The listening life

Annual Meeting homily 2012
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 
Psalm 111
, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, 
Mark 1:21-28


Listen to God. That is a clear and simple message from today’s readings.

The Christian life is a listening life. God is always speaking. The challenge is to listen.

The people of Israel wandering in the desert knew all about that challenge. For them, listening to God was not a sweet private spiritual experience. The voice of God shook them to the roots of their souls. "If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die." Wandering in the desert teaches us how profound is the voice of God. When the boring comfort of routine and the deadening sense of expectation is lifted away, then we hear clearly that voice which loves and which saves and which gives the Holy to us and asks that we give ourselves in return. Our job is to listen to the ways that God speaks.

To truly listen, we must be ready to respond.

The Christian life is a listening life. This has been true from the beginning.

Adam and Eve listened to the footsteps of God in the garden. They hid because they could not face the truth of their own lives.

Abram listened to the voice of God that called him from his homeland to a place he had never seen.

Moses listened to the voice of God calling him out of his exile to risk and danger with a captive people.

Jesus listened to the voice of God that said to him “You are my beloved Son.” Even Jesus was so shaken that he ran to the desert himself, where he could listen more deeply and be transformed and prepared more profoundly.

God is still speaking. The line of listeners has not been broken. The Christian life is still a listening life. What shall we hear when we listen today?

Moses may not walk among us anymore. But it was Moses himself who said, “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” That same Spirit which moved Moses and freed a whole nation is poured out upon us. That same Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead and which came upon the disciples at Pentecost is poured out upon us.

God is speaking. Our life is a listening life. How shall we listen?

A listening life is a challenging life. We must name the noise outside of us, and the noise inside of us. We live in a world which bombards with information and images, and which wants to tell us how to feel and what to buy and how to think and feel.

This noise is easier to deal with than the noise within us. We all have it—noise of boredom and tedium, noise of fear or despair, noise of anger or pride. Each of us has our own re-mix, our personal play-list of inner noise that also tries to tell us how to feel, how to think, what to buy and to value.

But God is still speaking. How shall we listen?

We place ourselves in the presence of God through prayer, through a re-kindling of hope and faith, through asking God for the gift of the Spirit and the gift of listening. We place ourselves in the presence of the Word and in the life of the sacraments, through sharing Communion and in common prayer. We take that life of prayer into our daily lives in a way that works for us.

And we listen, with humility and respect and gratitude, to one another. We listen today, as we gather today to speak aloud our life here that we share at Saints Peter and Paul. We listen, in that spirit of respect and humility that Saint Paul himself spoke about as our way of life with one another.

God is still speaking. Our life is a listening life. Are we ready to listen?