Daily Office Reflection: Clear Eyed With Open Ears

Psalms 80 * 77 (79); Leviticus 25:35-55; Colossians 1:9-14; Matthew 13:1-16

I guess it is human nature, at least in our American culture, to turn a blind eye to things around us. Whether it is on the macro scale, like the economy tanking or the fiasco going on in Iraq, or it is on a more micro scale, like our neighbor not being able to buy the necessary food to survive, or fill her car with gas to get to work, without increasing an already burdensome and crippling credit card debt; our society does (we do) turn a blind eye. We do not hear their cries for help.

I wonder which group we are in Jesus' parable today of the sown seeds and then his explanation of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven given to the disciples. Are we the crowd on the seashore looking adoringly at Jesus sitting in the boat just off the beach? The ones he says do not see, nor hear what he is saying. Or are we the disciples who come to him for explanation of the parable? Are we the ones seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand? Are we the people's whose heart has grown dull, and their ears hard of hearing. Or are we the blessed disciples that see and hear. There is good news here; yet in order to hear it, to see it, we need to get off the shoreline, looking at Jesus on the boat just off the beach, and join him and his disciples. Join him who is our Savior and act on what we see and hear, with clear eyes and unstopped ears.

None of us can individually alter the course of our culture. Each of us, acting in unison with the other, can. Small steps, little acts of kindness help us to hear and see and be blessed with the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. Wiping our eyes clean of our culture's malaise, clearing our ears of the wax that malaise instills is a step towards unlocking those secrets and walking into the loving embrace that Jesus offers each and every one of us.
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Copyright 2008, John F. Dwyer. All Rights Reserved.