Be Opened

“Be opened”, said Jesus to the deaf man. (Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Proper 18 [23]. Mark 7:24-37; and James 2:1-17.) Be opened is what we need to be to receive the healing presence of the spirit. Be opened is what we need to be in order to become available to our neighbour and their needs and gifts. And being opened is the process by which we grow into our fullness as humans and come to be part of the kingdom of God that is expansive and inclusive and always more than we imagined.

You may like to read what I wrote three years ago.

Jesus heals in a number of ways according to the witness of the gospels, including at a distance at times. In this account Jesus is very close and personal with both the Syrophoenician woman (although it is her daughter who needs physical healing) and the deaf man. Jesus prays that the man “Be opened” and then physically touches him and he is healed. It is a command that echoes down through time and across cultures. Healing requires of us to be open – open to being whole, open to the presence of the spirit, open to change.

The command to be opened is both to allow ourselves to be opened and to be in a state of openness. Many of us need ourselves to be almost prized open to begin with. In wellness and success most of us are somewhat closed and self contained but illness, fear, desire, curiosity, encounter with the “other” can all open us up – to the spirit of God, to our neighbours, to our dreams and desires, to change. Sometimes it takes desperate need, such as for healing for ourselves or our loved ones, for us to be open to help and change. When we can no longer rely on our own ability and strength then we are ready, maybe, to be open to healing and change.

To be open, to desire healing and change, takes a certain type of courage for we risk wanting what may not happen, we risk being further hurt and abandoned or disappointed. Even with God it takes a certain desperate courage to ask for what we want for we know that healing does not always come in the way we desire. I suspect it is the degree of desperation for her daughter that gives the woman from Syrophoenitia the courage to ask and to argue her case. For Jesus does not give her what she needs immediately.

Many of us find the apparent reluctance of Jesus to help this woman very disquietening and while various explanations are put forward I think we need to available to contemplate that in his humanity Jesus needed himself to be opened to the humanity and righteous need of his neighbour who was “other” than his tribe and group of belonging – the house of Israel! The other, our neighbour near or far, like minded or different, can be both the encounter that opens us up and also is the reason we are called to be open!

I don’t wish to romanticise the “other” for others can be interestingly different or alarmingly dangerous, filled with gifts of other perspectives or demands to make of us, grateful for our presence or resentful and angry. But otherness can awaken us to pay attention, to respond, to share and to care. The other can break us open in a way that opens us to not only the other we have encountered but to all of life and therefore to our possible selves and the possibility of the kingdom here on earth.

What Jesus role models for us is recognising the humanity, passion, need, legitimacy of the “other” and of changing our world view and response accordingly. Jesus seems to have allowed his world view, his sense of himself and his mission – that of a Jewish man come to fulfil the needs and purposes of Judaism – to have been challenged, changed and expanded by the presence and the need driven courage of the Syrophoenician woman in front of him. While some commentators go to great lengths to rescue Jesus from the implications of his own behaviour it is easier and maybe more honest to let the text speak plainly and see that Jesus initially responded to the woman as “other” and beyond his area of concern but her courage and desperation challenges him with her humanity and need and he changes his view to include her. It is a struggle that went on in the early years of the church and continues to this day.

For each of us growth and development requires of us an openness to be challenged and changed, of being opened to other people, issues, gifts, opportunities and opened to new versions of ourselves and the church and the world. If this process was a bit disturbing for Jesus how much more so it is for us! Yes growth can be experienced as attraction to new and wonderful opportunities and ideas but it is also often experienced as a giving up or letting go of old “self evident truths” or assumptions!! This is how the seed of the kingdom takes root within and grows in wild and inconvenient ways until we do not show partiality to those who are like us or successful in worldly ways over those who are apparently poor and of little account.

So how might we be opened to the spirit and our neighbours and the wild grow-where-it-will kingdom of God within and among us? Continuing on from last week I want to suggest that it requires of us not only a spontaneous state of openness to what life puts in our path but also an approach to life that opens our heart and mind to the opportunities and demands of life. For me that is engaging in action and contemplation, or contemplation and action. I don’t think there is a single right order across all people or even across time but I strongly believe that both a deep availability to the spirit on the spirit’s own terms and timetable – so the more contemplative and less directive traditions within prayer practice – and practical loving and responding to our neighbours.

I began by noting centering prayer as one of the traditional contemplative practices that can open us to the spirit. (Follow the link below to a range of contemplative practices to find your own practice or a new one.) I also believe that being available to the wisdom, reality, needs, gifts and presence of our neighbour is necessary for our development and for the sake of our neighbour and our world. We might express this in a commitment to social justice action, in adventurous travel, and maybe most simply as noticing our neighbour who is not quite like us and making ourselves available to encounter. For some of us that will be joining groups and programs that are explicitly about helping the other in our community. And for some that is going about our daily life in our neighbourhood open to who we meet.

When we seek only to help others as the poor and unfortunate we tend to bring a lot of ethnocentric baggage and can unwittingly assume that in helping others be more like us we are offering something of great value and kindness. Whereas if we come in an attitude of encounter – presence and availability and curiosity – we may find out what is most needed and also what is offered. When our social encounter and action is informed by and comes out of contemplative practice we are more likely to be aware of those hidden biases and assumptions that we all have and be more open to the reality of the other in front of us.

Even so, come Lord Jesus Christ, come teach us how to become open to growth and change, open to receiving and giving, open to sharing your love with others.