Open up

For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Stendahl's current Living by the Word column as well as past magazine and blog content. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century.

"Ephphatha!" Jesus cries in Mark 7. "Open up!" In that passage the command is specifically about hearing and speech. But the image seems emblematic of the gospel in many ways. The rolling away of the tombstone bespeaks an opening from death to life, despair to hope, fear to hospitality. And again and again Jesus appears, both in the flesh and by the Spirit, to open doors where there were walls, to open hearts that had been stony cold, to open eyes for seeing and ears for hearing. To open us to one another and to what he called the kingdom in our midst. Ephphatha!

I hear that theme once more as I return to the story of the rich man and Lazarus, though here more as plea than command. The rich man seems representative of so much blindness to the other, so much of humanity's "seeing without seeing." For God's sake, Mr. Rich Man, look and see what's right in front of you. See your neighbor Lazarus. See him, and then see yourself as his neighbor!