Schema Israel: Hear the Word of God!

15th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B
Given at St. Patrick's in Wareham
By: Fr. Ron Floyd, P.V.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

Today Jesus is standing at the door, and knocking, and calling out to each of us asking us to let him in. Imagine him standing there waiting for you on your doorstep Would you let him in?

I think most of us want to see Jesus. Most of us want to talk to him, ask him questions, to learn what we need to do to be truly happy. So, if Jesus came and knocked at our door and sat down in our living room, we would probably listen carefully to what he had to say.

At least, that's what we would like to think. However, despite our desire to see God, there is an equally strong fear in our heart of doing so. A fear of what hearing God’s word might mean. Listening to God's word isn't always easy because while many of us like the notion of having the Son of God in our house the reason why the book of Revelation paints a picture of Jesus standing at the door and knocking is because many of us don’t like the reality of what Jesus’ presence means!

And so we often keep him outside just as in the first reading today the Israelites banish Amos, forcing the bearer of God’s word, outside the kingdom of Israel.
• Amos had been telling the people of Israel that they needed to return to the basics of their faith, following the commandments and giving up their self-indulgent idolatries.
• You would think that with God's authority and power behind him, everyone would simply hear and obey.
• But the message wasn't comfortable for them, and so they rejected it, exiling the bearer of God’s word from Israel.

In the Gospel today Jesus warns his Apostles that like Amos they too will be despised and rejected by some, for knocking on the doors of hearts and trying to bring Jesus in.

Jesus is preparing them for rejection because he knows that fallen human nature doesn't like to be pushed outside of its comfort zone. But his message of salvation does just that; it pushes us out of our comfort zone.

The Gospel is always a two edged sword, always able to both wound our enemies and ourselves.
And so today the Gospel not only tells us what to do when inevitably we are rejected for being Christians. But it also indicts us for all those times that we have shut the doors of our hearts and our homes to the Word

Today we must ask ourselves if we truly let Jesus into our heart? When we hear him knocking how well we listen to God's words? Are we selective listeners, picking and choosing according to what fits our comfort zone? Do we open the door just a crack for Jesus, make sure the chain is still on the door so Jesus can’t truly get in? Or are we true followers of Christ, willing to love and obey him even when it means carrying our piece of the cross, willing to say with today's Psalm: "I will hear what God proclaims"?

It's an important question, because our hearts are like the house Jesus mentions in the Gospel. If we welcome God's word, his grace will come and stay there, bringing peace, wisdom, and salvation, but if we don't, God's word will shake the dust from its feet and move on.

Each time Jesus knocks on our door we are given a chance, a momentary occasion, to enter more deeply into the life of God, and while God is merciful we must Beware,
as St. Augustine warns of the grace of God that passes by, never to return again.

Of course, when we keep Jesus out of our life we save ourselves a lot of trouble. I mean, if you are really living your Christian life you know that it is not easy to be a follower of Jesus. God’s word demands that we change the way we live! It demands that we live as God Created us! It demands that we live sacrificially and it demands that we ultimately die for love of our neighbors. God’s word forces us to confront the difficult reality of who we are and what we were made for and how we have utterly failed over and again!

But the question we must ask is whether it’s better to live a comfortable lie or a difficult truth?

This question, which is not new to man, but has plagued us since the Garden of Eden is captured perfectly in a scene from the blockbuster movie: the Matrix.

At the beginning of that movie the main Character Neo is confronted by a choice, symbolized by two pills, one blue, one red.

Choose the blue pill and he will forget that he was ever confronted with a choice returning to a computer generated prison, a lie, but a pleasant lie.

Choose the red one however and we will awaken to the reality of a post-apocalyptic nightmare and a war for the future of mankind.

When Jesus knocks on the door of our heart, we too are confronted with the same choice as Neo,
a name which coincidentally means new—suggesting that he is a symbol of a new or a renewed humanity.

If we let Jesus into our heart He will remain with us and feed us we will become new creature, new men and women in Christ, but we will also be faced with the unpleasant reality that our modern life is based on so many lies and half truths.

In contranst if we ignore him, we will remain the same, undisturbed but also unchanged.

What’s at stake? Truth, and with it true happiness, fulfillment, and love.

What’s at stake is our salvation.

Listening to God can be uncomfortable – there's no escape from that. God loves us too much to let us vegetate in our comfort zones. Rather he is always leads us further along the path of spiritual maturity, further up the mountain of wisdom, courage and holiness—even though it is difficult! Today God is inviting us to renew our commitment to be good listeners, to let Jesus in and thus be changed. He reminds us that He is worthy of such a commitment at the Altar where He gives up His life for us in the Eucharist.

Part of the difficulty, however, of allowing Jesus into our heart and receiving Him in the Eucharist, is that its not enough for us to be changed. We who are filled with the Word and Spirit of God, must in turn bring the Word of God with us into the World to all those who are not here today.

God wants to speak to them too, to convince them that his commandments and counsels are the real path to lasting happiness now and forever. Therefore we must reminded our families and friends who are afraid to swim against the current of popular opinion that Jesus is knocking, speaking also to them today!

Remember each momentary encounter with the Word of God in the events and encounters of our life is a priceless, irrepeatable gift. While we may have other opportunities to answer Christ’s call and to bring it to others, we never know what graces we will miss if we fail to let Jesus in and listen to His Word today!

Pray that we be given the strength to open the door to Jesus and to invite Him into the lives of those around us.