Daily lesson for February 2, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark 7 verses 33 and 34:

33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. 34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”

There is an old saying that some of us are so narrow minded that we can look through a key hole with both eyes. Spiritual awakenings always draw us out of our narrowly drawn boxes and open us to broader understanding, compassion and willingness to encounter the Other.

Jesus is traveling on the borderlands in the territory of the Other - amongst Gentile peoples, when he encounters a man who is deaf and mute. The man is representative of one who is insular and closed off. Yet his suffering brings him to a place of openness -- perhaps this Jewish healer can do something!  Jesus takes the man outside the village and puts his fingers into his ears.  "Be opened," he says.

Suffering has a way of exposing the limitations of our own experiences and perspectives.  It can take us beyond the borders of what is familiar and known and into the foreign world of what is mysterious and Other. And it is there on the border that we can find that the narrowness of our minds can be expanded and hardness of hearts softened.

Suffering can lead us to places of brokenness. And in that brokenness we cross the border and enter into something shared with all humanity - familiar and strange. And there in that brokenness the Gospel comes with words which open our minds and heal our hearts: 

"Be open."