Sermon by the rev'd. John C. Bauerschmidt

Proper 18, Year B
September 10, 2006
Christ Church, Covington

“He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” (Mk 7:37).

When Hurricane Katrina came ashore last August, one casualty in St Tammany Parish was the communications grid. Phone service became erratic or non-existent, as land lines went down and cell phone tower batteries ran down. Cable and power lines were trashed; television was out and papers were not distributed; even radio was disrupted at the height of the storm . In Orleans Parish, one type of emergency responder could not communicate with another because they were not linked. Parish government in St Tammany talked about a “communication blackout”. I’d call it a communication “black hole”. The answer to the question, “Can you hear me now?” was for a time, “Can’t hear you at all, and can’t call you, either”.

The communication problem didn’t end with simple equipment failures. It was difficult to communicate with others who were not sharing the same experiences. The telephone land line at our house continued to work, though it was lying on the ground outside, and most of the calls we received, of course, were from someplace else. The distorting effects of the storm extended to our own psyches, as well-meant communications from others at a distance simply didn’t seem to add up; didn’t seem to correspond to the reality we saw around us. People didn’t seem to understand what was really going on. The problem, of course, was not only with them but also with us. We didn’t know “where we were coming from”. The long and short of it is that we had trouble connecting.

Let me tell you a story, from the other end of the phone line. Right after Katrina I tried to reach a friend in Mandeville by phone, and wandered into a very definite “black hole”. I had some important church business to do; the only problem was that he answered the phone in his heavily damaged house a few minutes after he saw it for the first time. The house was later demolished. I’m not sure why his phone was still working, since it really shouldn’t have been; but I’m sure he had no idea what I was talking about. “I think I’m in shock”, he said. “I’ll call you back”. We could talk, you see, but we couldn’t connect.

I hope you’ve got the idea. Substitute “sin” for “Katrina” and you will get my point. Sin creates its own communication problem, its own “black hole”. We cannot hear God clearly or speak plainly about him; we cannot hear or speak with each other without a distorting filter. We cannot connect. We have forgotten the language of faith that we are supposed to be speaking, and our ears are stopped up so that we cannot hear it. We don’t know where the other person is “coming from”; and we cannot obey God because we cannot hear what he is saying.

The remedy, of course, is Jesus Christ, the spoken “Word” of the Father. Today, at “Rally Day” you have the opportunity to find out new ways of listening and speaking. There are a variety of opportunities, in small groups and in other ministries that are vital to our parish, to get involved; to learn how to listen to each other and to listen for God as well. We have the opportunity to re-learn the language of faith so that we too can speak plainly, and understand more deeply. We all need to do this. The language of faith does not come naturally; it has to be learned. The Good News is that we too, in our inner selves, have the chance to be “opened up” like the ears of the deaf man in our Gospel, to receive the healing that we need.

Our teacher will be Jesus himself. He does all things well; he has the power to unstop the ear and to loosen the tongue. We learn the language of faith from the Master himself, who speaks the words so that we are able to hear. “Can you hear me now?” I can hear you too.

John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.

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