Listening with love to others
Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD where the ark
of God was. The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.” Samuel ran to
Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.” “I did not call you, “ Eli said. “Go
back to sleep.” So he went back to sleep. Again the LORD called Samuel, who
rose and went to Eli. “Here I am, “ he said. “You called me.” But Eli answered, “I did not call you,
my son. Go back to sleep.” At that time Samuel was not familiar with the LORD,
because the LORD had not revealed anything to him as yet. The LORD called
Samuel again, for the third time. Getting up and going to Eli, he said, “Here I
am. You called me.” Then Eli understood that the LORD was calling the youth. So
he said to Samuel, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, Speak, LORD, for
your servant is listening.” When Samuel went to sleep in his place, the LORD
came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel
answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
Which do you think is harder:
speaking or listening? Now, most people
would say speaking is harder, especially if you have to get up in front of a
large group of people; that absolutely terrifies some people. While listening, on the other hand, is easy
because you just have to sit there like a bump on a log. Right?
But I disagree. I am convinced
that it’s much harder to listen than to speak.
For instance, there are several people here who’ve already fallen asleep
listening to this sermon, because it’s just too hard to listen any longer! One day a Sunday school teacher asked her
students who were about to go over to church: “Why should we be quiet in
church?” Little Johnny answered: “Because
people are sleeping.” So, good night,
sleep tight.
But sometimes even when we do try
to listen attentively, we don’t catch what the other person is saying. When I was a small boy I remember watching
T.V. with my dad. Whenever a commercial
would come on, he would shake his head in disgust and say in our Indian language,
“Aleh kalipikiah.” That means, “They are
just playing with people”; they are not telling you the whole truth about that
product. In other words, listen
carefully and don’t always believe everything you hear. By the way, that’s also why the volume
mysteriously goes up on your T.V. during commercials – have you noticed? – they
know it’s hard to listen, and so they basically yell at you to keep your
attention. Now, this is rather
embarrassing, but last week I received a letter from a young man I had
counseled years ago in another parish.
He wrote: “Father John, I’ve finally been able to forgive you for the
way you treated me. I was at a point in
my life when I needed some compassion and care, but you just corrected me
rudely and walked away.” You see, he
needed me to listen to him rather than speak to him, but I took the easy way
out. I wrote back to him and apologized
for not listening with love. But that’s
the life of a priest: people sleep when we wish they would listen, and they
listen when we wish they would sleep!
You see, listening is always harder than speaking.
In the first reading today, someone
else struggles to listen well, little Samuel.
Three times he hears God calling his name and three times Samuel runs to
the wrong person, he runs to Eli.
Finally, Eli realizes God is calling Samuel, so he advises him: “Go to
sleep, and if you are called, reply, ‘Speak, Lord, for you servant is
listening’.” Like my father taught me
how to listen well by his phrase, “Aleh kalipikiah,” (don’t believe everything
you hear) so Eli taught Samuel how to listen well, how to hear God
speaking. He taught him to “listen up” –
literally to listen upward to heaven, from where God was speaking. You see, it’s always hard to listen well, but
it’s hardest of all when we try to listen to God, whom we can’t even see. We have to listen up.
Now, sometimes, listening well can
be humorous. A second grader came home
from school and said to her grandmother, “Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today.” The grandmother, more than a little surprised
(as you can imagine), tried to keep her cool.
“That’s interesting,” she said, “How do you make babies?” “It’s simple,” replied the girl. “You just change the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and add
‘es’.” Baby...babies. Now, you know how to answer your kids when
they ask you, “How do you make babies?”
But you see, that was a smart granny: she knew it’s better to listen
rather than to talk, otherwise, you might say too much!
Do you know what I believe is the
single greatest problem that married couples face? I am convinced that it’s not lack of money,
nor is it troubles with intimacy, nor is it who gets to operate the remote
control. The single greatest challenge
is learning to listen with love. Do you
know why? Because it’s HARD to listen;
it’s always easier to speak. And what do
we do when our spouse doesn’t listen well?
We become like T.V. commercials and yell at the other person, figuring
if we just said it louder they will listen better. By the way, how’s that working out for
you? Yeah, not so good. I am convinced that 99% of all marriage
problems could be solved if both parties learned to listen to the other person
with love.
I believe this is also our single
greatest obstacle in our relationship with God: we don’t know how to listen to
him with love. When we kneel down to
pray, what do we do? We immediately
start talking. We think: surely what I
have to say is far more important and interesting than what God has to
say! But the great doctor of prayer, St.
Teresa of Avila, taught that as you mature in prayer, you experience something
called “the prayer of quiet,” where you speak less and less, and listen more
and more. Imagine for a moment being
able to sit down with supper with anyone who’s ever lived. I would like to have at my table Abraham
Lincoln and Joan of Arc and Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron (I’m kinda sweet on
Charlize Theron). Now, at that supper,
do you think you would do all the talking, or do you think you would shut up
and listen to what they might say? Well,
that’s the prayer of quiet: when you realize whom you’re sitting in front of
and that your company has far more interesting things to say than you do. We should shut up and listen up.
One of the most eloquent eulogies
ever delivered was for Julius Caesar after he died given by his friend, Mark
Antony. (Of course, he was an “Antony”!) He began with these immortal lines: “Friends,
Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”
He asked them to “listen up,” and they did because they loved him. That’s a “loan” we should be eager to make in
all our relationships – to listen with love.
So, for those of you who stayed awake during this homily, thank you for
lending me your ears. You can have your
ears back now, so you can lend them out later when you listen to your spouse,
or when you listen to God, or when you listen to your child who, by the way,
knows “how you make babies.”
Praised be Jesus Christ!
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