Ordinary 17

The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2020 – Cycle A

1 Kings 3:5, 7-12; Psalm 119; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

An understanding, listening heart is quite different from a listening, understanding ear, is it not?

Though my question straddles metaphor and physical reality, is there not truth in it?

But we live in a culture that no longer has the ability, nor seemingly the desire, to listen with understanding to each other. The overlapping talking heads of what passes for journalism on television have taught us well.

Does anyone even want to listen to the experience of police officers as we nationally reflect on the issue of law enforcement? How many of us are answering a person’s question before they are finished speaking because instead of listening we have been formulating a response to what we think they are about to say? How many people have told me it’s time for the Black Lives Matter protests to stop? We’ve heard enough. Have we even begun to listen to the centuries of grievance from black, red and browned skinned peoples?

To listen with understanding takes humility. It presumes we do not know everything and that each person has and every experience is a piece of the truth. As the dream of Solomon shows us today, a listening, understanding heart is a gift. It must like all gifts of the Spirit be requested for in prayer. Not all people are given it.

Last week in speaking to you about prayer I said that an essential part of prayer is “showing up”.

A second critical aspect of prayer is a listening, understanding heart. Now Solomon prays for this gift so as to listen and judge rightly over God’s people. But an understanding, listening heart is also necessary for prayer; a heart that listens for God’s response.

For how many of us does prayer primarily consist of us doing the talking, presuming God is supposed to listen and carry out what we want? “Ask and you shall receive?” [See Matthew 7:7] How many of us leave room in our prayer for the silence necessary to listen to God’s answer? Listening with an understanding heart because God’s answer may be “No!” Or God may be revealing a whole other route and pathway for our life or the persons or situations that are the subjects of our prayer.

This is where people get frustrated with prayer and often stop praying because we are not listening. Prayer is not a one-way street. Prayer is a dialogue. But a difficult dialogue in that God never shouts. As the story of the prophet Elijah relates, God does not speak in blustery ways as a mighty wind nor with the power of earthquakes nor in the blazing up of fire.  God only speaks in small whispering sounds. [See 1 Kings 19ff]  Is as if God is almost forcing us to listen.

But therein lies a third element of prayer. A prerequisite to a listening, understanding heart is silence.

All forms of prayer should eventually lead us toward that silent place needed to listen to God with an understanding heart. It is what we call mysticism. Now don’t let that word frighten you. We are all called to be mystics. Each of us is called to a self-surrendered unity with the unknowable, incomprehensible, God. Prayer forms are only a means to that oneness with God.

For example, the rosary is not prayer. The gentle repetitions of the “Hail Mary” should lead us into contemplation until the rosary drops from our hands and the words slip into silence. Then we are in prayer.

The meditation on a passage of scripture centering on a word or image that leads us into a deep reflection as the bible closes in our hands and the image or word allows God to quietly whisper to our heart. Then we are in prayer.

As a fly fisherman stands in a cold Adirondack stream casting the rod rhythmically in the air as the fly lights on top of the water. Then we are in prayer.

These are the three essential elements of pray: show up, move into silence and listen with an understanding heart.

But beware that much of our culture and society has mustered forces against these essential aspects of prayer. The lie of our busy-ness and therefore of our self-importance that keeps us from “showing up”. The universe of loud, obnoxious sounds from our vehicles and ubiquitous screens to our phones constantly reminding us of how needed and important we are walling out silence. The arrogance of our individualism that rages against the humility necessary for a listening, understanding heart.

As the artist Brian Rutenberg, who I introduced to you last week, wrote, “When others say no, you say yes, and you keep showing up”.  To choose to pray is a courageous act. It takes courage to say no to society, to our family and friends and even our self.  And yes to entering the presence of God.

“Ask something of me and I will give it to you”.  How will you respond?

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PLEASE NOTE: Homilies presented here are also being videotaped and put up on the Saint Mary, Oneonta website: http://www.SMCCOneonta.org.