23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Unbeknown to my parents, I had a stroke at birth that caused my hearing loss. For the first few years my mother knew something was amiss but not until I was three did she realize I had trouble hearing. With the help of a speech therapist, I learned to talk when I was four years old. The joke in the family was it took me so long to learn to talk but I still have yet to learn when to be quiet.
 
A few years later my parents took me to Lourdes, hoping for a miracle. What they hoped for didn’t happen but at least God gave me enough hearing to survive in the hearing world. As some of you know, without my hearing aids, I do live in a world of silence, so I can well imagine how the deaf man felt when he heard sound for the first time.
 
This miracle stands apart from most of the miracle incidents in the gospels. Taking the deaf man aside and putting his finger in the man’s ears, Jesus groaned and said to him, “Ephphatha!” which in his native language meant, “Be opened!” And as we heard, the man’s ears were opened. Now he could hear and speak plainly.
 
Those who witnessed what happened were astonished.  Even though Jesus told them to keep quiet, they wouldn’t. “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  Who could blame them for proclaiming this miracle to anyone that would listen? Would you keep quiet if I no longer needed my hearing aids?
 
They undoubtedly heard Jesus but were they listening? That reminds me of an incident between Dennis the Menace and Margaret that appeared years ago. In the first panel, Dennis is walking with his dog, Ruff, and Margaret who is jabbering away. Her prattle continues but clearly Dennis has her tuned out. In the next scene, Margaret is pelting Dennis with her doll saying, “Dennis Mitchell! You aren’t listening to me!”  The final panel has Dennis replying, “Margaret, I’m listening to you; it’s just that I’m not paying any attention!”
 
Actually, I would take issue with Dennis on that. There is a difference between hearing and listening. The latter requires attentiveness while the former does not. Dennis was hearing Margaret, but he certainly wasn’t listening to her. 
 
How readily are we listening to Jesus? You heard the gospel but are you open to his message? While I don’t think anyone here is literally deaf, a fair number of Christians act as though they are spiritually deaf. They hear what Jesus has to say all right but for any number of reasons they aren’t really listening to him.
 
Too bad we won’t listen and heed his message. Imagine what a better place the world would be today if all peoples listened to the good news of salvation. For one thing, sin and evil wouldn’t prevail and we wouldn’t be in the midst of a war five years after the tragedy of nine-eleven.
 
Two years before that fateful day, the world mourned the passing of two women who made a difference in the lives of many because they did listen to God. They heard the cry of the poor and responded generously with open arms and voices. Have we forgotten the example of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana? They reached out to the downtrodden, the sick, the homeless, and the dying. They touched the hearts of many by what they did and by what they said, daring others to follow their example.
 
What opened their hearts was the suffering they witnessed. The world is a better place today because these two women listened and dared to make a difference. I cannot help but wonder if the tragedy of nine eleven would have been averted if the seeds of envy that drove some extremists to act as they did would have withered had more Christians followed James’ advice and shown no partiality toward others as Mother Teresa and Princess Diana did.  Alas, we are paying the price for not being listening well to what Jesus has to say.
 
How easily we hear only what we want to hear and no more: just enough to confirm our prejudices and preconceptions before we stop listening altogether. Selective hearing seems to be a common trait, as many parents and their children well know. Yet such limited hearing does not make this a better world for anyone in the end.
 
How closed minded are we to God and to others? If there is any line to be remembered from today’s readings, I would say it is, “Be opened!”  We become isolated from one another when we refuse to listen and speak out, as God would have us do. After all, aren’t most conflicts –between individuals, groups and nations—caused by people not open to what could bring about peace? Thinking back to some of my recent confrontations, I blame myself for not being open- minded to what the other person was trying to say.
 
In the midst of the noise that surrounds us, Jesus wants us to be open to God’s presence when we are overwhelmed by disappointment, jealousy, rejection, envy and anger to see the possibilities we have before us and to realize the joy of bringing God’s peace and forgiveness into our lives and the lives of others. But for that to happen, we must be willing to truly listen to what Jesus keeps trying to say to us about building up the kingdom of God and to see that we too can be healers.  So, my friends, “Be open!” As Mother Teresa said, “We are all pencils in the hand of God.”