Resolutions 3) To Listen
Hespeler, 15 January, 2017 ©
Scott McAndless
Mark 4:1-9, James 1:19-27, Psalm
116:1-8
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esus, like many good speakers,
had certain catch-phrases that he would use over and over again in his
preaching and storytelling. One of his favourite lines, for example, was “the first shall be last and the last
first.” It comes up so often in the discourses of Jesus in the gospels and
in varying contexts (usually as the punchline of a parable) that it seems
reasonable to conclude that it was one of those phrases that Jesus threw around
all the time.
But
there was another phrase that Jesus must have used even more – one
that just seems to have slipped out all the time – not necessarily as a part of
the parable or story he was telling but almost like punctuation or emphasis.
That saying was, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”
It is an odd
phrase when you think about it. I mean, very few people don’t have ears.
Barring some birth defects, tragic accidents or the madness of Dutch
post-Impressionist painters, ears are pretty much universal. Everyone listening
to Jesus had ears which would make the saying seem like nonsense. But obviously
Jesus didn’t keep saying this as a nonsense phrase. It is, in some ways, an
expression of Jesus’ own frustrations. Here he was communicating vital truths
that, as far as he was concerned, were quite clear. He was illustrating those
truths with stories and parables that were really quite easy to understand and
yet people weren’t getting his point.
Jesus was
pointing out that it is one thing to have ears and to be able to hear what
somebody is saying but it can be quite another thing to listen. Hearing is a
passive thing. Hearing is actually something that can be very hard to keep from
doing. If you are in the vicinity of a noise or of someone speaking, you can’t
help but hear it unless you do something to prevent it like plugging your ears
or shutting off your hearing aids.
Listening, on
the other hand, is active. You don’t listen to something unless you choose to
do so. Listening means attending to what is being said and acting in response.
Jesus’ frustration was that people were hearing what he was saying but that
something that was preventing them from actively listening. Often it was because
they did not want to actually hear the truths that he was teaching and they
certainly didn’t want to change their lives because of what they heard. It was
just easier for them to hear what he was saying without actually listening
because, if they listened they’d probably have to change in ways they didn’t
want to.
And if Jesus
were here today, would he continue to repeat that same saying? Would he be as
frustrated with us over our tendency to hear without listening? I am afraid he
probably would because things really haven’t changed all that much.
I wanted to
start out this New Year by preaching about the resolutions that I’d like to
make and that I’d like to see more people make that might create a real difference
in the world. I’ve talked so far about resolving to leave some time and space
to grieve losses and I’ve talked about being committed to the truth. I think
that the third resolution that we could make that would make a real difference
in our world is to learn to listen. I would even go so far as to say that the
failure to listen is creating a number of crises in our world.
Take, for
example, two of the most surprising political developments of the past year:
the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump. Neither
of those political developments were supposed to happen. They defied polling
but also were contrary to what the “elites” and political “experts” and
establishment said should happen. They are also events that will likely
have some far-reaching effects on where the world goes from here for good or
ill (and I don’t really have an agenda at the moment to say whether it will be
good or ill).
But I think that
we can say a little bit about why things unravelled the way that they did. Many
people did not cast their vote because they were making a positive selection of
a candidate or an agenda. Many, perhaps the majority, were voting to reject
instead and what they were rejecting were the opinions of the elites, the
experts and the establishment political leaders. The widespread perspective was
that the elites and establishment didn’t care about the needs of the great
majority of people and had not listened to them and their needs for a long
time. Some really big things – world-changing things happened this past year
because a lot of people felt like they were not being listened to. When I say
that the failure of listening is important, that is the kind of thing that I am
referring to.
But it is not
just something that we see happening in big political events and movements. It
is a something that affects people’s personal lives and struggles. How many
people go through their daily lives without ever getting the sense that anyone
is truly listening to them? How many have to pay money to go to a psychologist
or counsellor just to have someone actually sit there and listen to them talk.
And what a
difference that can make! I am not trying to put down the professions (like
counselling and psychiatric analysis) that have a big element of listening to
them. Such a level of listening does not come without a great deal of learning
and practice and it truly can bring a great deal of healing into a person’s
life. And there are definitely many people who will not be able to find the
healing that they need without making use of such professional counsellors. No
one should ever be ashamed if they need to access them. But I cannot help but
think that such professions would be much less desperately needed if only more
people put in the effort to really listen to people at all the various times in
their lives where they really need someone to just listen to them.
And one place
where listening is surely lacking is in the church and it is precisely on that
point that Jesus was expressing his frustration with the people in his
favourite saying. People of faith have the opportunity to hear the word of God,
but how often do we listen? We believe that God speaks through the life and
example of Jesus Christ. We believe that God speaks through the scriptures that
bear witness to Christ. We believe that God speaks through the sermon. And this
speaking is not something that is frozen in time. We don’t say, for example,
that God spoke (past tense) when the Bible was first written. The word of God
is nothing if it is not living and active in the present moment. So God speaks;
that is not and has never been the problem. The problem is that we don’t
listen.
So we really
do need to work on our listening. How could we do it? How could we become a
people who take the task of listening seriously? Well the first thing we need
to recognize is that simple truth that was behind that saying of Jesus – that
there is a difference between hearing and listening and that just because you
have heard what somebody is saying, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have
listened to them. Hearing is passive but listening is active.
So how can we
learn to be listeners? Well, I’ll start with one piece of advice that should be
obvious, shouldn’t need to be said, but I’m afraid that it does need to be
said. Listening means, first of all, giving undivided attention which means
that when someone is speaking you turn off the phone, close the book, turn off
the television or do whatever you need to do to shut out any distractions. If
we are not willing to do that, we will not progress very far in our quest to
learn to listen.
The next piece
of advice I am going to steal from the Letter of James. “You must understand
this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak.” Our own
speaking is one thing that most often gets in the way of our effective
listening. How often, when you are hearing someone speak, is your brain
engaged, not with what they are saying, but with your own speaking. You are
thinking of what you are going to say in response to them – perhaps to defend
yourself or to further your own agenda at the expense of their needs. This is a
symptom of what James would call being “quick to speak.” It is not actually
measured by how many words you say or how soon you say them but rather by how
much brain power you devote to your own agenda.
Listening,
real listening, is about being willing to put aside your own agenda in service
to the needs of another person and, let me tell you, it is something that you
have to work at. It does not come naturally and most of us will only be able to
accomplish it by being incredibly disciplined in our minds.
One thing that
can help us to do this is the use of a practice of active listening. The next
time when you have a chance to actually sit down and listen to someone, try
this: say nothing. If you have to say anything, let it be to ask questions and
make sure that they are questions that are focussed on what the other person
has said and that help you to understanding their concerns.
You can ask
questions like, “It sounds to me like you are saying this event made you feel
frightened or excited or whatever it sounded like they were feeling. Is that
correct?” You can ask questions like, “What were you trying to do?” “Why are
you interested in that topic?” and questions that focus on their personal
background in whatever topic is being discussed. These kinds of questions will,
more than anything else, convince someone that your really are focussed on what
they have to say. And, what’s more, actually help you to be focussed on that
very thing.
One mistake
that people often make, and in my experience it is often (but not always) men
who do this, is to think that listening means that you are trying to fix
whatever you perceive to be wrong about the other person. If someone is
describing a situation that they are dealing with, for example, you may jump to
the conclusion that they are telling you about a problem and you break in and
tell them what they should do to solve it. “Well, you see, all you need to do
is report your co-worker to management and let them deal with her.” Or, if you
perceive that there is some kind of flaw in the person you are talking to, you
break in with a prescription for how they ought to change. “You just need to be
more assertive,” or something like that.
But trying to
fix people or their problems (unless that it what they are asking you to do) is
not really listening to them because what you are actually doing is attending
to your own agenda. You are trying to solve their problems and get them out of
the way so that the focus can return to you and your needs. Most often what
people need is for someone to listen to them, perhaps be sympathetic or
understanding. Maybe then – maybe after they have been fully heard – you can
work on solutions or changes together, but nothing important will ever happen
until they have been heard.
Listening is
not easy. It doesn’t come naturally to most of us. But, precisely because it is
so rare, it is an extraordinary and sometime life-changing thing. So I resolve
to work on listening this year. I hope you might too because how much could the
world change if people only really listened.
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