The Scriptures today place two scenes side by side: a cloak torn into twelve pieces on a lonely road, and a man taken aside from the crowd whose ears and tongue are touched into life. Between the tearing and the healing runs a single thread: “I am the Lord, your God: hear my voice.”
When a kingdom stops listening
The prophet Ahijah’s dramatic act; ripping his new cloak and handing ten pieces to Jeroboam; makes visible what disobedience has already done internally to Israel. The kingdom is divided because hearts have divided. The psalm puts it bluntly: “My people heard not my voice… so I gave them up to the hardness of their hearts; they walked according to their own counsels.”
This is not God sulking or retaliating. It is God respecting the freedom of a people determined to prefer “strange gods” and their own strategies. Such “gods” in our day are seldom statues. They are the subtle absolutizations of good things; success, safety, reputation, autonomy; that begin to command our choices. When they set the agenda, we find ourselves “walking according to our own counsels,” and the fabric of communion frays: marriages, parishes, friendships, even our interior life begins to feel like a kingdom torn.
Yet even in judgment, the reading preserves a thread of mercy: “One tribe shall remain… for the sake of David… and of Jerusalem.” God keeps a remnant because God keeps covenant. Human infidelity may divide the kingdom, but divine fidelity does not evaporate. That unbroken promise will eventually run its course into the Son of David, who comes not to tear but to restore.
“Be opened”: the restoration begins with hearing
In the Decapolis; a Gentile region far from temple precincts; Jesus is begged to lay his hand on a man who cannot hear and can barely speak. The Lord does not perform a spectacle. He takes the man aside, touches his ears and tongue, looks to heaven, and groans. Then a single Aramaic word: “Ephphatha”; “Be opened.”
It is intimate, embodied, almost sacramental. The Creator who once formed humanity from the clay now uses spittle and fingers, creation’s lowly elements, to re-form what has closed. The crowd’s astonishment; “He has done all things well”; echoes Genesis’ verdict over the first creation: all was “very good.” In Jesus, a new creation is underway, and it begins with the senses needed to receive God and respond: hearing the Word, speaking the truth.
The Church remembers this scene in the Ephphatha rite within Baptism. After the washing, the minister touches ears and mouth, praying that the newly baptized may soon hear the Word of God and profess it to the praise and glory of God the Father. Baptism does more than initiate membership; it reopens us to divine address and gives our speech a new purpose.
The danger of spiritual deafness
If division begins with not listening, then healing requires the grace to hear again. Spiritual deafness is often quiet. It does not present first as rebellion, but as drift: prayer abbreviated by hurry, Scripture displaced by a steady stream of other voices, decisions made without referencing the Lord. Over time, counsel shrinks to what we can calculate. The psalm then becomes descriptive: God “gave them up to the hardness of their hearts.”
The Gospel’s gentle particularity offers a counter-move. Jesus brings the man away from the crowd. There is a kind of noise only solitude can cure. Many of us live with constant inputs; news cycles, texts, tasks; that keep us at the surface of ourselves. Without the practiced silence that allows a word to land, even sacred words pass like wind through trees. “Open our hearts, O Lord, to listen to the words of your Son”; the Alleluia verse is not pious filler; it is the essential petition for discipleship.
Concrete helps are humble but potent:
- Build ten minutes of quiet into the day that nothing else can claim. Put the phone in another room. Sit, breathe, and invite the Lord to speak through a psalm or the day’s Gospel.
- Practice lectio divina with today’s refrain: “I am the Lord, your God: hear my voice.” Which “strange gods” claim attention? What “own counsels” dominate?
- Ask for the grace to be interrupted by God; an openness to change plans when conscience or charity suggests a different path.
From impeded speech to plain words
The man’s healing is twofold: his ears are opened and “his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.” Not hearing and not speaking belong together. If the Word does not enter, our words falter; either bloated with self-importance or thin with evasion. Jesus’ touch releases speech meant for truth, praise, and reconciliation.
Our world is not suffering a shortage of words; it is suffering a shortage of plain speech that corresponds to reality and is shaped by charity. Where ears open to God, voices can:
- Confess sin without excuse in the quiet of Reconciliation, which is Jesus’ hands still opening what has closed.
- Offer gratitude specifically, not vaguely, for the gifts received.
- Name injustice without rancor and call for conversion without contempt.
- Speak the name of Jesus freely, not as slogan but as witness to concrete mercy received.
There is a pastoral clue here too: the Lord’s discretion. He takes the man aside. He refuses to turn healing into a performance. In a season of public argument and curated images, Christian speech should learn his restraint; truthful, yes, but not theatrical; courageous, yet considerate of the vulnerable.
Division and proclamation
The first reading closes starkly: “Israel went into rebellion against David’s house to this day.” The Gospel ends otherwise: “The more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.” What changed? Ears opened to God’s initiative. When we are caught in rebellions; domestic stalemates, ecclesial factions, interior contradictions; the temptation is to shout louder or to retreat further. Jesus’ way begins with being touched and opened. Only then does proclamation cease to be noise and become witness.
There is one more quiet thread of hope. Ahijah tears a new cloak; later, at the foot of the Cross, the soldiers will not tear Jesus’ seamless tunic. Humanity’s garment has been shredded by sin; Christ bears the tearing in his body, and preserves in himself a unity no human hands can destroy. The Church’s unity does not rest on our cleverness but on staying close to the One who “has done all things well.”
A simple prayer for today
Lord Jesus, touch what has closed in me. Take me aside from the crowd and speak your Ephphatha over my ears and mouth. Free me from the counsel of my own heart and the gods that mute your voice. Let me hear you in Scripture and conscience, in the poor and the sacraments. Loosen my tongue to confess, bless, and reconcile. You are the Lord, my God. Let me hear your voice and walk in your ways. Amen.