We receive what we are ready for.

I remember a class I took in graduate school about communication, culture, and the Gospel.  The teacher, a Carmelite friar, had been a missionary for some years.  He was well-versed in how to be culturally sensitive and in how to communicate in a way that a person from another culture would understand.  He would remind us of the consequences of speech, namely, that what someone says is not always what someone else hears.  There is a risk in communication.  It is the risk of not being understood, and the risk of offending whoever is listening.  We cannot control how others hear or understand us.  I can say I’m pro-life, and sometimes people only hear “anti-abortion” without knowing that pro-life means being for life at all its stages, from womb to tomb.  This example is enough to show how much communication and its reception is an issue in our country today.

Communication depends on how we receive someone else’s words.  St. Thomas Aquinas says, “what is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.”  This suggests that one route to improving communication is to deal with the receiver.  In other words, to help the one listening to be more receptive.  This is of prime importance because of today’s Gospel.  The seed of God’s Word is scattered over every kind of soil.  God is communicating with us all the time.  God is, here and now, giving the divine self to you and me.  The problem, exactly like our communication problem, is that we aren’t open enough.

What happens to the seed as it was scattered?  It falls on all different types of ground, many of which never allow the seed to take root and grow.  These different soils can be instructive for us.  The kingdom of God can only be received if we are open to it.  Divine and human communication cannot happen if we are too rigid to see any other viewpoint than our own.  This is the path the seed fell on that was eaten up by birds.  Our communication will never be deep or transformational if we are half-hearted, superficial, or full of pretense.  This is the rocky soil.  We will never be able to listen to others, God most of all, and respond accordingly if we are perpetually distracted by the latest gossip, movies, video games, television, or one of the other million diversions we’ve invented for ourselves.  This is the soil with thorns. 

The kingdom of God is received and grows in rich soil, which is a heart of humility and honesty.  Rich soil means we are open enough to listen to someone with whom we disagree.  Rich soil means we can put aside our own fears and see reality from another person’s perspective.  Rich soil means we are sufficiently free of ego that there’s room for God.  Rich soil means we are centered on God.

We are talking past one another these days.  We are yelling at and blaming one another.  We all need some humility, whether we’re Republican, Democrat, Independent, or no political party at all.  True communication only occurs if each person is grounded in God.  That means we are not the center of the universe and our viewpoint is not the absolutely right one.  Now, a specific view may line up with reality.  That is not the issue.  Rather, the issue is how attached I am to this viewpoint.  The attachment is the problem.  If we cannot budge at all.  If we cannot allow “the other side” any degree of truth, then we may be letting our opinion be God.  Of course, only God is God.  Our need to be right, though, can supersede God’s place at the center.  Then, we may be the path that allows the seed of God’s Word to be eaten up by passing birds.  At least the other soils have some flexibility.  The path, though, is hard and unyielding.  There is a right and a wrong, but do we need to be right?  If we do, why?

In the second reading, St. Paul says all of creation eagerly awaits the unveiling, the revelation, of the children of God.  The whole universe awaits our transformation, our explosive awakening to the divine life within us.  All of creation wants to share in “the glorious freedom of the children of God.”  Are we gloriously free?  Are we free enough to let another person be right?  Are we free enough to put down our distractions and be present in this moment?  Are we free enough to be real with each other?  Are we free enough not to hate or blame the president, the media, or the terrorists?  This kind of freedom, divine and glorious, is our destiny, and it is just as necessary for personal holiness as it is for our public discourse.