“My ears are tired.” That’s what our older son, Brandon, said one day. “My ears are tired.” 

I don’t remember what had happened or if it was my words or someone else’s that had exhausted his ears, but I know exactly what he was talking about. Maybe you do too.

Have you ever had tired ears? I have. My guess is that most of us today are living with tired ears. 

My ears are tired of hearing the endless talk that doesn’t say any thing. They are tired of hearing the same old words repeating the same old ideas. They want to tingle with poetry that inspires, invitations that excite, and the conviction that we really can make a change. 

They are weary of hearing words that excuse, justify, and defend but never commit, confess, or come clean. They are worn out by the chatter that keeps life superficial and they long to hear words of depth and vulnerability. They are dizzy from words that spin the truth rather than words that tell the truth. 

They are exhausted by words of negativity, criticism, and blame. My ears want to rest in whispers of beauty, recover in the echoes of possibilities, and be renewed by shouts of joy. They want to be filled with faith, hope, and love instead of being plugged up by certainty, fear, and hatred. They want to hear the song of life calling each of us to the dance floor. 

What about you? What is exhausting your ears today? 

What words of life do you need to hear today? What words would excite and energize you? What words would open and enlarge your life? What words would challenge and grow you? What words would change and transform you? And what would it take and be like to let those words become flesh in you and live among us?

I think we all long to hear words of life. It’s a remedy for tired ears. That’s why last week I asked you to listen for and choose words of life. I asked you to do that in the context of the upcoming presidential election. 

That choice, however, doesn’t just happen on election day. It’s a choice we make every day. Every day we must choose whose voice and whose words we will give our ears. Every day we must listen for and choose words of life.  

It is not enough, however, to just hear and choose words of life. We must, as James says in today’s epistle reading, “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.” (James 1: 17-27) Hearing is incomplete unless it is acknowledged and expressed in our actions. 

Take a few examples from last week:

• Welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for those in need. (Matthew 25:31-46) 
• Turn the other cheek. (Matthew 6:38-39) Put away your sword. (Matthew 26:52)
• “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31) and “Do to others as you would have them do to you”? (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31)

Those are good words but what good are they if we don’t do them? What difference do they make if they are printed in our Bibles but not inscribed on our hearts? How can they be words of life if they live only on the page and never come alive through our actions?  

What are your favorite stories and teachings from scripture? What words of life are they offering you? Are you doing the words you hear or are they falling on deaf ears? 

I think that’s what my mom was getting at when I was a teenager and after a conversation she would say to me, “It just goes in one ear and out the other.” I wasn’t being a doer of the word. 

You’ve known people like that, right? Maybe you are someone like that. 

I wish I could say that was a teenage thing that I outgrew but it’s not. It’s just a thing. It’s how many of us live today. It goes in one ear and out the other, and nothing happens, nothing changes. 

If we want a different life for ourselves and others, if we want change, if we want to make a difference, then we have to do something. We must be not only hearers of the word but also doers of the word. 

Here’s an example of what I mean by that. It comes from the desert tradition. 

One of the monks, called Serapion, sold his book of the Gospels and gave the money to those who were hungry, saying: “I have sold the book which told me to sell all that I had and give to the poor.”

— Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, 37.

Serapion not only heard the word, he did the word. What about us? What does it mean for you and me to be doers of the word?

Start with what you are hearing. Look at your life and relationships. Listen to your dreams and hopes. Listen to your hurts and regrets. Look at what’s happening in Uvalde and our nation. What word of life do you hear? What word of life is being asked and called for? 

You got it? You know what it is? What is the word of life for you today? Whisper it to yourself. Say it out loud. Hear it with the ears of your heart. 

What is your word? Truth. Peace. Compassion. Hope. Rest. Love. Forgiveness. Patience. Beauty. Nonviolence. Welcome. Abundance. Courage. Perseverance. Whatever your word of life is, don’t let it drown in a sea of babble. Give it flesh, hands, and feet. Do it. Become it. Let it come alive in your relationships and how you engage the world.

How might you do that word today? What would it be like and take to let that word enter the world through your life?

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Image Credit: Photo by Eden Constantino on Unsplash.