Mass Readings Audio
https://bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2021-09-05-usccb-daily-mass-readings
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – September 5, 2021
Welcome to the one hundred and eightieth episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time. (Year B) In the reading from St. Mark’s Gospel Jesus heals the deaf man who had a speech impediment. It is a memorable Gospel reading because it is one of the few times the original Aramaic word Jesus used is quoted. “Ephphatha!”— that is, “Be opened!” (Mk 7:34) Of course, this Gospel passage is prefigured in the first reading from the Prophet Isaiah, where we are told “then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.” (Is 35:5-6) Jesus fulfilled this prophecy by healing countless people when he walked the earth, and he miraculously continues to heal us to this day.
Most of us aren’t physically blind, deaf, mute, or lame, but from time to time, we suffer from these spiritual infirmities, nonetheless. We are blind to the neighbor in need, deaf to the coworker crying out for assistance, lame to lending a helping hand, or mute, when we should speak out against injustice.
Take Courage, Be Strong
Last week, St. James wrote about having courage to “be doers of the word and not hearers only.” (Jas 1:22) This can be hard to do, especially at work. Having the courage to speak up is difficult especially when you anticipate a backlash. Even though, “Thus says the LORD…Be strong, fear not!” (Is 35:4), it is hard to muster up the courage when your livelihood is at stake, (or at least you think it could be.)
I taught a class on core values and ethics to a group of up-and-coming leaders. One participant, a field maintenance technician, shared a story about how he was on his way to a jobsite when he saw a problem in the field, so he called into the office to report it. He thought he was doing the right thing. However, when his supervisor heard about the incident, the supervisor said the employee should have stopped and addressed the issue right away instead of just calling it in. The supervisor was encouraging personal accountability for resolving problems when they popped up, instead of just passing them on.
Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. From then on, this employee said that whenever he saw a problem, he just ignored it. He didn’t call it in, nor did he stop to address it. His reasoning was based on how the organization evaluated his productivity. If he stopped to deal with the problem on the way to respond to a maintenance call, he’d be docked for taking too much time to respond to that call.
Broken Support Systems
This guy’s story highlights the challenge of doing the right thing when the system doesn’t support it. In the NY Times Bestselling book Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, the authors told a story about a software development company that was on the brink of bankruptcy. It failed to meet product release dates, costs were high, and morale was low. Their new VP of Development knew he needed to motivate and enable employees to speak up early and honestly about problems or they never would be able to address them.
According to the authors, the product development organization’s culture discouraged people from coming forward with problems. Instead, the teams played a game they called “Project Chicken.” Team members would say they were ready with their part of a project when they weren’t hoping that someone else would admit they needed to extend the deadline. The person who had the nerve to admit they needed more time was the “chicken” and everyone else was off the hook, getting an extension without having to admit they were behind too. The problem was that the chicken culture led major product releases to end in disaster.
To change the chicken culture, the company had to engage the enablers of the problem. The solution was bigger than any one person alone could solve, lest that person be known as the chicken for speaking up first on every project. It was important that everyone bought into the “speak up as soon as you have a problem” approach, otherwise, it would never succeed.
If you lead a team, a department, an organization, or a company, it is your responsibility to create an environment that encourages everyone to do the right thing. I know that sounds so simple, and it is simple, but it’s not easy. Why? Because we must encourage people to hold each other accountable. The problem is, if I hold you accountable, then you might point out my failings to me, and I don’t want to get that feedback, so I’ll just be quiet. And while this sounds like a mutually beneficial option, it’s not. It works for a short while until whatever you are doing wrong continues to frustrate me and bring down others around you. And it isn’t helping you either.
Creating Accountability
One leadership team I worked with was frustrated by a lack of accountability in their organization. I told them “If there is a lack of accountability, you all must be failing to hold each other accountable. So, what’s the problem?” As expected, they said it makes them uncomfortable to point out someone else’s flaws and they didn’t know how to do it.
So, I asked them, “How do you want someone else to hold you accountable?” Each person responded with something like, “I want to be told when I do something wrong because if I don’t know about it, I can’t fix it. I want to be told face-to-face or on the phone, not in a text or email, and I want specific examples, not generalizations.”
So, I challenged them saying, “You’ve just heard that your teammates want to be told when they do something wrong, and they told you how you should go about telling them. What would keep you from moving forward to address the lack of accountability?” That’s when the real problem came out. They weren’t as open to receiving feedback as they claimed. The truth was, they were just as uncomfortable receiving feedback as they were giving it. But feedback, like forgiveness, is a gift. It is as much of a gift when you give it as when you receive it. Effective feedback is the gift of truth wrapped in mercy.
The Gift of Feedback
To give the gift, we need to check our motives lest we “become judges with evil designs”. (Jas 2:4) Imagine for a moment how Jesus would give feedback. We have several examples we can refer to like the woman at the well, the rich man who asked what he must do to achieve eternal life, the woman caught in adultery, and the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus combined the right combination of truth and mercy. For some, like the hypocrite Scribes and Pharisees, he provided more truth. For the shamed woman caught in adultery, he spoke out against the sin with a big dose of mercy. (Jn 8:11)
If your intentions are pure, if your goal is to make the other person aware so that they can improve, and as Matthew Kelly says, “Become a better-version-of-themselves,” you’ll apply the right combination of truth and mercy to the feedback.
But we have to do more than a good job of giving feedback. We have to know how to receive it well also. Perhaps, Jesus’s command “Ephphatha!” — “Be opened!” (Mark 7:34) is for us too. That is, be open to the gift of feedback so that we can become a better-version-of-ourselves too.
We heard the people were exceedingly astonished at Jesus and said, “He has done all things well.” (Mk 7:37) As far as the rest of us are concerned, not so much. We don’t do all things well. We know all too well that we fail. When my clients’ fear of failure prevents them from moving forward on any initiative, I usually coach them to just get over it. They will fail (and so will you.) Now that we’ve got that out of the way, you can move forward and decide what you are going to do with your failures when they happen. Are you going to learn from them or be stopped by them? Becoming the best-version-of-yourself is a journey that is filled with missteps. But “when you know you are striving to become the-best-version-of-yourself, that alone is enough to sustain you in happiness.” (from The Rhythm of Life by Matthew Kelly)
Noisy Crowd
One last thought: Before Jesus cured the deaf man who had a speech impediment, “He took him off by himself away from the crowd.” (Mk 7:33) If we want to be cured of whatever is limiting us from being the-best-version-of-ourselves, we also may need to get away from the crowd.
In an online world, we tend to find ourselves in echo chambers where our beliefs are amplified inside a closed system and where we are insulated from rebuttal. We only get information that reinforces our existing views, and we are never challenged by new or different ideas. If we are right in our views, how can we influence others if we don’t understand their perspective? If we are wrong, how can we learn and grow if all we hear is more of what is wrong?
Leaders need to be open to hearing different perspectives on opportunities and challenges. Ineffective leaders only hear what they want to hear. Effective leaders seek to be challenged, look for other solutions, ask for a variety of options before taking action.
In a world full of noise, it is difficult to know who to listen to. When we don’t know, we need to go off by ourselves with Jesus. In the Holy Mass each week, we encounter Jesus as the deaf man did. He puts his Word in our ears and his Body on our tongue. Are we open to his grace? He’s the one who can heal us from our deafness so that we can speak the truth. Let’s ask him to help us.
Heavenly Father, you opened the eyes of the blind, cleared the ears of the deaf, and enabled the mute to sing. We ask that you remove any impediments in our hearts that keep us from the truth. Draw us away from the crowd that holds us back from being the-best-versions-of-ourselves, so that in everything we do, we may glorify you by our lives.
May God bless you abundantly this week as are open to the truth and may you glorify the Lord by your life.
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