by Brandon Beck

These days, little towns and suburbs of the big metropolises grow fast in Texas. Buda, a suburb of Austin, is no exception. In 2022, the population was reported to be about 16,000, yet this growing suburb is home to a bright promise of Baptismal Living – St. Elizabeth of DWTX.

St. Liz, as the Budans fondly call their little Buda mission, is served by Vicar Fr Mike Woods and his family. On Sunday, September 8, 2024, Fr Mike exegeted Mark 7:24-37 from the week’s lectionary Gospel reading. I’m quite sure most if not all of you experienced exegesis of this passage Sunday. I highlight Fr. Mike today for what I name his Baptismal Covenant Preaching of the Word.

When I name this Baptismal Covenant Preaching, I am highlighting a preaching that emphasizes an exegesis that includes an analysis of and call-to-action from a scripture passage that derives from all or part of The Episcopal Baptismal Covenant. Fr. Mike did that on Sunday, September 8, with Mark 7:24-37, yet he never even had to utter the words “baptism,” nor the words printed on pp. 304-5 of the Book of Common Prayer. Fr. Mike embodied the baptismal covenant and called all of us to do the same by sharing an analysis of Mark 7:24-37 that describes the Syrophoenician woman and the deaf man of Sidon and Jesus himself as people who need to be open to hearing from God, people who need simply to be open to new ideas, new ways of thinking and seeing, and to people not like themselves.

Fr. Mike spent time relating the word from v. 34 εφφαθα [ephphatha] to ideas of openness and how the need to be open to others and to hearing from God has not diminished but has in fact increased since the time in which the Syrophoenician woman reminded Jesus of this part of his own ministry. The Syrophoenician woman calls Jesus to be open to a blindspot, a cognitive dissonance, between how he’s treating her and what he’s been teaching. Εφφαθα – be open to me, to us, to difference.

Jesus’ own tomb is opened by that magic word – εφφαθα – just as Jesus becomes open to the need and faith of the Syrophoenician woman and then opens the ears and mouth of the man in Sidon. Just as so many of us begin our own words with a prayer of “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to You, O God.” Open us. Open us.

Fr. Mike never had to say explicitly that we must remember our Baptismal Covenant, but we were reminded of it nonetheless, as he spoke to us of Mark 7:24-37 and εφφαθα – we were opened to new ways of thinking about this scripture and of applying it to our lives today.

As people who “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving neighbor as self” and “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being,” we cannot help hearing “εφφαθα,” as Fr Mike speaks it as a call to be open to every person in our midst today.

It might not be a Syrophoenician woman asking for healing for her daughter, but you might have a new kind of “neighbor” on whose behalf God is crying εφφαθα. Do you have ears to hear? Or shall Jesus come back and stick his fingers deep down in there?

On the website of St. Liz, the welcome message says, “We are an open, inviting, and inclusive community of Christ followers who seek to love our God and our neighbors by being a loving presence in the communities of Buda/Kyle and surrounding areas.” Sounds like Mark 7:24-37 and the Baptismal Covenant to me.

Εφφαθα – Make it so.