3rd Sunday in Lent
February 28, 2016
Isaiah 55:1-9
(Or watch or listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVbd34ITRFs&feature=em-upload_owner )
There is so much noise in our world today. I don’t know if you’ve noticed. Television, telephones, traffic, music, children
chattering incessantly about pink mini wheats.
It was ironic, I was watching a promo video for a Christian video
organization and they commented on how the world is busy and noisy, and then
they showed a screen to promote their company which had nothing but screens,
tablets and smart phones, that just screamed busy and noisy. It’s almost as if we don’t know how to get
away from it. We don’t know how to turn
off the TV, put down the phone, and just be in the quiet. Well, I found some place quiet last week. AJ woke up from his nap just when Isabel was
going down for hers, so I had to get him out of the house in order for Isabel
to sleep. We went over to Marshy Point
Nature Center; I’m sure most of you have been there. The driveway is long enough, you can’t hear
the traffic on Eastern Avenue. It’s
right up on the water, which was fantastic.
Other than AJ’s excitement about the water, it was quiet. And you know what you can do really well when
it’s quiet? Listen. Tucked in to this great passage from Isaiah
with the invitation for all who are thirsty to come to the water and the end
about how God’s ways are not our ways, in the middle of that, in verse 3, God
says, “Listen, so that you may live.” Listen, so that you may live. Who would have thought that the key to living is listening? The problem is we
don’t see it modeled for us very many places, and there are a lot of things
that keep us from listening.
One of the biggest
problems, of course, is when you can’t understand the speaker. They may be talking too fast, like I know I
do sometimes. The person may have an accent
that you’re not accustomed to and so pronounce words differently. Or it may be words that you don’t know,
whether another language, or just highly technical vocabulary. I asked my
husband for an example from his work, and said that one of the tools he uses
for work is called a colorimetric testing apparatus used for volumetric
precision verification of the liquid handling arm of Tecan’s laboratory
automation systems, or as he calls it, a QC kit. Or
what’s preventing you from listening well could be a poor connection, where
there’s just too much static or background noise to be able to understand what
you’re hearing. There are lots of
external factors that play a part in being able to listen well. This has been one of the problems with the
rise of emails and texting. Unless you
know the recipient really well, you have to be a little extra careful when
choosing your words, because inflection, tone of voice, and other clues we use
to understand what is being communicated don’t come through, so you can’t always
tell what is a joke and what is sarcasm and what is someone really upset. Some things that keep us from listening are
outside our control, and we simply do the best we can in spite of those things.
Other things that keep us from listening, though, are our
own fault. These have to do with what we’re thinking while we’re listening. The best listening is listening that focuses
on the speaker. Unfortunately, it’s
human nature to focus on ourselves. Many
times, especially today, we’re not doing a great job of listening because we’re
thinking of our response to what we’re hearing.
We’re thinking of our own opinion on the topic, our own wants, our own
fears, we’re thinking about ourselves and how is this going to affect me.
Too often, we’re not focused on the speaker and what they’re saying,
we’re focused on ourselves and our reaction and what we’re going to say when
the person finally stops speaking and it’s our turn to stop listening and start
speaking. Sometimes we’re so focused on
our response that we interrupt the other person, we can’t bear to listen
anymore!
You
know, we look forward to our turn to speak, we wait for our turn to talk; how
often do we look forward to, and wait expectantly for, our turn to listen? Both have to happen in any conversation, in
any relationship. So, perhaps we ought
to give them at least equal weight, if not more emphasis on the listening,
since apparently it’s the listening part that gives life, not the speaking
part. Listen, and you will live.[1] Listen,
and you will find life.[2] There are times when God commands his
prophets to speak, when God compels people to speak up, like Moses, who goes to
Pharaoh to say, “Let my people go!” Or
the prophet Jeremiah, who complains that if he tries to hold back and not speak
what God’s commanded him to speak, then it feels like a fire in his bones.[3] Yet I can’t think of anywhere where death
will occur as a result of not speaking. The
book of James says, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”[4] Here, through the prophet Isaiah, God says,
“Listen and come to me; listen, and you will live.” Listen, and you will live.
This is a different kind of listening. This isn’t listening in order to respond or
to share your own opinion on the matter.
This is listening with a different purpose. This listening is done in order to live. This listening is to understand the
speaker. And it’s part of loving the
speaker. Jesus tell us to love our
neighbor as ourselves. We certainly
listen to ourselves, don’t we? Do you
listen to your neighbor as well? It can
be a hard skill to practice. Just as
speaking well is a skill, so is listening well.
Listen for understanding, not in order to prove that you are right, or
to prove any other point at all. You
know, when we’re anxious or worried about something, we don’t listen well. Have you ever asked someone to call back
later, or tell you later, because you’ve got too much going on, you can’t
listen to them right now? Or, have you
ever had something told to you, or asked of you, and you weren’t completely
paying attention, and then it came up later, and you don’t remember any of it,
or the details are different than what you thought, or you just knew of it, but
not any of the details? We don’t listen
well when we’re preoccupied. Instead,
when we practice good listening, we do it carefully and deeply, listening with
curiosity and compassion, we have a desire to understand and to connect. That’s listening to live. And we can’t do it when we’re overwhelmed, we
can’t do it when we’re focused on ourselves, we can’t do it when we’re thinking
about what we’re going to say as soon as we get a turn. “Deep, careful listening with curiosity and
compassion, a desire to understand and connect,”[5]
that’s the way to listen that leads to life.
Listening is so important because it speaks to one of our
deepest needs, to be, or to feel, understood.[6] That someone else knows what you’re going
through and has compassion; that other person has to listen in order for that
to happen. Quite often we focus it on
us, for others to understand us. Today,
let’s put the shoe on the other foot and focus on understanding others, where
they’re coming, what their needs and heartfelt desires are. Listening acknowledges and honors the
uniqueness of each one of us, regardless of whether we agree, regardless of
what we think of the other person’s situation or lifestyle choices.[7] Listening is a way to love. The heart of good listening is authenticity,
genuine curiosity, and caring.[8] If you don’t know that your listener cares,
then you’re not likely to feel understood.
So, as listeners, care for the person you’re listening to. We could add to the Hebrews passage about
entertaining angels unawares by saying, “Don’t neglect to open up your homes
[or your hearts, or your ears] to guests, because by doing this some have been
hosts to angels without knowing it.”[9]
Relationships are speaking and listening. We focus a lot on our turn to speak; let’s
start putting more focus on our turn to listen.
Listen with your heart, listen with empathy, acknowledge the other
person’s feelings.[10] This is something I’ve started doing with
Isabel when she gets upset, because she doesn’t even always know why she gets
upset and she hasn’t learned the names yet for all of her feelings. So instead of reacting to her outburst with
an outburst of my own, when I can, I wrap my arms around her and I tell her
that I know she’s feeling frustrated, or sad, or whatever the emotion is that I
can best name as accurately as possible, and I give her the reason for the
emotion, too. “I know you’re sad because
your TV show is over and you want to watch it more.” “I know you’re frustrated because you want to
play with that toy and your brother’s playing with it.” More often than not, naming the emotion and
the reason she’s feeling it calms her down and then she can move on to the next
activity. Now, with an adult, we might
rephrase it a bit more gently. “It
sounds like you’re feeling sad because this happened.” Or, “You’re really frustrated about this
situation, aren’t you?” Even as adults,
we can’t always name our feelings or the reasons for them. If someone is unreasonably upset, we might be
able to gently point that out to them, as well, or the damage their words may
be causing.
As
good listeners and people who love our neighbors, it’s one way we can show each
other love and build each other up. Because
that’s why we’re in relationship with each other, we listen not just so we
individually might live, but we help each other live, as well. And helping each other live means doing
things, like listening, that bring us together.
If you’ve ever noticed, listening so that you can respond tends to
divide people. Sharing your opinion
without listening to others’ tends to bring us all down. Listening to understand, though, can bring us
together. It’s part of how we build each
other up, how we build up our church.
Speaking ill of others, and listening to other people badmouth others,
brings us all down. So, as a listener,
when it’s your turn, you may want to gently point this out to the speaker. Let’s bring each other up. Let’s unite and not divide. Let’s listen to each other.
[1] Isaiah 55:3, CEB
[2] Ibid., NLT
[3] Jeremiah 20:9
[4] James 1:19
[5] Where Angels Dare to Dance: Anxiety and Conflict in Congregational Life,
by Dr. W. Craig Gilliam, p. 24
[6] Engage Conflict Well by JustPeace, p. 3
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Hebrews 13:2
[10] Engage Conflict Well by JustPeace, p. 3
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