Sunday Homily - December 1st, 2019 - Listen Up!

Christus Pantokrator ("Christ the Almighty") Icon

First Sunday of Advent

   Isaiah 2:1-5

   Psalm 122

   Romans 13:11-14

   Matthew 24:36-44

 

I.

Spiritual directors are amazing.

One of my friends is a spiritual director,
 and she told me a story about a recent person that she had in direction.

She sat down with this person,
 and began to listen.

The spiritual direction session lasted for a significant period of time,
 about an hour.

And as the session was closing,
 the person said to my friend,
  "Oh my goodness, this was the best thing I've done in a long time.
    You have been so helpful to me!"

And, as she is recounting the event,
 my friend begins to laugh.

So I'm like, "So, what did you end up saying to them?"

And she finishes her laughter,
 she says, "Well, Mark, that's just the thing!
  I didn't say a single word!"

This person came to see my friend,
 and spoke, talked, confessed, bore her heart,
  and my friend sat there
   for an HOUR
    and just listened.

It turns out,
 someone to listen deeply to them
  was exactly what this person needed.

If you have never had a spiritual director
 or if you perhaps don't even know what a spiritual director is,
  this is what they do:
   they listen.

They listen to God,
 while listening to a person under their direction,
  and they direct that person to God's movement already active in their lives.

And what my friend heard from God was a gentle silence.
 God was listening to this person, too.

And that's all that that person needed.

II.

What does it feel like, friends,
 when someone attentively, carefully, and fully
  listens to you?

Or better yet,
 what does it feel like when someone DOESN'T listen to you?

We just came off of Thanksgiving holiday,
 where I'm sure there are at least some of us gathered here
  that had some family members sitting around that Thanksgiving table
   who ain't in the mood for listening most of the time,
    am I right?
     Anyone have that experience this last week?

Guess what, y'all?
 Christmas is coming up!
  So if you haven't gotten a taste of people not listening and quarreling about who-knows-what,
   you get another opportunity in just a few weeks!

But seriously, y'all.
 We all have definitely experienced when someone doesn't listen to us.

Kids and teens in the room,
 you have experienced when mom and dad just don't listen, right?

Parents and grandparents,
 you have experienced when your kids don't listen, am I right?

And brothers, sisters,
 we have also experienced when the people we don't like write us off,
  and even when the people we think we can trust
   break our trust and don't listen deeply to us.

This lack of care,
 this lack of attentiveness,
  this lack of deeply listening to others
   surrounds us in so many aspects of our lives.

Social media and news media both FEED off of people quarreling,
 inattentively spewing hatred and disrespect to tiny pictures of fake people on the internet,
  people who we think we know so well,
   because come on! That person is a Democrat!
    Come on, that person is a Republican!
     Get with it now, that person is an atheist!
      What?! You are telling me you support socialism?

Let me tell you something, y'all:
 whenever you start labeling someone in a really simplistic way,
  you have failed to listen to them.

Followers of Jesus,
 hear me very closely:
  if we really believe in our Scriptures today,
   if we look forward to Christ's Second Coming in power and great glory,
    a coming that can happen at any moment, and surely is coming very soon,
     we do not have any more time to waste labeling people
      and failing to listen to them.

Think about what the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul this morning:

"You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.
 For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;
  the night is far gone, the day is near.
   Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;
   let us live honorably as in the day,

not in reveling and drunkenness,
 not in debauchery and licentiousness,
  not in quarreling and jealousy.
  Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
   and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires."
    [Romans 13:11-14]

The Apostle Paul doesn't mince words today.
 And it is really good to remember that St. Paul is writing directly
  to one of the early Christian assemblies in Rome.
   Paul isn't writing to those outside the church.
    He is writing to those who are the insiders.
     He's writing to us.

We who live in expectation of the coming of Jesus Christ
 can no longer live as if we operate under the shade of darkness.
  We can no longer give in to our base desires of rejecting and despising "those people"
    because we have been made brothers and sisters through Christ.

We can no longer quarrel with each other,
 because our lack of listening to each other doesn't put down our enemies,
  it drags us down with our enemies.

The casualties of hate are too great.
 The suffering of the world is too great for us to lose our ability to listen to others,
  to listen to people made in the image of God.
   The suffering of our own souls is too great as well, my friends,
     for us to lost our ability to listen to God,
      a God who has constantly been listening to us.

III.

What would it take, friends,

 for this Advent to be the beginning of us choosing intentionally

  to recapture our ability to listen to others

   just as God listens to us?

You are endowed with a magical ability,

 a superpower that many people refuse to exercise:

  and that superpower is the power of listening. 

How will we know the will of God if we do not listen?

 Or, better yet, how will we know when God is speaking

  if we refuse to listen to the very people whom God is using to speak?

Personally, I know I have acquiesced my ability to listen

 for most of my life. 

It is so much easier to react and argue,

 to wrestle and quarrel,

  especially when it is clear that I'm right,

   and y'all are totally wrong. 

And yet, when I give in to my base desires such as thinking that way,

 I have failed you, friends. 

  I have failed because I have not listened with that holy listening

   that God has given to me to use to be kind, to encourage, and to love as God has loved me. 

So also, friends,

 would you join me in working to regain our ability to listen

  to a hurting and broken world,

   and world populated by people like the person my friend had in spiritual direction:

    a person who desperately just needed us to listen to them

     and nothing more?

This week, 

 I urge you,

  as a sign of our belief in the coming of Jesus Christ in his Second Coming,

   listen deeply to just one person this week. 

When you are tempted to send that nasty text,

 to react in anger on social media,

  or to become enraged by the latest news that comes across the wire,

   would you commit to at least trying to STOP,

    to NOT respond,

     but to simply wait in silence and say,

      "Tell me more. This sounds really important to you."

Advent, the season of joyful expectation,

 of patient waiting,

  is also one of penitential repentance,

   of turning from what we have been doing,

    changing our mind,

     and asking God's help to keep us in the right path. 

Listen to God intentionally this Advent. 

 Listen to each other fully this Advent. 

Listening might just save the world. 

In the name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.