{"id":9537,"date":"2003-09-07T19:49:53","date_gmt":"2003-09-07T17:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=9537"},"modified":"2025-05-08T15:25:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T13:25:15","slug":"mark-7-31-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/mark-7-31-37\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark 7:31-37"},"content":{"rendered":"

12th Sunday after Trinity (13th Sunday after Pentecost) | 7. September 2003 | Mark 7:31-37 | David Zersen |<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Ganzheitliche Heilung<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was reading the website of the Lutheran World Federation (www.lwb-vollversamlung.org\/hanson.html) to learn something about its recently-elected new American president, Bishop Mark Hanson. Accidentally (fortuitously?), I turned to the German language version and noticed in the sidebar some information about the July 21-31 gathering in Winnipeg, Canada, when Bishop Hanson was elected. One of the sidebars read: \u201cWas ist eine Vollversammlung?\u201d I smiled to myself, wondering what a proper translation of this big word might be. Then it hit me: Plenary Gathering.<\/strong> The release was giving a definition of the assembly of member churches that meets every six years to elect its president and develop policy and program.<\/p>\n

That reminded me of another such German question with a big word, made popular by U.S. marketers in television advertising a few years ago: \u201cWas ist Fahrvergnuegen?\u201d Used by Volkswagen U.S.A. to market a kind of inexplicable something which their cars possessed, Americans were driving around in their new VWs, happy that they had \u201cFahrvergnuegen,\u201d (a kind of driving pleasure), without really knowing what it was. Sometimes big words have a magical value and sometimes they contain a secret it might be good to explore.<\/p>\n

Now if there were a question with a big German term to get at the deeper meaning of today\u2019s text, I think it would read something like \u201cWas ist Ganzheitliche Heilung?\u201d Such a term doesn\u2019t really exist in a dictionary, but it sounds provocative and one can dissect it to mean something like wholistic or comprehensive healing. Although there are many interesting details in the Marcan text, I\u2019d like you to keep this magical-sounding term before you for a moment. It\u2019s a term that says \u201cdon\u2019t get lost in the details\u201d and \u201cthere\u2019s more here than meets the eye (and ear).\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Zoom Lens Gives Only the Details<\/strong>
\nOne of the problems with pericopal systems, the technique by which sections of Scripture are \u201ccut out\u201d of contexts to provide a focus for each Sunday, is that sermon hearers may be led to believe that what\u2019s read from a particular text is all that\u2019s there. In this Sunday\u2019s case, it is a story about the healing of a man who can\u2019t hear\u2014and thus speaks poorly. Now, if this is not your problem, you may wonder how this text speaks to you. Of course, there are numerous interesting details in this text, some of which have provided huge challenges for interpreters: Strange directions to Galilee, leading commentators to wonder if Mark knew Palestinian geography; the religious or medical history behind the healing techniques (fingers in ears and spitting); the function of the Marcan Secret, forbidding the healed to tell anyone. However, such details are sidebars, not the central issue here. The zoom lens takes us right to the heart of the matter: A man who couldn\u2019t hear and couldn\u2019t speak was taken aside and healed with a surprising Aramaic command, \u201cEphatha.\u201d What can this mean to us?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to ask the question because in our western way of thinking we are often too focused, too analytical, too precise with our questions and insights. A popular movie starring Robin Williams as a medical student helps us here. The movie, Patch Adams, is based on the real life story of a physician who shares his insights in a book on which the movie is based: Gesundheit: Good Health is a Laughing Matter. As a medical intern in a hospital, Adams attempts to direct patients, most of whom were child cancer patients, away from the specifics of their diseases by getting them to laugh with him and think about bigger issues. Although the Dean of the Medical School wanted Adams expelled because his unorthodox approach did not follow western scientific precedents, Adams insisted that, as a doctor when \u201cyou treat a disease: you may win or lose; when you treat a person, you always win.\u201d This wholistic approach to healing not only finally secured Adam\u2019s significant recognition in his future career, but it helps us to ask what plagues the man in our text besides an inability to hear and speak? Is there nothing here but deafness and dumbness? What is the broader illness from which he\u2014and we\u2014need healing?<\/p>\n

Let that question raise another one. Is it possible that there is more illness here than meets the eye or ear? To ask it in another way, since you and I are being addressed by this story, what is wrong with diagnosing illnesses or problems so specifically that the cure misses the mark entirely? A story told by Father Gary Pierse about a deaf man helps to answer those questions. Tom begins to lose his hearing at 15. People find it hard to get him to understand them and, as they became frustrated, Tom becomes embarrassed. He finds it hard to modulate his volume, and admonitions from others gradually cause him to lapse into silence altogether. As he enters this new unknown world in which he feels alienated from others, he understands for the first time what it means to be handicapped. He longs for physical affirmation, just a hug or a shove, but people think him delicate and ill. He begins to wonder if he is isolated from God as well.<\/p>\n

Then a prayer group takes him under their wing and a young surgeon proposes a new medical technique. Miraculously, his hearing returns\u2014and he finds himself talking, talking, talking. He realizes that he is over-talking, inflicting himself on others, hurting them. Then he begins to listen\u2014carefully. Gradually he comes to this startling insight: Most hearing people are really deaf– they hear only what they want to hear; most speaking people don\u2019t really communicate, seldom saying what they think or feel.<\/p>\n

This remarkable story takes us beyond the zoom-lens diagnosis of deafness and dumbness in our story\u2014with which you may or may not be able to identify. It raises serious questions about the value of being too focused in identifying one\u2019s problems or illnesses. The fact may be that in regarding arthritis as your main problem, you may be ignoring your burden of hate for another. In naming too quickly one sin as your shortcoming, you may have missed those sins for which, most of all, you need to be held accountable.<\/p>\n

I have a camera with both a digital and an optical zoom lens and I enjoy exploring the detail which can be realized when a subject like a face or a flower is brought in close. I also know that too much of this detail leaves a picture or a series of exposures without a context, and, therefore, any ultimate meaning. Jesus\u2019 healings will not make much sense to us unless we see them in the context of his larger ministry. And healing in general will elude us if we do not understand it wholistically. To bring up a word I introduced earlier, and to play with it a little, we need to see what the broader context tells us about Ganzheitliche Heilung, complete and comprehensive healing. What can we learn here that hasn\u2019t yet met our eye and ear?<\/p>\n

When a Broader Perspective Nurtures Faith<\/strong>
\nIf someone hadn\u2019t found the Old Testament lesson that relates to this New Testament text, I suppose we could have researched it ourselves. The wonderful advantage of appointed pericopes, however, is that this arduous task is done for us. Setting the background for all the talk about deafness and speech impediments, unstopped ears and unloosed tongues, is a remarkable passage from the prophet Isaiah (35: 5-6). The illness with which he is dealing is broader than deafness and dumbness. Exiles are stranded in a foreign land. They are separated from their home by the vast wilderness of the Syrian Desert. God\u2019s own people live as rejects, orphans, refugees. Their burden is loss, suffering, anger, despair, depression, guilt, fear, grief! Their theology, their self-understanding, their concept of God is called-into question, shattered. This is no simple malady like deafness. This is more like death.<\/p>\n

To these people, Isaiah brings a message of hope and healing. It is not the zoom lens approach which sees one deaf man being healed! It is the broad, full-landscape shot which sees return, even if only a remnant, restoration, revitalization\u2014salvation itself. How to put that in words? Isaiah pictures the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, stumbling across the arid, rocky wilderness to the homeland. Having heard his message of healing and hope, however, he pictures the lame leaping over boulders, the blind catching a glimpse of distant Mt. Zion, the deaf hearing for the first time the Psalms of Ascent and the dumb shouting Hosannah! This is what the ecstatic prophet envisions for God\u2019s people\u2014a message of future. A future worth dreaming about. It is a wholistic vision. It is something greater than individual healings from illness. It is the old story made new. A new covenant. A new wilderness trek. A reversal of fortune when all is made whole. Ganzheitliche Heilung! A complete and better way for the emancipated and redeemed people of God.<\/p>\n

You and I should sit up and take notice. Mark has picked up on it as well. The healing he describes is not an isolated or detailed miracle story. This is the dawning of the new creation. The ears of deaf are being unstopped. The tongues of the speechless are singing for joy. This man experiences what Isaiah prophesied centuries before and he is a symbol of what we are to look for in our own time and place. How often we miss this! How often we allow the Biblical language to remain within the covers of a book.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther King is a man who grasped not only the power of this language, but the meaning of what God is doing in our time and space. Using the imagery of the wilderness return, he said, 40 years ago this year, at the Washington Monument:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a dream that Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of in-
\njustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

He knew that God\u2019s words of hope and emancipation, of healing and restoration, cannot belong only to the ancients, to one isolated historical moment.<\/p>\n

They are intended for us today as well. What does it mean that God has put an end to the ancient slavery which controlled our spirits– that in Christ\u2019s death and resurrection he has unleashed a power that frees us to live healthier and happier lives? What does it mean that we are being enabled to strengthen the feeble hands of others and stabilize the weak knees of those who falter (Is. 35:3)?<\/p>\n

Here is a faith that claims us in the here and now. You are part of the community of God\u2019s people. You have experienced burdens, guilt, pain and suffering of your own. No matter how poignant your individual isolation or alienation, your illness of grief, this day Jesus says to you \u201cEphatha. Be opened!\u201d This day you are entitled to lay claim to the fullness that salvation brings.<\/p>\n

I will be the first to admit that I have often missed the larger message for me in a Biblical text because I heard it pointing either to a narrow aspect of my life which held little interest for me or to only one dimension of my life which may have given me inappropriately large concerns. Today\u2019s texts, when read together, provide a wholistic moment. They say that God\u2019s love for you is so comprehensive and complete that it provides healing for burdens and illnesses of which you aren\u2019t even aware\u2014that it claims you here and forever with salvation no disease or burden can negate.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more here than meets eye and ear. It is true with all human interaction. We are deafer and dumber than we think. It is also true with respect to God\u2019s claim on us. We are more blessed and whole in Christ than we can imagine.<\/p>\n

Knowing that and celebrating it provides Ganzheitliche Heilung, healing across the board. It\u2019s no magic word. It\u2019s the real thing. And it\u2019s more than you were prepared to ask for.<\/p>\n

\n

Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President Emeritus
\nConcordia University at Austin
\nAustin, Texas
\ndzersen@aol.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12th Sunday after Trinity (13th Sunday after Pentecost) | 7. September 2003 | Mark 7:31-37 | David Zersen | Ganzheitliche Heilung I was reading the website of the Lutheran World Federation (www.lwb-vollversamlung.org\/hanson.html) to learn something about its recently-elected new American president, Bishop Mark Hanson. Accidentally (fortuitously?), I turned to the German language version and noticed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,499,727,157,853,108,222,110,782,349,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-9537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-markus","category-12-so-n-trinitatis","category-archiv","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-david-zersen","category-engl","category-kapitel-07-chapter-07-markus","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9537"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23747,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9537\/revisions\/23747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9537"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=9537"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=9537"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=9537"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=9537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}