What is more important than winning an argument or “being right”?
The answer is simple.
What is more important is being open to a different opinion.
And maybe, just maybe, learning something new.
There is no harm in listening. There is no harm in hearing. And maybe, just maybe, we will learn.
And if not, if not convinced, what did we lose? A few minutes?
But what we might gain is even more valuable.
Sirach speaks of this gain when talking about his openness and great desire to listen to and seek wisdom. His opening to what wisdom had to offer was relentless; he listened and followed to the point of “being tormented.”
It was truly worth it.
Not unlike the psalmist who sings of following the precepts of the Lord: “They are more precious than heaps of purest gold; and sweeter than syrup or honey from the comb.”
+ But this was not so for the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders.
They approached Jesusnot with the intent to listen or to learn or to discover a different opinion, but rather to argue, and prove wrong and win their debate.
Jesus, however, was really too much for them.
Perhaps Jesus had a sense of humor and delighted, at times, to play with their silly and empty debates. There is no real indication, though, that was what was happening here.
Rather, Jesus simply listened and returned to them their empty kind of logic. Because they refused to answer, Jesus refused to answer — using their same language.
Unfortunately, time and again they refused to listen to and hear Jesus and the truth and gifts he was trying to offer to them.
The contrast between the seeker of wisdom who had no limit to how much they wished to learn and to know, and those whose ears and even worst their hearts were completely closed to listening to and hearing what Jesus had to offer them, could be said to be black and white, or up or down, or in or out, or full or empty.
What does this teach us?
How do we hope to be formed and informed by the word of God, by the Gospel of Jesus the Christ?
What is more important than winning an argument or “being right”?
+ Maybe, it is learning something new. And maybe not just something new, but something that is eternal.
Maybe something that is much more valuable than “heaps of purest gold, or syrup, or honey from the comb.”
+ Maybe it is, as the Gospel verse declares today: “Letting the word of Christ dwell in us today.”
And just for practice, we could pray the Our Father and discover in Jesus’ very own words multiple things that could transform us, renew us, heal us, give us life, or even “teach us something new”!
Father Perry D. Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.
