08/30/2026
12th Sunday After Trinity
August 23rd, 2026
Impediments to Salvation
Like a good son, I recently spoke to my mother on the phone. And like all sons, I know I should probably call her more often.
After we finished catching up on discussing current events, our conversation traced history back to the hard years I had growing up. About how things went, and how it should never have been that way. And before long she brought up my birth, as mothers are wont to do.
She told me again how God had his hand on me since I was born blue and she wasn't allowed to see me for a day and a half. My feet were still blue when she got me. I recently looked into this since I thought it might make a good sermon illustration. Apparently, I suffered severe hypoxia and cyanosis at birth that kept me in intensive care for 36 hours. This was in the days when there were no NICU’s. I also discovered that the consequences of this could have left me with cerebral palsy, developmental delays, learning disabilities, subtle issues with executive function, attention deficits (ADHD-ok, that one might stick), or motor coordination later in life. I suffered none of these.
In addition, I was born tongue-tied. The band of skin that connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth was too tight and long, a condition called ankyloglossia. My mother, still carrying the offence, likes to tell how the nurse tore out this “string of the tongue” with her finger. Of course, if she had not, I would have had a speech impediment like the deaf and mute man in the gospel. It could be that his speech impediment was not only because he was deaf, but because the “string of his tongue” was like mine.
I am grateful, because if these things had gone just a little differently, or had my guardian angel had not been by my side, I might have had something much worse than a speech impediment. I might not have survived at all.
When Jesus passed through the region of the Ten Cities, some people brought him a man who had an impediment. His impediment was that he was deaf and unable to speak with any clarity.
What is an impediment? It is something that halts our progress. The origin of the word is taken from the idea of shackling the feet. You can imagine what it would be like trying to walk or run a race with shackles on your feet.
In fact, we are all born with an impediment. We are dulled in our hearing and tongue-tied. Shackled in mind and sight. Not physically of course, but spiritually. Try as we may, we cannot overcome this impediment on our own. What is this impediment? It is our wounded and corrupted nature. Our handicapped goodness and purity. Our blinded and impaired reason. Our selfish and misdirected fallen nature.
We were made in God’s image, sharing in the fullness of good that God is, but we have been born with spiritual impediments. This, again, is a return to the basics. Essential doctrines that form the groundwork of the Christian life.
Attending church will not, by itself, remove these impediments. Trying to be good by your own effort, trying to be devout and moral, without grace, will fail. No matter how hard the deaf man tried to hear, no matter how hard he tried to speak, his ears remained unopened and the cord of flesh binding the tongue to the floor of the mouth held fast.
Paul makes this clear when he says,
“The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
People in the world speak and act like we could enjoy unencumbered fellowship with God whenever it suits us and under whatever conditions we choose, simply because we were created by God. We are all God’s children, they say. But what they fail to acknowledge is that ever since our fall from grace, our humanity has contracted a congenital defect.
Human nature was corrupted by the temptation of the serpent and the fall of our first parents and since then, generation after generation, has been born with a congenital defect that has made us deaf to God, blind to grace, prone to fear, impaired in righteous speech. We have all been born blue, and the string of our tongue has kept us from confessing Christ as Lord.
This impediment goes beyond the limitations imposed on us by our disordered passions; our minds have suffered a kind of spiritual hypoxia. The ascetic fathers call this the darkened nous. Nous is the Greek word for the mind, and they speak of it as an organ that has suffered an impediment, darkened in its capacity to see God.
We cannot overcome these impediments without the intervention of our Lord. Without the Holy Spirit midwifing our spiritual rebirth; losing the tongue to give thanks and praise to God, and opening the ears to hear Him. The cord of the tongue must be broken. The heart must be circumcised. The veil that lies over the mind must be removed.
This may occur at baptism, where our parents, like the compassionate friends who brought the deaf man to Jesus, implore God to remove the impediments of the flesh so we can hear the gospel and declare it. Parents, baptize your children! Brothers and sisters, bring your friends to the Lord to have their ears opened. Usher them to the waters of baptism.
Without baptism and grace, and without the infilling of the Holy Spirit, we cannot overcome these impediments ourself. Jesus told Nicodemus that unless one is born again, they cannot see the Kingdom of God. Unless you are born of water and spirit you cannot enter. Likewise, we must have the impediment washed away in the waters of baptism. Our congenital defect by being born again. Our nature healed by divine grace and our manner corrected by the Holy Spirit.
We need the finger of God to touch our infirmities and impediments. The finger of God is a metaphor for the power of God. But praise be to God, He has sent His Son to heal our human condition. The finger he extends to the deaf mute is the finger He extends to all humanity.
St. Ephrem the Syrian puts it beautifully:
“For the very architect of the body itself and artificer of all flesh had come personally to him, and with his gentle voice tenderly opened up his obstructed ears. Then his mouth, which had been so closed up that it could not give birth to a word, gave birth to praise of Him who made its barrenness fruitful. The One who immediately had given Adam speech without teaching gave speech to him, so that he could speak easily a language that is learned only with difficulty.”
The architect of the soul and body has visited us in the flesh of Jesus Christ, to meet our wounded nature and heal it. Jesus put his fingers into the ears of the deaf man, and the One who created the ear recreates it. The fingers that hung the stars in Andromeda and put the song in the mouth of the starling touched the tongue of the mute man and made him declare the wonders of our Lord.
The New Testament lesson echoes these themes.
Paul explains to the Corinthians, "Our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
That word, sufficiency, can be translated as adequacy, capability, or qualification.
Although he is speaking of his own qualification for ministry, what Paul affirms is a broader principle: we are incapable of glorifying God as we should because of our congenital defect. Our broken, wounded, impeded nature.
Paul acknowledges his inadequacy in ministry but reasserts that any inadequacy he has is overcome in God. He has boldness of speech where Moses had an impediment. And the veil that covered the glory that shone from Moses face was removed by the Spirit. The law had a veiled glory, but the ministry of the Spirit manifests a greater glory. The veil remained in place when they read the Old Testament, a spiritual impediment over their hearts, a darkened and impaired intellect, but it is removed by the ministry of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit and divine grace working within us that removes our impediments.
So, when we turn to Christ the impediment is lifted. Our deaf and dumb nature is healed. Our sight is restored, and our darkened minds are illumined.
Whatever we do that has any eternal consequence comes not from the flesh, nor from mere human effort, nor reliance on the law of God; not from religion or any earthly qualification, but by turning to the Lord with all our hearts, going through the waters of baptism, and being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Unless you understand this, your Christian life will be a dismal failure, marked by frustration and guilt if you try to do it on your own. You cannot. Try as you may, you will find it impossible. But when we carry our wounded, impaired nature, with all its defects, to Christ, entreating him to have mercy and touch us, begging him to open our ears and eyes and mouths, then those who are unqualified are qualified. Those that are insufficient are made sufficient. Those who have spiritual and moral impediments are made well.
“Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.’
We need the veil taken away. The impediments of the flesh healed. The divine nature stamped on us at creation made whole. And this comes by turning back to the Lord. By paying attention to the latent image of God that resides deep within us beneath the sin, distraction, shame, and guilt, and returning to God. To the One who breathed life into Adam and touched the ear and tongue of the deaf and mute.
Turning back to God is an intentional thing. Some call this repentance. But repentance is not just a turning away, as from sin, but a turning towards. To God, yes. But also to what we were always meant to be, what God intended us to be. Back to our telos, our meaning, purpose, and intended end. As if your soul were sliding back into the very Imago Dei in which you were made, rather than being drowned in the passions of the body. That is death. That is hell: to have invested our spirit and soul in what is passing, what is mortal, rather than investing in the Lord who is our true anchor and home.
When we turn to the Lord, the veil is lifted. The mind is opened. The darkened nous is illumined. When we turn we see Him, and are transformed as we gaze upon His image, which is the image of our very sanctified and perfected nature.
