Six Little Words

Historians say that we live in “The Information Age.” We all know how technology has made information accessible at a level previously unthinkable – with just a few taps of our fingers, we have the ability to call up data on just about any topic. But with an increase in access to information comes an increase in the number of voices competing for our attention – opinions, viewpoints, hot takes from all sorts of people on all sorts of topics.

I have become more deeply aware of this in my four years working on a college campus. In my four years working on a college campus. Universities today say they are all about helping young people to form their own ideas and draw their own conclusions. But often it seems they are more likely to be places that you are bombarded with viewpoints and perspectives: from magisterial lectures and keynote addresses, to debates and demonstrations, and even things like the ins and outs of campus culture and the pressures of peer groups, and much more. Now, this is not always a bad thing; it can be helpful to learn from another's perspective. After all, even this homily is itself an attempt to represent another perspective – the Church’s viewpoint! But, sometimes, with so many voices all wanting to have a say, it can be a bit overwhelming, and we may be tempted to tune out even the important voices speaking to us.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us a reason for why his voice should stand out among all the rest, whether here on campus or anywhere else. At the end of the Gospel passage, he offered six little words tell us everything we need to know about him: “The Father and I are one.” If Jesus were a spiritual guru or moral exemplar, then his voice would just be one among many, wiser perhaps than most but with not inherently more authoritative than a number of others might be. But instead he says something no mere moral teacher would say: “The Father and I are one.” Those six little words tell us that Jesus claims an authority much higher than being one voice among many – indeed, he speaks with an authority higher than every other. He speaks as the Living Word, imparting the message of eternal life – he speaks with the voice of the Living God for he is one with the Father.

But not everyone hears this word, and not everyone accepts this message. The context for today’s Gospel, from the tenth chapter of John, makes this very clear. The religious authorities of Jesus’s day, the Pharisees and Temple authorities, heard Jesus’s message and resisted it because they did not believe him. Perhaps they were a bit like so many of us today – hardened into skepticism, overwhelmed by the number of viewpoints and the din of different voices. How often is the voice of Jesus speaking today simply lost in the mix? Certainly, we know our culture has in many ways grown hardened to hearing the Christian message and accepting it, but I’m talking also about its power and bearing in our own individual lives. Have we learned to distinguish the voice of Jesus speaking to us? Are we willing to act upon it? 

The Good Shepherd (c. 1800) by Vicente López Portaña

In order to hear the voice of the Lord more clearly, we first have to create room for it. If our attention is constantly being filled up by other voices, then it’s going to be hard for God to break into the mix. Each of us perhaps might do a little soul-searching this week about what kind of voices constantly occupy our attention. I can speak for myself in saying that often my ears are tuned in to rather ephemeral noise: entertainment, sports, politics, social media. These voices compete for our awareness, insisting that we stay up to date and in the loop, but often they can elbow out the voice of the Lord. Or perhaps the word of God is kept at bay by different voices: concerns about career and personal achievements; various anxieties of personal and family life; voices of doubt or discouragement, whether interior or exterior; voices that persuade us in some way or another not to strive for moral improvement, not to seek peace, not to forgive, not to be forgiven; and many more. In different ways, these voices can crowd out the voice of God speaking to us. We have to learn to lessen the degree to which these voices grab and hold on to our attention in order to be able to discern the Lord’s voice more clearly.

Once we have given him a greater opportunity to be heard, we then have to discern his voice speaking to us. There are certain fundamental ways we hear the voice of Jesus as Catholics: through the daily encounter with his Word in personal prayer, especially with the Scriptures; through the regular reception of the sacraments, hearing him speak to us especially in the words of the priest’s prayers; through the teachings of the Church, which carries Jesus’s authority as the Living Word into the present day; through the mutual love of one another, by which we help each other to grow in charity.

But still there are times when God’s word might feel absent. When that happens, I suggest if I may to return again to the six little words of today’s Gospel, so concise and yet so powerful: “the Father and I are one.” Jesus’s voice always speaks to us of the Father’s love, and it is always speaking to us of that love even when we don’t explicitly hear it or feel lit. The Lord’s voice can adopt different tones depending on what we need to hear in a given moment: hopeful and encouraging, urging us to change and conversion, speaking to us of peace. It can even be that the Lord speaks in a silent sort of way – by withholding from us the consolation or experience of presence. But even in this, he reveals always the same message of love: “you are loved, you have been created for love, and you will find the fulfillment of your desire for love only in relationship with Me and My Father and, ultimately, through eternal communion with us.” That is what Jesus, the Good Shepherd, means when he says, “The Father and I are one.” He reveals the Father to us, and makes known for us his love in this moment.

But finally, it’s not enough just to hear God’s word; we can’t just passively receive it or consider as just one voice among many. The Letter of James tells us to “be doers of the Word and not hearers only” (Jas 1:22). So how do we act upon God’s Word? Boldly. Of course, the substance of what we do depends upon what love compels us to do in the given moment and particular circumstance. But the voice of the Lord always asks us to be bold – not to be afraid to trust his voice, not to give in to doubt or skepticism that we really are hearing it – but to act decisively, directly, like sheep who recognize the shepherd’s voice and immediately move closer toward it.

Friends, our lives are full of lots of voices speaking to us – giving us information, opinions, perspectives, telling us what we should value, what we should believe. We can be tempted to discount all of them and just turn inward. But even if you tune them all out – heck, even if you take nothing else away from this homily – don’t disregard the voice of Jesus speaking to you today. “The Father and I are one,” he says. Let those six little words of the Lord speak to you, and penetrate your heart, and then boldly put his word into action. Don’t hesitate to do that which God is inviting you to do – don’t wait till next year, or next month, or even tomorrow, but trust in his love and act. Live out his “Word of Life” (1 Jn 1:4), so that others too may hear what you have heard and may come to know the sound of the Lord’s voice speaking to them. “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”