mind will shape your mind and thus shape what comes out of your mind. Watching wickedness on TV, listening to worldly music, and reading smut will make you into what you consume.

Thus it is that God gives us the good words to hear and to speak. Jesus opened the deaf man’s ears to hear Him speaking. In Holy Baptism Jesus opens our ears to hear Him speaking. “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” God’s word guides us and gives us life. If we desire wisdom and life, then we must listen to the voice of Jesus. This takes effort. Ideally, for every minute we spend on social media or watching TV we should at least balance out the time with reading the Bible and other good Christian media. But if currently you’re not in the Bible at all, it can be a big leap to reduce other media consumption and replace it with God’s Word. So one way to work towards this goal is by utilizing what’s called the Kaizen method, you make very small incremental changes and take it one small step at a time. For example, the average American watches 2.5 hours of TV a day, so 1% of that is 1 ½ minutes. Start with 1%, replace 90 seconds of TV with reading the Bible. The next week go to 2%, and so on until you reach your goal. Christ has opened our ears to His word, so let us listen.

Having listened to Jesus, let us also speak. The deaf man previously had a speech impediment, but now that he could hear he spoke plainly. When we hear God speaking to us, our lips are opened to speak rightly. We cry out: “O Lord, open my lips! And my mouth will declare your praise!” This is not an empty prayer, but it’s a plea that God would in fact open our lips so that we might preach His Gospel using words.

Not only do we guard our lips from evil, but God opens our lips to speak well. The words we speak are powerful. From our lips flow God’s word of grace and forgiveness. Our mouths shine the light of God’s glory upon the darkness of this earth. Your words as Christians are powerful. With your lips, God can call sinners to repentance, reveal Christ to the hopeless, and bring life to the dying. Christ has said it, Ephphatha! Be opened! Therefore, your ears and your lips are opened to the mercies of God almighty.