Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

About two years ago, a study at Columbia University found some rather alarming information.  It’s about noise.  The study found that just walking city streets can put you at risk of going deaf.  That may not be surprising to anyone who lives or works here in downtown Seattle.  We deal every day with traffic, honking horns, pedestrians, bicycles and construction.  We live in a city saturated with sound, in neighborhoods overcrowded with noise.

But the problem is: most of us aren’t aware of it.  It’s subtle, and it’s insidious.  We’re used to it.  And increasingly, we block it with earphones connected to iPods – which, of course, can only make matters worse, and affect our hearing.  Hearing loss is only one problem.  The study’s authors found that noise can also cause stress, raise the risk of heart disease, disrupt sleep and impact other aspects of life.  Marriages can be strained, relationships can be broken, nerves frayed.

There’s one aspect of communication that many of us overlook: silence.  In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth; we understand with greater clarity what it is we want to say and what we expect from others; and we choose how to express ourselves.  By remaining silent we allow the other person to speak, to express him or herself; and we avoid being tied to our own words and ideas.  “Remaining silent.”  In our noisy age, what a daring idea!

And it is one, I think, that has bearing on this Sunday’s readings.  God’s word this week asks us not only to hear… but to listen.  To pay attention.  “To hear God’s voice” and “harden not our hearts.”  To do that, we need to set aside what we want to say, and listen to what God wants us to hear.  In the first reading, Moses addressed the people of Israel and promised them a prophet – “To him shall you listen,” he said.  And then, in Mark’s gospel, that prophet finally appeared.

Jesus spoke in the synagogue, and people listened.  But what was the first word he said?  The first message Mark quoted?  To a man tormented by “an unclean spirit,” Jesus said simply: “Quiet.”  For Jesus to do his work – for God to intervene, for a man to be freed from that “unclean spirit” – he needed first and foremost something that we all find increasingly elusive.  Quiet.  Stillness.  Calm.  The fact is: to let God in, we need silence.

And I think that means more than just the absence of sound.  It’s also the absence of noise.”  The noise we make, and the noise that invades our lives.  I’m not just talking about the sounds of the city, or cell phones and iPods.  I’m talking about all those things that add unwanted noise to our lives.  There’s the roar of anger.  The hiss of gossip.  The clattering of fear.  It may be the insistent drumbeat of impatience, or pride, or greed.  It may be the seductive music of sin.  We need to turn all that off – lower the volume of our all-too-human hungers and failings.  Doing that, we can at last be able to listen to God.

That is the “quiet” the troubled man in the gospel needed to embrace.  And it’s one we need to seek as well.  As we prepare to receive Christ in the Eucharist today, try this inventory: What is the noise in life that keeps me from hearing God – and listening to what God has to say to me?  What are the distractions that drown out God’s call?  What is the static that interfaces with God’s message?  What is blocking God?

Again and again, God speaks to us.  God teaches us.  God prods us.  God inspires us.  God challenges us.  God loves us.  So often, we miss God.  Life intrudes.  Noise interferes – deafening, deadening noise.  So, amid all the noise of living… amid all the fear and uncertainty, the hostilities and anxieties, amid all our frustrations and failings… Listen.  Listen.  God has something to say.

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor