Theme: Hello? Hello? Is anybody listening?
The readings today are about people not being heard -- of souls in distress not being listened to by people around them.
From ancient Israel -- probably in the 6th century B.C.E., there is the story of Job, who spends 35 of his story's 40 post-tragedy chapters crying out with increasing anger and vehemence for attention and justice after his life has fallen apart for no good reason, and being shushed by his friends who tell him to just learn to accept things the way they are.
From first-century Palestine comes the story of blind Barimaeus, loudly crying out in his darkness for help, with the people around him (all wanting to see Jesus themselves) telling him to be quiet and not disturb either them or the messiah with his shouting for help.
And there is the psalm in its universal and timeless wisdom, celebrating the experience of being heard and answered by God -- something that Job and Bartimaeus also experience by the time we get to the end of their stories.
But is that happy ending all that common?
Do we -- do I or do you, ever feel unheard? That no one is listening, or cares enough to hear us? Is there something in your heart you wish someone could hear? Something you wish you knew how to say?
And how many others in the world still and always suffer the same experience? The poor pushed to the edges of public
awareness ... refugees featured by the media for two weeks and then left behind on
the way to the next big story ... hundreds of missing and murdered First Nations women
in Canada for whom the government refuses to call an inquiry ... church members and neighbours who we stop
visiting because they have Alzheimers or cancer or something else that makes us feel uncomfortable if we visit them ... people of other traditions trying vainly to explain to the mainstream why they do some of the things they do?What good news is offered in the story of Job, the Gospel of Mark and Psalm 34? What encouragement? What challenge?
It was 50 years ago that Paul Simon wrote and Simon and Garfunkel recorded "The Sound of Silence," an achingly beautiful indictment of our unwillingness -- or maybe inability, to hear and pay attention to many voices and souls around us.
...in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
"Fools," said I, "You do not know.
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you.
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence."
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
"Fools," said I, "You do not know.
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you.
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence."
Where is God, and where are we in this story?
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