23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jessie Chan is a young Chinese woman who is trying to recover from a very painful breakup of her six-year relationship with her boyfriend. A shot of light pierces this darkness in the form of a witty, charming, sensitive fellow by the name of Will who waltzs into Jessie’s life as her new boyfriend. Jessie is so swept of her feet, she feels no qualms about entrusting her heart to him as snippets of their chats reveal:

Jessie: “I won’t let anything bother us, I trust you, I love you” Will: “I will stay by your side, pliant as a reed, never going anywhere” Jessie: “You are my life, you are my soul”

Any happiness that one might have for Jessie having found her soulmate is cut short when we find out that Will is actually only a chatbot. This story is quoted by Webb Keane, the author of a fascinating article on the blurred lines between humanity and AI that appears in the latest edition of The Tablet. To this first example, Webb Keane adduces another about a manager of a Silicon valley tech-company. Coming home late one evening from a heavy day’s work, this man ordered his Amazon echo to turn on the lights in his house. As he did so he was suddenly struck by the following thought “that what I was doing was calling forth light from darkness with the power of my voice, which is what God does with his first command “Let there be light” and there was light and now I am able to do that.” This thought is quickly followed by a moment of reflection “Is it affecting my soul at all, the fact that I am able to do this thing that previously only God could do.”

What these two anecdotes reveal is that we are losing touch with reality. If a woman can call a chatbot her soul, and a Silicon valley techie can think that he has become like God simply because he has acquired a voice activated light-switch, then there is something profoundly wrong with our conception of the created Universe that God has gifted to us. Technology has warped our relationship with reality and infused us with a hubris that eclipses the role of our Creator in sustaining our lives minute by minute. We need to get back in touch with basic reality in its most visceral form, which is the reality we can touch.

This is exactly what we see Jesus doing in today’s gospel. In most of Jesus’ other healing miracles, a mere word suffices to effect the healing – we might think of the curing of the servant of the Centurion. Often, what occurs between Jesus and the person being healed is a short dialogue that assures Jesus of the faith of the person, a faith that plays an important role in the healing itself. Here because this man can neither speak nor hear, Jesus is unable to have this dialogue with him and must instead find another way to engage with him. It is for this reason that he chooses to engage in the elaborate ritual that Mark recounts. Jesus must put his finger into his ears, touch his tongue with spittle and then groan and utter the word “ephphatha” which is a strange Greek vocalization for the Aramaic command to open. Jesus has go to back to basics with this man, and unable to communicate with his words, he must communicate with his body, though the means of touch.

I think all too often we underestimate the power of a touch or our body language to communicate. Words are so often cheap and easy to utter, easy to hide behind. Many of us have mastered the art of small talk, managing to say nothing that makes us vulnerable, commit ourselves to nothing and reveal nothing of ourselves while convincing ourselves that we are communicating and in relationship. A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of ministering in a L’Arche community, a home for people living with mental handicaps. I found myself in the same situation as Jesus, unable to use words to communicate with the children who lived there. I had to communicate now through my body language, through a hug, a smile or holding a hand. I found that communicating with my body made me far more vulnerable, far more of an open book to these children, as they could tell in an instant whether I was really interested in being their friend or not. Having to communicate with my body forced me to be far more intentional about my desire to be in relationship with these children demanded that I really be prepared to give something of myself to them in our communication. Without such a commitment, my actions would have rung hollow as the lack of such depth is not easily concealed in body language. Communicating with our bodies brings us face to face with the demands of self-giving relationship.

For those of us who prefer to live in our heads, communicating with our bodies can seem awkward and embarrassing. For those of us who are used to controlling the world around us through the words that we speak, interacting with others through body language may seem unnecessary, perhaps even primitive. But if Jesus, who was the Word of God Incarnate, could choose this mode of communication when necessary, then we have no reason to scoff at it. Sometimes when we cannot find the words, we may well find that entrusting our communication to our bodies will lead us out of the emotional and intellectual impasse we find ourselves in. I should think that many of us have had the experience of having our words mis-understood by others. Words are a powerful form of communication that enable us to transmit abstract and nuanced ideas that would otherwise be hard to transmit through touch. However, when it comes to communicating emotions, such as love, trust and forgiveness, sometimes words betray us and do not adequately express the rawness of our emotions. It is only God’s Word that can perfectly translate into performative action what God wishes to express. As mere mortals, we will constantly have to struggle to find the words that bring about the effect that we desire. Sometimes we will not find these words and we need to turn to the power of touch.

Touch is also that which enables us to come into contact with the most basic level of reality, for we also know that just as we cannot always trust our ears, we cannot always trust our eyes. In a world of fake news, augmented reality and AI photo filters, often what we see is a distortion of reality. When we see a nice pot plant in someone’s house, we immediately want to know if it is real, or just a plastic imitation. We cannot trust our eyes to give that information to us, we need to reach out and feel it so that we establish the truth of its existence. In a similar way, sometimes it is necessary for us to reach out and tough another person, in order to be able to truly know what they are going through and in order to be able to communicate our truth to them. It would be a sad day indeed if our predominant manner of interacting with reality is through our touch-screens. We need to realize that God does not just speak to us through God’s Word, but as in today’s gospel through touch as well. May we answer God’s call today to be the instruments of God’s touch to others.

Questions for reflection

1. When was the last time I felt healed through being touched or touching another person?
2. Do I find myself embarrassed, too shy or simply unable to communicate with my body?
3. How are the ways that God might be calling me to grow in my ability to communicate and heal others through bodily communication?