In today’s Gospel (Luke 11: 27-28), Jesus teaches a wonderful lesson in just 12 words. “Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
Before sharing the lesson, Luke sets the scene. A middle-aged woman is standing in the crowd. She is entranced by the person of Jesus. As she listens, she is drawn in by the gentleness of his eyes and the ease of his body language. His words deliver a message that resonates deep within her. They are not the usual words of the law. They are not words that she is used to hearing. They are words of comfort, encouragement, acceptance, and forgiveness. They are words of love. Where did he learn such things? Her mind travels from the young man to his family. She wonders who they are. They must be very special people. Jesus’ mother! What kind of wondrous woman, wife and mother must she be! The woman can no longer contain the spontaneous overwhelming joy within her. She sings out in praise, “Happy the womb that bore you and the breasts you sucked.” And Jesus enthusiastically sings back to her, “Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
We all listen to God’s word, but we don’t always hear them. Some of us expect that God will come to us in a roar of power, simply because He can. When He doesn’t, we don’t hear what He says. Some of us have poor hearing skills. Rather than paying attention and hearing what God is trying to tell us, we start to think about how we are going to reply. Some of us are talking so loudly ourselves that we cannot hear what is truly important. Some of us, sadly, don’t even care to try to hear.
The thing about hearing God’s word is that it isn’t nuclear science. I should know, I am a nuclear scientist. It isn’t head challenging. God will talk with us so we can understand. But hearing God’s word is heart challenging. It requires heart-felt effort. We have to slow down. We have to calm ourselves. We have to open ourselves so we can hear with our hearts, not with our ears or heads. It is hard to slow down, to ignore the busy-nesses of our lives. But the fact that you are taking time to read this little reflection, and that I am taking time to write it, is a small sense of slowness, of listening, of hearing God’s word.
I sometimes get frustrated that I don’t (seem to) have time every day to pray and reflect the way I should. Then I remind myself that God doesn’t just talk with me when I am actively praying. He talks with me and tells me His word in many ways. I hear His calming word when I am tempted to get angry with the person who cuts me off in traffic. I hear Him speak with joy in His creation when I bask in the warmth of my friends’ smiles. I hear Him loudly lament about tiny babies who are crushed from life before their birth, and I hear Him softly call to me from the depths of my own self-created despair when I unwittingly turn my back on Him.
Jesus reminds us that the blessings are not just for those that hear, but for those who keep the word. Keep it by practicing what we hear, by renewing ourselves, by living the word. This is such a personal call, a personal message. I can tell you what I believe, and how I think this word affects my life, and how I keep it, or as happens to us all, how I have failed to keep it so many times in my life. But only you can hear God’s word for you, and only you can keep God’s word for you.
Hearing God’s word calls us to a deep and personal relationship with Him. How is the Spirit moving within us? In what small quiet ways, like the woman in today’s Gospel, do we sing the praises of God? What is our own unique expression of the holiness of God?
That Biblical number 12: “Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!