(based on a homily by Brian Kokensparger)
As I travel to and from Wichita or St. Louis, I often turned on my car radio, and dial my favorite NPR station. Sometimes as I drive along the usual frequency gets weaker and weaker until all I get is annoying static. No matter how much I turn up the volume, I can’t hear the music or the announcer’s voice. But if I fine-tune the frequency – and listen for intelligible words as I gently rotated the dial just a smidgen, then it comes in again loud and clear. This is what I believe the Scripture passages are telling us today – not so much about listening as about fine-tuning.
In the first reading, we hear that the Lord says: “Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people.” Then we hear: “This is the nation that does not listen to the voice of the Lord, its God.” In the Gospel passage, Jesus drives out a demon in a mute man, giving him a voice. When the healed man speaks, though, some of the crowd claims that Jesus does His work by the power of Beelzebul. They were clearly not tuned in to Jesus’ message; had they been, they would not have drawn the wrong conclusion from merely watching Jesus’ actions from a distance.
I believe that Jeremiah and Jesus are trying to give us the same message: to fine-tune our hearts and minds during this Lenten season. Just like I had to gently “tweak” the dial to fine-tune the frequency, so must we gently “tweak” our daily lives. That’s why Lenten observances, though they may seem very small, are so important: They are changes to our normal daily habits. They are little attempts to fine-tune our ears so that the voice of the Lord may come through loud and clear.
So how do we know when we are dialed in to the right frequency? First, we can easily differentiate static from an intelligible voice. It is so easy to simply bump along in the static of our everyday lives. It might be as we putter around the house with the television droning on in the background. We might have all kinds of domestic or job related details bouncing endlessly around in our heads. These day-to-day details are important and necessary, but we also need to take time out each day to tune them out and tune the Lord in.
Once we have dialed away the static, sometimes what we hear from God is not what we like, so do we automatically change the channel? When lover of sports tune the TV or radio to their favorite sports team in action, they do not always get to hear about them winning. Sometimes their team will lose. But if they are true fans, they still listen anyway. This is what drove Jeremiah nuts: the people listened to prophets only if they told them what they wanted to hear. If the prophets told them something they did not want to hear, the people tuned them out. They did not “listen.” We sisters are not immune to such resistance. At our last Council Meeting, we studied an article in the LCWR Occasional Papers, in which the author had this to say: “If religious life is going to become a real life-giving experience for the people living it, expectations need to be raised for each of us in the places where we are most resistant to having expectations raised. This requires a real willingness to challenge ourselves… To move religious life forward, we all have to look at what it is about this life that I don’t really buy into and I’m not that interested in and then ask how I might be called to conversion in that area.”
So this is a great opportunity for us to take a look at our Lenten observances. Are they helping us tune in to the voice of the Lord? If not, it may be time to tweak them a little. Don’t give them up, maybe nudge them one direction or another until the voice of the Lord comes through loud and clear. And when we are tuned in, are ready to hear and act on whatever God asks of us? or in sports language, will we stay tuned until the final buzzer, win or lose?
Our daily Eucharist and other prayer times are built in times to tune out the static of our busyness and tune in to God’s quiet voice within. If we listen well, by our communion and holy preaching, we can become the Word made flesh once more.
