Return of a magician

This Sunday we celebrate Homecoming. So, after summer, Welcome back to Rutgers Church! 
       Many of us are returning from summer holidays and journeys, some short, some longer to distant lands. But even if you did not go for a long trip, or did not go away at all, all of us return changed and transformed by our summer experiences. 
       As we come together again, we bring with us pieces of different cultures, landscapes, environments which got under our skin and stuck in our mind. We carry with us grains of dreams and different sights which we take home in our subconsciousness just like that little pile of forgotten sand in the bottom of a suitcase. Hopefully we also bring along (and will preserve at least for some time) that light summerly easy attitude of playfulness and readiness to try out new things. And yes, I must not forget one of the most important elements, we bring also along the thorns of hardships which we encountered on our summer journeys. But with memories of hardships we also bring news skills and creative ways which we learned to cope and overcome them. 
       Indeed, exposure to different environments, other cultures and foreign languages have a profound influence on sensitive and receptive minds. This Sunday in our Bible reading (Mark 7:31-37) we will observe how Jesus returned from a foreign trip. Some (evangelicals) say he went on a mission trip, others (progressives) respond that most likely he was escaping political and religious persecution, he was a refugee. Anyhow, after returning home he performed a very unusual miracle healing. It was so controversial that it is preserved only in the oldest gospel - Mark. Other evangelists left it out. In this miracle story it seems that Jesus is behaving like a common pagan magician. I think that the Jesus of this story exemplifies for us how journeys can open our minds and bring healing and justice in new and surprising ways. It is a great and auspicious story for our homecoming and new school year.

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Mark 7:31-37 translated as it would be heard by the original recipients (Dynamic Equivalent Translation). 
Colloquial and clumsy language represents similar features of the original Greek text.
Jesus returned from the region of Tyre to the sea of Galilee by a long detour thought Sidon and the region of Decapolis. (Like going from Staten Island to Princeton through Bronx and Peterson.)
Just then some people came bringing to him a deaf-and-dumb guy, and they are like asking him to put on him his healing hands.
And he just took him away from that crowd, so they could be alone.
Then he stuck his fingers into his ears, and he spat on his fingers and touched his tongue.
And finally lifting up his eyes up to the heavens he groaned the word EPHPHATHAH – which translates - Be opened! And right there, they were really opened and his tongue was unchained, and he spoke just fine!
Jesus gave them a command, “Say nothing, to nobody!” But he could tell them whatever he wanted, they talked it up all the more. They were beside themselves just saying: He sets everything right again! Even the deaf can hear and the speechless do speak!