The passage from Genesis considers God’s covenant with Abraham. The verses from Psalm 105 are a call to praise God for His care of His chosen people. In the Gospel, Jesus makes clear His message of eternal life and the authority from which He speaks.

The part of today’s readings that touched me most deeply was the verse before the Gospel: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. If I imagine myself in the crowd of Jews in today’s Gospel, I can see how a person in that situation could experience a closed heart to Jesus’ message. To such a person Jesus delivers a message that is both outside of one’s tradition and outside of one’s experience. Jesus goes on to claim a unique connection with God. In my imagined role as a crowd member, my religious leaders see this man as a troublemaker, as someone who is deserving of severe punishment. In that imagined context, I feel that I would need to have Jesus proving me wrong in an extraordinary way before he could bring me over to his camp, and I would find myself seriously doubting that could even be a possibility.

My sense is that today we live in a world of full of hardened hearts. We spend our time inside camps of people who share our ideology. So often we reject the messaging from the other camps. So often we hear, but do not listen. Healing does not function, and progress does not occur when people refuse to or are afraid to interact. The fear of retribution by those in authority creates an unholy “order”.

As a physicist, I think of those who went against the common understanding of the workings of the universe at particular points in time. I realize how often real change takes place only when people in certain leadership positions move on. In the factions of religion, society, and even science, insight and data too seldom drive decisions and actions. My prayer today focuses on not being fettered by the enculturation that I have experienced.

Dear Lord,
How often have I discovered the gift of being brought outside my own comfort zone?
Grant me the grace to hear without bias, to listen with compassion,
to free myself from any disordered attachment to things or to outcomes,
to open my heart with a willingness for You to call me and lead me,
and to live a life of humble service to my fellow occupants of this planet.