HEARING AND LISTENING

"Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening." 1 Samuel 3:9

 In the story of Samuel, hearing wasn't Samuel's dilemma - listening was. Young Samuel wasn't hearing-impaired, he was listening-impaired.  The boy's ears were functional  and he responded the best that he could, but his response missed the mark simply because he was listening-impaired.  He lacked the discernment needed to listen until old Eli helped him out.

Hearing and listening are not the same thing.  You're familiar with the cliché, “We are equipped with one mouth and two ears so we can listen twice as hard as we talk.”   I think listening is at least twice as hard as speaking, if not much more.

I think listening-impairment is a pervasive issue. It is much easier to open our mouths than to open our ears.  It takes less effort to assert ourselves through speaking  than to focus ourselves in listening.  A favorite biblical passage of mine is Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.”  “Be still.”  The psalmist didn't say, “Go to sleep... preach a sermon... move your lips... and know that I am God”, but “be still.”  I experience that "being still" takes a lot of focus, concentration and a great deal of energy. 

 A telephone crises volunteer was on duty one evening and while he was waiting for calls, he was watching TV.  The phone rang.  The person on the other end of the line was desperate and needed  to talk.  The conversation began, but the volunteer continued to watch TV out of the corner of his eye.  After a few minutes, hearing the TV in the background, the caller asked, “Are you watching TV?”  The volunteer replied, “The TV is on.”  The caller asked again, “Are you watching TV?”   The volunteered hesitated and then replied, “Yes, to be honest, I am.  I am sorry”   Without saying another word, the caller hung up. 

Listening requires a desire to do so.  It entails focus, commitment and patience. You can’t fake listening very well.  Most people can detect very quickly a superficial listener.

I have trained Stephen Ministers for many years.  Stephen Ministry is a 50 hour training program in Christian care-giving.   Stephen ministry describes something called “sacramental listening.”   A sacrament, generally defined, is the use of a common thing to mediate God's presence.  "Sacramental listening" is the assertion that God’s healing and empowering grace flows into a person’s life through the practice of loving, non-judgmental  listening.  Over the years people have talked to me about every kind of personal issue and problem you can imagine.  It never ceases to amaze me that the more I engage in non-judgmental listening, the more resolution and empowerment occurs in the life of the other. 

It's been my experience that far too often people of faith attempt to impose their agenda on others; try to cram their viewpoints and beliefs into another with little regard for the life of the other, often inflicting damage and harm.  "Sacramental listening" has no such agenda.  "Sacramental listening" trusts that God's grace flows into a person's life through listening, as much or even more than through speaking.

We can be listening-impaired for all sorts of reasons.  One huge reason is that we get distracted by noise - internal and external noise and we need to discern and filter out background noise that clutters our sound-scapes.

 We can be distracted by sociological noise.  If we are of a different social or economic place than the other, we may have great difficulty connecting on the same level; truly respecting and understanding their situation from their point of view.  Sociological noise can cause us to see not a person, but a category - and hence we can stop listening.  

We may get distracted by emotional noise. We may be so stressed about things in our own lives that listening to another, at that point, may be almost impossible, and perhaps the most loving thing we can do is to simply acknowledge that reality and step back until we can focus on listening.

We may get distracted by intellectual noise. We may so strongly disagree with the other's viewpoint that we simply shut down, close our ears and refuse to listen any further.

 We may get distracted by moral noise.  The other might reveal something that we consider to be morally wrong, and at that point we turn them off.

 We may get distracted by our own unresolved wounds.  Someone may say something that hits a “hot button” touching a vulnerable place, and the result may be we stop listening, no longer really considering the life in front of us. 

Because I know that I can be listening-impaired, whenever I go into situations like a hospital call, a home visitation, a situation of grief, a counseling scenario, I pray a prayer that has become like a mantra for me.  “Spirit of God, help me to listen; help me silence the noises of within and without that would distract me from being a compassionate and non-judgmental listener.”

Listening to others in a loving and non-judgmental manner takes desire, focus, commitment and patience - and - it takes a personal honesty about the things that cause us to be listening-impaired.  

 At first, Samuel mistook God’s voice for another.  He thought it was old Eli calling him.  He went to Eli three times, and finally old Eli realized something bigger was going on.  So, he gave Samuel instructions.  “Go, lie down; and if he calls you again, you shall say, ‘Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

I have never heard any audible voices that have been indisputably divine.  I have not had that experience, but I would say that I have had experiences when, through discernment, I have a heard a call and invitation of discipleship that I believe was deeply rooted in the Spirit of God.

After I graduated from college, there were numerous voices encouraging me to go to seminary.  At first, I vehemently discounted those voices, thinking they were all deluded.  I could not conceive of myself as a pastor.  I really wanted to be a teacher or a meteorologist.

I was also filled with all sorts of noisy inner distractions - the biggest being I had little self-esteem and the bottom line was that I was afraid.  The whole idea of ordained ministry terrified me. I had a great fear of failure, and I was sure that ordained ministry was a recipe for failure. 

But all of my resistance did not quiet the voices.  I heard the voices, but I was not listening - the noise of my distractions was louder.  I began to listen because of a good friend and mentor.  To summarize an ongoing conversation, he said, “Joe, I know you have many doubts and fears about  ordained ministry, but put trust ahead of fear.”

You see, before my friend and mentor spoke he had listened to me; not just my words but had listened to my life. He had listened to my self-doubts and deep-seeded fears only too well.  He knew me.  He saw gifts and talents within me that were obscured to me.  He had credibility with me because he had listened to my life.  So, when he spoke the unadulterated truth, I knew he was speaking out of love, and I began to listen.  He squarely confronted me with my real reasons for my listening-impairment.  I was fearful, and I knew he spoke the truth, that unless I put trust ahead of fear it would control me for the rest of my life in whatever career I would pursue. 

It took awhile, but with a lump in my throat and a rock in my gut, off I went to seminary, and here I am.  But you know, that lump in my throat and the rock in my gut often return, and when they do, (usually every Sunday morning when I get up and a noisy voice goes off in head saying, "Joe what in the world are you doing?") I must, all over again for the umpteenth time, listen to my friend whose "voice" I still hear, "Joe, put trust ahead of fear";  and I trust it is a voice that comes from deeply within the Spirit of God. 

I believe “sacramental listening” can be a glorious result of relationship with God.  When I explore, enter into and open myself to the life of Jesus of the gospels, I encounter a person of “sacramental non-judgmental listening.”  He didn't shout at others in a loud voice that overwhelmed or minimized.  Jesus didn't force his way into the lives of the people he encountered like a battering ram. He didn't impose his agenda or come at people judgmentally.  When he encountered the so called "sinner's", outcasts and those consigned by the religious community to be second class citizens and people to be scorned, he approached them with love, compassion, respect, dignity and an appreciation of their circumstance. 

His very life embodied God's love, which is to say he embodied sacramental listening, and as a result the people around him experienced the very presence and power of God mediated through his flesh and blood life. 

You see, the good news, the gospel, is not merely something that God did for me in Jesus.  That is the traditional way the gospel is portrayed, and the way we have mainly heard it proclaimed in the churches of our time - and I don't discount or minimize that at all.  But the good news is also not merely that God has done something for me in Jesus (past tense), but that God does something in me right now (present tense) - something transformational - something that changes the way I do business in the world - something that changes that way I live my life - something that changes the way I relate to others - something that even transforms my listening-impairment into listening-enhancement.

For me, the essence of the Christian life is following in the way of Jesus and allowing the grace that lives in him to flow through me - to flow through us as a community - and in so flowing, like his, our lives life might become sacramental; our lives might mediate God's gracious, empowering and healing presence to others - and to the world - that we might be transformed from listening-impaired people to listening-enhanced-disciples.