The Great Listener: Homily for the 30th Week in Ordinary Time Year C

Pat Schneider is a poet, author, and teacher of writing,
whose has a mission to help people discover their voice.
Her most well-known book is called Writing Alone and with Others,
and she begins the book by saying,
“Everyone is a writer. You are a writer.
All over the world, in every culture,
human beings have carved into stone,
written on parchment, birch bark, or scraps of paper…
Those who do not write stories and poems on solid surfaces
tell them, sing them,
and, in so doing,
write them on the air.”

One of Schneider’s core beliefs is that,
“Everyone has a strong, unique voice.”
No matter who we are,
no matter what our age is, we each have important things to say,
and we each have a deep need to be heard.

That’s why today’s reading from Sirach is so important.
Just as each of has a deep need to be heard,
we learn today that God is a listener.
God has had many titles over the years,
Alpha and Omega, I Am Who Am, Abba Father,
but one that we might propose today is the Great Listener.
God is the Great Listener.
And listening is something we all need.

I’ve often spoken with parents over the years who were worried
that their teenage son or daughter was losing their voice.
Not that they were unable to speak physically,
but that they were silencing themselves
because no one would listen to them.
The parents worried that their children had stopped speaking up in class,
afraid of being misunderstood
or made fun of for their questions or comments.

Have you ever felt that you weren’t listened to?
Have you ever tried to tell someone your problems or worries
only to feel like they were simply nodding along politely,
waiting for their turn to speak?

Everyone has a need to be heard.

Sadly, there are entire groups of people
whose voices are routinely ignored.
The voices of women have been disregarded for centuries,
and while strides have been made in this country,
there are still parts of the world
where the voices of women are silenced.

The same thing is true about the poor.
To be heard in our culture you either need to have money or power,
and the poor have neither.

About a year and a half ago,
Brenda and I were invited to Washington, D.C.
to attend the annual U.S. Bishop’s Social Ministry Gathering.
The Catholic Social Ministry Gathering is an annual major event
organized by the U.S. Bishops’ Department of Justice, Peace
and Human Development.

For three days,
hundreds of Catholic lay people, deacons, priests, and bishops
from all over the country came together
to attend workshops, seminars, and forums
on topics as diverse as poverty, nuclear arms, and the Farm Bill.

The culminating event of the gathering
happened on a cold Tuesday morning in February,
when all of us left the conference center together
and traveled to Capitol Hill
where we all had appointments
with our various Senators and Representatives.
The Catholics had come to Washington.

As part of the Eastern Washington delegation,
we had three meetings scheduled:
first with our Representative from the 5th Congressional District,
and next a separate appointment
with each of our two Senators.
At the exact same time that we were meeting
with our representatives from our state,
Catholics from all the rest of the 50 states
were meeting with representatives from their states.
We tried to speak one message in one voice
to make sure that our voice was heard.

Why did we do this?
Why did the U.S. Bishops host this Social Ministry Gathering
and send us to Capitol Hill?
We might also ask,
Why do Catholics march on Washington, D.C. each year
on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision?
The answer to both questions is the same,
and can be found in today’s scriptures.

“The LORD is a God of justice, who knows no favorites.”
“…he hears the cry of the oppressed.”
“The Lord is not deaf to the wail of the orphan,
nor to the widow when she pours out her complaint.”
“The Lord hears the cry of the poor.”

God is the Great Listener.
And if God hears the cry of the poor,
then we should, too.
We were in Washington, D.C.
because the bishops asked us
to hear the cry of the poor
and carry it to our nation’s leaders.

We were not there speaking for ourselves.
We were there to speak on behalf of the poor, the immigrant,
and the oppressed.
We were there to speak for those whose voices have been silenced
or drowned out in all the other political noise.
And in Washington that’s unusual.
In fact, one of the representatives commented
that that’s one of the unique things
about meeting with Catholic delegations:
they rarely are there to speak on their own behalf,
but instead come to speak for the sake of others.

The reason our bishops call people to DC every year
to the Social Ministry Gathering
is because through our baptism,
we become one with God through Christ,
and if God listens to the poor and the oppressed,
then that is what we are to do, too.

Pat Schneider the author knows what it means to listen to the poor.
Not only does she teach others how to write,
she makes it a point to reach out specifically
to those whose voices are in danger of being silenced forever.
She leads writing workshops for low-income women like Robin.
When Robin attended one of Pat’s writing workshops,
Pat had no idea that Robin and her three small children were homeless
and living in a car.
Pat had no idea that Robin and her children got showers and food
from whatever shelter they could find each day.
But through the writing workshop, Robin found her voice, her confidence.
As Pat puts it,
“Before an abused or neglected child can entrust painful secrets
to a caring adult, he must experience having his story honored.”
In that writer’s workshop, Robin had her story honored.
She was heard.
“Now, after 15 years, Robin has her Master’s Degree in Social Work.
She is the author of a book of resources for leaders of writing workshops
for youth at risk…”

This week we can take comfort in knowing
that we have a God who listens.
But we are also challenged
to embrace our baptismal call
to listen to others,
especially the poor and the oppressed.