Reflection
In our Gospel reading for today, I found myself drawn to Jesus explaining why He used parables to speak to the people. He quotes Isaiah: “‘they look but do not see and hear, but do not listen or understand.’…Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.”
You may be wondering why I was drawn to these words of Jesus. I guess it’s because it seems that we have trouble seeing what we need to see and hearing what we need to hear. We have trouble seeing the humanity of certain groups of people. We have trouble taking the time to hear their stories. And we have trouble hearing how far Jesus is calling us to go in loving God and our neighbor.
In our first reading from Jeremiah, God speaks through the prophet:
“Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters; they have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water.”
I think we resist seeing what we need to see and hearing what we need to hear by trying to “hold water” in “broken cisterns,” such as the big lie that says “Your gain is my loss;” or “They’re here for the wrong reason;” or even deciding for ourselves that “they” are somehow outside of God’s love and care. These beliefs are convenient for people to justify prejudice and discrimination and even violence. But these beliefs hold no water. They hold no truth.
Our challenge, then, is to be willing to have our eyes and ears opened so that we can be healed by God’s love in Jesus Christ. Toward the end of our Gospel reading, Jesus says to His disciples:
“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears because they hear.”
Blessed are we when we can see God’s love for all people and all of creation. Blessed are we when we can hear others tell their stories, and our hearts are moved with compassion and not hate. And blessed are we when we see and hear and follow Jesus in love, working for justice and making peace.
