Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
How arrogant we human beings can be. We think we know best and want to do things our own way rather than listen to God, creator of all. We get ourselves into a lot of trouble that way: destroying people, destroying the environment, idolizing wealth, physical beauty, and worldly power. And most of this is done by Christians! We create our own ideas about God and we stop hearing or even listening for the true voice of God.
In today’s first reading (Exodus 32: 7-14), the Lord is angry with the Israelites who have so quickly turned away from God’s ways after being freed from slavery in Egypt. Now they have grown impatient with Moses who went up Mount Sinai awaiting God’s instructions, and they have made a molten calf out of gold to worship. They are no longer listening to God.
Today’s gospel reading (John 5: 31-47) has a similar theme of preferring one’s own way to God’s way. But in this case, Jesus is addressing the unbelievers and pointing out that they have never heard God’s voice or seen God’s form and do not have God’s word remaining in them because, “you do not believe in the one who he has sent.” These are religious people, mind you; they even “search the Scriptures,” believing they have eternal life through them, “but” Jesus says, “you do not want to come to me to have life.”
Is it possible that we as Christians do that too? We claim to follow Christ, to know God, but we really prefer our own will to God’s will. We reject the glory of God in favor of our own glory or the glory of other people. Isn’t it easy to get caught up in building ourselves up and aiming to win the praise and admiration of other people so that we lose sight of really seeing God and hearing the voice of God?
Perhaps we, too, grow impatient like the Israelites. We tire of waiting and we begin to delude ourselves into worshipping false gods that we don’t even realize we have substituted for the one real God.
What if for lent we tried looking, really looking into the eyes of people in our lives, rather than looking into the mirror, or the television or computer? What if we tried listening, really listening to the people around us rather than just hearing the noise and distractions all around? What if we tried opening ourselves up to a friend, neighbor, or family member who may have hurt us or who we may have neglected in our busyness?
A composer friend of mine, Stephan Waligur, wrote a very simple and profoundly beautiful song that speaks to me each time I hear or sing it:
“When I listen to you, when I hear your voice, I hear the voice of God.
When I look in your eyes, when I see your face, I see the face of God.
When I open to you, when I touch your heart, we touch the heart of God.”
I pray that we each may recognize and reject our false gods and humbly recognize God’s voice, face, and heart in those around us.
- Eileen Miller