Doing after listening, 9th Sunday of the year

“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’23 Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’” (Mt 7:22-23)

Few texts of the Scripture sound so intimidating. One can spend one’s life doing what Christians are supposed to do, only to find that God does not even know him. How can that happen? Are these the words of a merciful God or the words of a strict slave-driver? Where is God’s mercy in these words? How does one pass from driving out demons in God’s name to “evildoers” that the Lord does not even know? If good activity does not define the good follower, what does?

We can only understand these words if we continue reading the passage of founding our lives on a “rock”. Both sections are the two sides of the same coin. It is easy to accept that listening and not doing is not enough. It is indeed like building a house on sand. We cannot found our lives on mere ideals or a simple doctrine. A view of life, no matter how true, does not become fully true until it takes up flesh and history in our lives.

God did not allow Himself that luxury either. His Word was not only ideas and teachings, it took flesh in our Lord. And His love took flesh in His deeds. In the same vein, we need to walk to talk, lest we leave the talk unfinished.

But alternatively, we may fall into the opposite error: Doing and not listening. We may assist in all the religious activities and engage in the deepest social commitment, but if it does not spring from a attitude of listening, it is not even weak, it is empty. One does not even need faith to do what Christians are supposed to do. But that is not really doing, it would be just imitating or acting.

Listening and not doing is not really listening. Doing and not listening is not really listening. Contemplation without action is mere discipline. Action without contemplation is mere human activity.

St. Paul says something similar, “For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” (Rm 3:28). At the end of the day, it is not the works, the activities, no matter how frenetic and stressful they might be, that have enough power to justify our existence. Only God gives true meaning to our activities. Only God’s grace justifies. Only God’s friendship makes us more just.

The verb “to know” closes both the gospel and the first reading. In the first reading idolatrers are said to follow gods they don’t know, “a curse if you (…) follow other gods, whom you have not known.” (Dt 11:28). . In the gospel, God does not know the “activitists” nor the devout prayerful people who spend their lives in the unilateral prayer, “Lord, Lord”.

A friend in need is a friend in deed; but the first task of a friend is to listen. Friendship needs both the listening and the actual commitment. A friend who does not listen, even if he does what he thinks his friend needs, is not a real friend. He is just someone who projects his needs and solutions onto others. Doing favours can also be a way of avoiding taking the person seriously.

To be friends of God, to enjoy His favor, we have to be make ourselves known to Him, by truly listening. That is how grace works. Christian living is not a bunch of activities we have to fulfill. It is a relationship we need to establish. A relationship that becomes flesh in our relationships with others.