Precoccupied Listening

September 27, 2021

Scripture

 “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.” But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them…. An argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest. But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side, and said to them, “Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.” (Luke 9:44-48 NRSV)

Preoccupied Listening

The cover of the birthday card said, “People think you are losing your hearing.” The inside said, “Actually you are just not listening!”  Signed by my brother it generated lots of laughter among our family. Being a good listener – to one another, our own inner person, to God, to all the information that floods our lives – challenges us all.

The card would have been appropriate for Jesus’ friends in gospel writer Luke’s version of a conversation Jesus was having with his closest friends. He asked them to listen to him with the depth of their being. Quietly he told them he was about to suffer at the hands of the authorities, but the writer said it was hidden from them.

 Luke gives a clue about why they were functionally deaf with the next paragraph describing a debate about who was the greatest – the ones who were listening were only half-listening. They were preoccupied by internal competition in their group.

 Our own preoccupations make us deaf to what is truly being said to us by those who need us to be listening. Jesus knew them and knows us. He says, “Be like a child, be a servant.”  He asks us to do no more than he has done. Listening and hearing and then acting in love continues to be a high calling as we serve one another and our world.

 A Prayer for Today

God of listening help us, turn to us, as we struggle with our own preoccupations and don’t listen as we ought.  Help us see you going ahead of us in our fractured world filled with people who want to be heard. Grant us the inner stillness to sense the inner moves of the Spirit in our lives and those of the Spirit in those around us … for Jesus’ sake