September 8, 2024 – Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time: Fr. John Edmunds, ST (@8:38 in video)

TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – B
Isaiah35:4-7
James 2:1-5
Mark 7:31-37

Society puts a great value on those who speak well. Politicians, news reporters, actors, comedians, business leaders, guests on late night shows are all expected to be articulate, to speak in clear and compelling ways. They study public speaking, go through extensive training, have coaches to make sure they can communicate effectively. In Church too there is an emphasis on speaking well. I can testify that in my case I took classes on how to construct a homily, attended workshops on Bible interpretation, training in storytelling, practice in the choice of word and sentence structure, voice modulation, audience analysis, effective argumentation, and linguistic history to get my degree in preaching. Yes, it’s good to speak well. What does not seem to be as highly valued, either in society or church, is an equal emphasis on listening. There’s no Ph.D. in listening. How would things look differently if it were?

We know that Jesus esteemed those who listened well. “Happy are those who hear the word of God and keep it,” he once said. However, in the four gospels the only specific instance when Jesus is reported to have cured a person whose problem was deafness is in the text from St. Mark’s gospel for today. And a strange, even bizarre, story it is. Most often in the gospels the miracles of Jesus seem almost effortless. When the disciples feel the boat is sinking Jesus calms the storm with a word. The woman with the hemorrhage only needs to touch his garment to be healed. Jesus raised the dead Lazarus by simply saying, “Lazarus, come forth.” And, as we remember every time we receive the Eucharist and say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you come under my roof,” Jesus healed the official’s servant even from a distance. Healing this deaf and mute man looks completely different. He separates himself from the crowd, he puts his fingers in his ears, he spits, he touches his tongue, he looks up to heaven, he groans. He finally says a word so distinctive that St. Mark records it in the Aramaic language of Jesus: ephphatha. It makes you wonder: is all of this effort on Jesus’ part to heal a deaf man intended to demonstrate how difficult it is for us to hear correctly, to listen well? Learning how to listen might require a similar effort on our part – maybe minus the spitting.

We must put the effort in to learn how to listen to God. We’re pretty good at talking to God. We say our prayers, we have the rosary, we offer up the Mass, we speak our petitions. Listening to God, not so much. The reason: God is not at our beck and call and does not respond on cue. In fact, learning how to listen to God requires a willingness to enter into silence where we don’t hear anything. This is not as odd as it seems at first because it reflects other experiences of intimacy. In an intimate relationship you just can’t find the words to express the depth of feeling that characterize what it means to be together. After speaking words of love, silence beyond words is the place which feels comfortable. To listen to God we have to break through the need we have for thoughts and words and instead simply learn how to be together with the One who loves us more than we can ever know.

We also must put the effort in to learn how to listen to one another. There is a famous poem by Charles Finn entitled, “Please hear what I’m not saying.” It begins with the line: “Don’t be fooled by me.” The poem points out that our words tend to hide who we truly are because we fear being rejected if people knew us. So we put on a brave front. No one likes to own up to loneliness, confusion, fear. Good listeners create an open spot where they can do so. We need to learn to listen better to one another so we can extend a hand of acceptance and love to everyone just as they are since, no matter what, they are children of God, made int God’s image and likeness.

It is particularly timely to reflect on listening as a gospel value at this moment in Church history. If you follow Catholic news you might have heard that Pope Francis gathered people from the whole world to become a part of a synod on synodality. Synodality is not a word that comes trippingly off the tongue but the concept is an important one. The Holy Father observes that Catholics are accustomed to being part of a teaching church. We have our catechism and creeds which describe what believe. But we live, according to Pope Francis, not in an era of change but in a change of eras. The Catholic way, the Christian way in general, of being in the world has shifted dramatically. We can no longer rely on the culture to carry the faith forward since our culture has lost the presumptions that anchored the faith in our lives. We have to find a new way of being Church. The Synod on Synodality is an effort to say it is not sufficient to be a Teaching Church, we must also be a Listening Church. We must learn to listen to the joys and hopes, the griefs and sorrows that characterize modern existence. Beyonce (note the less that 30 year old reference!) captures this modern mood in a song: “Listen, I am alone at a crossroads.” We must hear people’s questions before saying that we have the answer. Being a listening Church will re-focus how we deal with one another and with the world at large. We need a spirituality of listening which is attentive to our conflicting hopes; different visions of church and world; the need for unity and friendship, and the importance of discernment and mission, particularly to the poor and those on the margins. Only after we have listened will people say of us as they said of Jesus: “They have done all things well.”