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Reflection for September 10, 2006

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Hey What?

I began to lose my hearing just before retiring from county employment about nine years ago. It began with my missing much of what was said at meetings, not that a lot of it was worth hearing. Eventually it also led to my speaking oddly due to my misapprehension of what others were saying. For instance my son might say to me, "Dad, do you want me to drive?" And I would think he said, "Dad, they want you to behave." So I would respond, "Why? Did I do something wrong?" So my son would try again, saying: "No, Dad. I mean we can use my car instead of yours," which I took to mean, "Jeanie can use wire instead of doors." So I would respond, "What doors? Why wire? Who's Jeanie?" So what did I do? After pretending for a long time that I could hear very well and other people were simply mumbling, I went to an audiologist who fitted me out with hearing aids that helped me reestablish rational communication, saved me from being always shouted at or having always to put my hand behind my ear and say, "Hey what?" to as simple a request as "Pass the salt."

That's an example of what we call actual deafness. But actual deafness can also serve as a metaphor for another kind of deafness - the kind that affected the disciples of Jesus. It took him quite a while to get through to those fellows. It wasn't that they didn't hear clearly the words he spoke; they just didn't catch their meaning. He was speaking of God as a God of absolute grace and of a new kind of world in which all its inhabitants were to be as gracious as their heavenly Father - inhabitants who were to be no longer stingy, paranoid, partisan, vindictive and self-righteous, but ever quick to go the extra mile, to let the bygones of our belligerent everyday world be bygones in favor of a new age loaded with mutual charity.

But they only heard him say that he was about to bring back the good old days when Israel ruled the roost from Syria to Egypt; that Jerusalem would soon become God's exclusive city in a world of benighted and beholden satellites. They heard him saying that as their Messiah he would throw out the Romans and reform the compromised Temple priesthood - and here's the pay off - that they would become cabinet officers in his new regime. Jesus was very much aware of their misunderstanding him, of that kind of deafness whereby one interprets everything in terms of one's prevailing prejudices and so he chose to demonstrate how deaf and dumb they were and preview the change they must undergo by taking a deaf stutterer, putting his finger into the man's ears and touching his tongue and saying, "Be opened!" And immediately the man's ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.

Did the disciples get the graphic message? Not all at once. Next week we'll see Jesus testing their hearing, testing their understanding of who he is and what he's about. And they'll start stuttering their popular misconceptions: "You're uh John uh the Baptist or uh Elijah or one of the uh old time uh prophets." Only Peter will correctly say "You are the Christ" but still with a political not self-sacrificing Christ in mind. Nor will Peter ever understand or tell it like it is until Christ after his resurrection confronts him and says to a chastened but more comprehending and eloquent Peter, "Feed my sheep."

And aren't we all still deaf and incoherent when it comes to grace - even 2000 years later? Which is why the Church gives us today's Gospel reading to ponder - to help us experience its miracle, to encourage us to clear out the "wax" we've accumulated over a lifetime and change our often bilious speech (and thoughts) into something so much more musical.

-- Geoff Wood