Search
-
The Gentile people there put aside their suspicions about Jews and brought a deaf man with a speech impediment to Jesus for healing. Each of these movements is an example of being open to the unfamiliar, being willing to engage with otherness.
God speaks the same word to us as Jesus spoke to man brought to him for healing - Ephphatha! Be Opened. We too are to leave the territory where people look and believe as we do, we too are to engage with people that our culture or our religion may have suggested we have reason to distrust. If we do, we too may have our ears opened and our speech impediments healed. We may find ourselves able to listen more deeply and to speak the truth of how what we hear impacts us.
Be warned - the impact of encountering the other may not be what you anticipate. According to Richard Rohr, we are not sent so much for the other’s good as for our own good. “Jesus’ commission to care for the poor and visit the sick was not primarily to help them, but to send us to 'otherness', to get us out of our own unquestioned assumptions, tribalism and self-referential world views. The practice of voluntary displacement is a way of giving up control.”
Giving up control is not easy - or fun. It is scary and often painful. But it is what is asked of us. That is why the symbol of a Christ-like life is a person stretched out on a cross, not someone sitting on a cushion in a church.