“Let anyone with ears listen!” Jesus exhorts us in our gospel for today. That means we need to pay attention to all the myriad ways the voice of God comes to us, to take time to think about what we hear, to reflect on what message God has for us in our lives here and now.

In our world today, we often find ourselves listening to the wrong things; the loud calls of power, greed, success can block out “the still, small voice of God” (I Kgs.19:12 KJV) Maybe we don’t want to hear what God has to say because of all the times we’ve heard folks say, “It’s God’s will,” when loss has come our way. We may ignore what we hear because it’s not what we want to hear, or it may seem irrelevant to what’s going on in our lives right now. Other times we may think we hear the Holy One, but the message seems obscure, undecipherable so we just let it go. Sometimes we may be so sure of what God has said that we neglect to listen anymore. It may be that we know if we listen, we will be changed—and the status quo suits us just fine. It seems we might as well not have ears, for all the good they’re doing.

In the parable, Jesus isn’t referring to hearing God’s word with our physical ears! He wants us to listen with the ears of our hearts, to sink below the surface meaning, to take in what it means deep within our souls. The parable can reach each of us in very different ways even though we all hear the same words at the same time. Each time we hear it individually, it can touch us in a new way, giving us an insight we’ve never recognized before. No matter how often we may hear the Word of God, it is always fresh and new when we listen with the ears of our hearts. It is always calling us ever deeper into our relationship with God, that we may spread God’s love and become fruitful in the world.

Listen!