LISTEN

5^th Sunday after Epiphany

February 10, 2019

Drawn In: Week 4

Acts 16:6-15; Matthew 13:9-17

What happens when you get stuck on a project?

You’ve had an idea/dream

You collected your materials

You hovered, took a deep breath and dove in

You took a risk to see if you could turn those materials from dream into reality

But then you got stuck. Something didn’t work how you expected it to. The glue wasn’t strong enough. The wood split. The mixing of two colors didn’t turn into the 3^rd color you had thought it would.

What do you do then?

Sometimes we keep pushing through. You will make the materials work how you want them to. You pull out the pliers or the hammer or the superglue. You try to force it.

And sometimes that will work.

Other times it doesn’t and it’s more like spinning your car wheels in mud, trying to get out but only digging a deeper hole with your tire.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Yet even in the last round of snow I saw a lady revving her engine over and over trying to get her front wheel unstuck from the snow bank she had parked in.

When that happens, all you do is make yourself more stuck.

One option would have been for her to wait 24-48 hours for the snow to melt. However, I doubt she had that kind of time.

Which means her other option would have been to try something different. She couldn’t go forward, because there was a curb. But turning the wheel, putting a piece of cardboard under it, or just asking for help all might result in something different happening. As it happened, someone else from the store walked out to go help her.

So, when you get stuck, what do you do?

Do you walk away and give it time?

Do you ask for help or otherwise look for new ideas?

Or do you consider it an utter and completely failure and total negative? This last one, by the way, is what happens when we think we have all the answers and we know best and it’s our way or the highway.

But as Christians, we know that God knows best, we know we don’t have all the answers, and we know, as humans, that we can be wrong.

That means we’ve got to listen to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and nudging. Remember, God can do more than we can imagine. With God all things are possible. That includes things we haven’t even thought of yet. So, we don’t know best. Things can happen in lots of different ways.

Even the Apostle Paul didn’t always know best. He travels around with his companions to share the good news of Jesus and it’s a bit like Dr. Who traveling with her companions. Sometimes they arrive where and when they planned to go and sometimes they don’t. And when they don’t, the Doctor always pops out of the TARDIS for a look-see to find out where they ended up and what’s going on there. In a similar way, twice in this passage from Acts Paul has a plan of where he wants to go and he is blocked by the Holy Spirit. I imagine it’s something like giant angels with flaming swords like the ones God placed east of Eden to prevent Adam and Eve from going back into the garden. Or maybe it’s like Gandalf from “The Lord of the Rings,” holding a staff in each hand and bringing them together as he declares, “You. Shall. Not. Pass!” Either way, it says Paul and his companions were “kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia” and “when they came to the border at Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.” So they passed Mysia and went down to Troas. Paul doesn’t view a blocked path as a negative. He doesn’t keep trying to go to Bithynia. He changes course and tries something else. Because Paul allows himself to be redirected by the Holy Spirit, because he listens to the nudgings of the Holy Spirit, he ends up in Philippi and has this unlikely encounter with a woman named Lydia. All because Paul listens to the Holy Spirit and doesn’t insist on his own way, lives are changed.

Lydia is the one who we’re told is actively listening in the encounter with Paul and his companions. After they arrive in Philippi, they hang out until the Sabbath day and then they go down by the river where they’ve heard there’s a prayer meeting. The prayer meeting turns out to be all women. One of them is Lydia, who is described as a “worshiper of God, from the city of Thyatira, and a dealer in purple cloth.” Lydia didn’t know Paul and his companions would be there, yet she listens to what they have to say and the Lord opens her heart to listen eagerly to what Paul says. Lydia is yearning for something more in life, and so she comes to the prayer meeting. Since she comes to worship and listens, God opens her hear to listen eagerly. Then, she and her whole household are baptized and she shows radical hospitality by inviting Paul and his companions to stay at her house for as long as they’re in Philippi.

This all comes from listening. Lydia was stuck, and so she went down to the river to pray. Paul was stopped on his journey and so he changes direction and goes to a different city. Lydia and Paul listened, they paid attention, perceived what was going on, and discerned, following the lead of the Holy Spirit. Neither of them try to force something or use sheer willpower to make something happen. They let it unfold. God drew them in to pray, and they went, without having their own agenda, open to the Spirit’s leading.

For an example to the contrary, consider the story of the Old Testament prophet, Balaam, and his talking donkey. This was back in the book of Numbers and God was angry with Balaam because he had become a yes-man to the king rather than speaking God’s truth. So God sent an angel to block Balaam’s path, which Balaam’s donkey saw, but Balaam didn’t. Balaam had stopped listening to God and had become so confident in himself and was sure he was right, he actually beat his donkey to get her to move. After this happened three times, God made the donkey speak.

She said to Balaam, “What have I ever done to you that you’ve beat me three times?”

Balaam said, “You’ve made a fool out of me! If I had a sword, I’d kill you right now!”

The donkey replied, “Am I not your trusted donkey whom you’ve been riding for years? Have I ever done anything like this to you before?”

Balaam said, “No.” And then he saw that there was an angel standing in the middle of the road. It took a talking donkey to make Balaam realize he wasn’t listening to God and he was acting like he had all the answers. Balaam told the angel, “I have sinned. I didn’t realize you were blocking my path. I will go back home, if that’s what you want me to do.”

The angel said, “You may continue on your way to meet with the king. But only say what I tell you to say.” And that is what Balaam does. He starts listening again to God and speaking God’s word rather than his own.

Balaam is an example of Jesus’ quote from Isaiah, that people “might see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn [so that Jesus] might heal them. Balaam chooses to see and hear and understand and he repents and is healed. Others choose to keep their hearts hardened and think they have all the answers. But we are heirs to the ones who have been blessed with eyes to see and ears to hear. We have inherited what Jesus calls “the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.” Our eyes and our ears are blessed because we see and hear, not just external sights and sounds, but listen with our hearts. So we must pay closer attention to what’s going on, to the moving of the Holy Spirit, to discern when God is telling us to go another way or to another place. We must look more deeply and resist the temptation to just plow ahead.

Sometimes when we get stuck, our first reaction is to just try harder, think harder, use more elbow grease, but that response is based on anxiety, not faith. Spinning your wheels in the mud and trying to force something to happen are the equivalent of beating your trusted donkey. Instead, let’s stop, and listen to what’s going on.

Years ago Dan Rather interviewed Mother Teresa and asked her about her prayer life. He asked, “When you pray, what do you say?” She replied, “I don’t say anything. I just listen.” So he asked, “Well then, what does God say?” And Mother Teresa replied, “Oh, nothing, he just listens, too.” (Drawn In by Troy Bronsink, p. 33)

“Whoever has ears, let them hear.” How often do you pray by listening? How often, when in conversation with someone, do you listen, simply to understand, without judging, correcting, editorializing, resolving, or focusing on what you’re going to say? This week I encourage you to listen. Listen to what’s going on around you. Listen to and with God. Listen to your neighbor. Listen to someone who’s very different from you. Listen to yourself and your own life. Where is God trying to redirect you? Where are you spinning your wheels in mud? When you realize you’re yearning for something more, spend time in prayer and pray by listening. Not with your own agenda and presuming you know best, but listen and wait for the nudging of the Holy Spirit, who is at work in your life if you have eyes to see and ears to hear. May God grant us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand so that we might turn to the Lord and be healed. Amen.