WORDS, AND EARS

Leviticus 16:29-18:30; Mark 7:24-8:10; Psalm 41:1-13; Proverbs 10:15-16

“So do not act like the people in Egypt, where you used to live, or like the people of Canaan, where I am taking you. You must not imitate their way of life.  You must obey all my regulations and be careful to obey my decrees, for I am the Lord your God.  If you obey my decrees and my regulations, you will find life through them.  I am the Lord.  Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for the people I am driving out before you have defiled themselves in all these ways.  Because the entire land has become defiled, I am punishing the people who live there.  I will cause the land to vomit them out.”

“A deaf man with a speech impediment was brought to him, and the people begged Jesus to lay his hands on the man to heal him.  Jesus led him away from the crowd so they could be alone. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then, spitting on his own fingers, he touched the man’s tongue. Looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, ‘Ephphatha,’ which means, ‘Be opened!’ Instantly the man could hear perfectly, and his tongue was freed so he could speak plainly!”

“‘O Lord,’ I prayed, ‘have mercy on me.
 Heal me, for I have sinned against you.’”

Does anyone besides me wonder if the world has abandoned plain talk?  It is important that our language not alienate unnecessarily.  However, wrong is still wrong, right has not changed, and calling a square a circle does not round its corners off.  God created boundaries for a reason.  So, how long will I put up with my own disobedience and excessive tolerance?  I continue to excuse my own sins on the flimsiest of reasons, to the point it has become automatic and my conscience is muted.  God wants it to stop.

Life has clear rules.  We cheat at our peril.  Many of the Lord’s commands in Leviticus actually make good, sanitary sense, for example.  Had the Hebrews disregarded them, a lot of genealogies would be radically different today.  But the bottom line is sin is a self-centered affront to our Creator and, often, others as well.  It needs to be identified, acknowledged and removed.  When we fail to deal aggressively with sin, we become captive to its effects: depression, greed, addiction, laziness… the list is daunting.  And it has very little to do with the way any sane person would want to live for very long. 

We have obscured and qualified the truth of God to the point we no longer know our boundaries.  I, for one, am glad to worship a God who is not afraid to offend, if that’s what it takes to heal me.  Because God’s ability to heal is impacted by my decision to stop listening.  Sometimes, Christ has to go beyond blunt to get my attention.

I am much better at not listening than hearing.  I practice deafness.  Today, everyone who has an opinion or thought seems to fear being ignored and compensates by being louder and more repetitive.  We substitute length for depth.  We interrupt without apology.  It is no wonder we stopped listening: there is little worth hearing, but much to confuse and mislead us.  Still, when these habits extend to our prayers and relationship with God, they have gone too far.

God never stopped speaking plainly.  We just aren’t focused on His voice or direction.  We have to be willing to listen when His Spirit calls to our conscience.  We need to start listening to the right things.  Sometimes, the things we most don’t want to hear are the things we most need to hear.