Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
It’s surely happened to you. You mispronounce or misuse a word while you’re with a group of people. Or maybe everyone knows you’re trying to lose weight, and you go ahead and order that mudpie for dessert. Then, someone feels the need to “helpfully” point out that one doesn’t pronounce the T in “often” or the calories in that dessert pretty much account for the total you’re supposed to eat for an entire day.
Yes, that’s sooo helpful, isn’t it, when people draw attention to our deficiencies in public? Think about how differently we feel when instead someone takes us aside later to discuss such situations.
Today’s Gospel reading from Mark 7 tells the story of a man who couldn’t hear and couldn’t speak. Everyone knew that about him; that’s why they brought him to Jesus. Yet Jesus didn’t dwell on the man’s disabilities in public, didn’t put him on display like a freak, didn’t treat him like an object to be used to show his own greatness. No, he had the kindness and decency to take the man aside from the crowd to heal him.
God does that with each of us, every day. If we slow down enough to listen, we can hear His gentle corrections and feel His healing when it’s just the two of us. God doesn’t seek to embarrass us or make public examples of us, just to bring us ever closer to Him. May we strive to do the same when we have the opportunity to heal or instruct.
