Learning to Listen

Below is a sermon I wrote for a Sermon Series at my school.  It is a reflection of where I find myself in my relationship with God and others.  

 

Learning to listen.  

   When engaging in conversation with someone who speaks a different language, you have to learn how to listen intently to his or her words.  As an English speaker, I can slightly listen to another English speaker and am still able to understand what they are saying.  However, when I am listening to a Spanish speaker, I have to focus.  I cannot ‘fake listen’.  As I learn Spanish, I pick out certain words or phrases, pick up on context clues, and am able to broadly understand what is being said. 

   However, I want to know exactly what is being said so I can train myself to hear it and then eventually speak it.  I narrow in on the shapes their mouths make.  I watch their hand gestures.  I listen very intently to the intonation and volume of their speech.  I physically lean my body into the conversation and make eye contact to let others know I am paying close attention and that I am interested in what they are saying.  I want to make sure I understand them correctly while learning new words. Once I learn these new words or phrases, I try to practice them and begin to use them in my everyday speech.

   Sometimes I need to listen more closely to God’s speech so that I can begin to speak his language. 

   I want to focus on the shape God’s mouth makes when He speaks to us.  I want to zero in on the hand gestures He uses in order to get a point across to us.  I want to listen very intently to the tone of God’s voice when He speaks to us.  I want to lean so far into the conversation that I begin to reflect God’s speech. 

   I become more and more keenly aware of this need as I approach important life decisions.  I would like to think that I know enough of God’s language to be able to get myself out of trouble and answer some theological questions.  Yet, the more I grow as a Christ follower, the more I realize I have so much more listening to do.

   With our walks with Christ, I think it becomes more realistic that listening is linked with humility.  When in college and my first years at seminary, I had opportunities to enroll in classes that engaged my mentality in a groundbreaking way.  So with this new knowledge, I forced my way into conversations that displayed my new knowledge in a way that I expected to receive a gold star in return.  However, I realized that whatever I learned in college or in seminary was just lofty words until I began to understand humility.  Humility is that act of lessening yourself for the sake of others. 

   In conversations where I thought I knew more than the other participants, I was barely listening to their point of view while I prepared my response in advance.  I was too focused on what I would say back to them, that I barely understood their perspective.  I was ‘fake listening’.  I had a prerogative, which was to show-off, and I had to be on my game.  I could not stop my wheels from turning just to listen to what the other person had to say, even if I was the one to ask the question in the first place.  I had the conversation set up so I could look like the genius.  I actually looked very poorly in others’ eyes and eventually in my own.

   Here lately, I have realized that what reveals the most honest humility is someone who is willing to listen intently rather than being intently listened to.  This past week I had asked a few pastors about their approach to people who have very different opinions on theology.  They all said the same thing.  You need to listen to them.  Listen intently to their words, where they are coming from.  It is not your job to fix everyone and make them think like you.  You see where they are at in their journey and you help guide them with God’s grace and truth. 

   So, I need to really try to understand what others are saying.  If their speech is hard to understand sometimes, I need to dismiss my quick responses and take the time to listen to their brokenness, their joy, their frustrations, their victories, their failures, their passions.  Maybe I need to examine the way their mouths move to hear words I have not heard before.  Maybe I need to pay attention to what their body movement is saying.  Maybe I need to keep my ears open to how quietly or loudly their voices carry.  Maybe I need to lean into their words instead of folding my arms and avoiding eye contact.  Maybe I just need to open up my mind and listen.

   Author Stephen R. Covey wrote a book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  It has been used and referenced by businesses, churches, and various workplaces.  It focuses on human behavior and how to better oneself in different aspects of communication.  He dedicates an entire chapter to listening.  His main point is “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”  He says, “We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice.  But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first” (Covey, 237). 

   Basically, when we are engaged in conversation, we typically barely listen to what the person is actually saying and are jumping at the chance to say what we really want to say.  Covey suggests that one of the best communication tools is to honestly listen to what the other person is saying.  Listen not only to their words, but their emotions.  What are they feeling?  What is the background to their words?  What provoked them to talk?  Get in their head.  Listen for the sake of discovering more about that person.  Once you start listening and understanding more, the conversation will get better, easier, and you’ll be able to speak and be understood yourself. 

   Let’s be clear.  When we read Scripture and talk to God, sometimes we take a similar stance. We stumble through the quiet moments of prayer and jump right into what we want to say to God.  Sometimes, we don’t create the time and space for God to speak to us.  Sometimes we are just ‘fake listening’.   What if we applied Covey’s suggestion, not only with others, but also with God?  What if we sought first to understand God?  What is God really trying to tell us?

   Today, we are looking at the book of James.  This is one of my favorite books of the Bible because James is so blunt and honest about what it means to be a follower of Christ.  I pray that God will speak to us through these words and transform us to be more like Him.

Read James 1:19-22.

   As James says to be quick to listen and slow to speak and become angry, we may put up our walls and argue how it benefits us to do exactly the opposite.  However, James’ hearers may not have been so astounded by this statement. Actually, it was probably very much accepted.  Both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are filled with statements on controlling one’s speech.  But no matter how many times you are told, it can still be pretty difficult.

   Controlling our anger is difficult.  Normally, if we hear something that goes against everything we believe or think, we tend to feel uncomfortable, get offended, and even try to fight back.  Fighting back happens because we are angry.  Maybe we are angry because what that person just said made absolutely no sense.  Maybe we are angry because the other person is angry.  Maybe we are angry because no one is listening to us.  Maybe we are angry at God because he just pointed out something we struggle with. 

   Clearly, anger gets us sidetracked.  We forget about who is involved in the conversation, we ignore what the other person is experiencing, we ignore what God expects from us, and we become solely focused on ourselves.  That is dangerous territory. 

   Most of us need to learn what it means to listen because maybe we haven’t listened very well.  Some of us listen with the intent to overrun the conversation with our opinions.  Some of us listen with the intent to pick apart others’ speech just to make them look bad.  Some of us barely listen then quickly respond with a snarky comment that just leads to anger.  This is not just what we do in conversation with others; we do this with God. 

   However, what some may think, by listening to others we are dismissing what we think and believe.  Listening does not mean you must abandon your whole belief system.  It means that your belief system does not stand in the way of loving others.  Your relationship with God does not stand in the way of loving others; it shows you HOW to love others. 

   While you honestly listen, you can still be yourself.  God does not want you to abandon who and whose you are in an effort to listen to others.  For instance, I can still like eating barbeque even if my friend just explained to me why she is a vegetarian.  I can still listen to my favorite kind of music even when my coworker just explained why he only listens to a Christian radio station.  I can still believe what Christ has taught me even when my friend just explained why she is an atheist.  I can still be a follower of Christ as I listen to the lives of others.

   Our listening does not have to get in the way of what Christ has taught us.  As Christians, we are responsible for doing what God wants us to do.  While we are called to a specific standard of living, that standard does not give us the permission to belittle others.  While we are striving to follow the footsteps of Christ and rid ourselves of evil desires, we are called to “humbly accept the word planted in us.”   

   There’s the catch.  Humility.  It always sneaks up on us when we least expect it.  Now that we understand how important listening is and that we can still be the people of God we are called to be, we have to learn how to balance it all out by being humble. 

   Christ is the ultimate example of humility.  He was a human walking the earth.  He understood those temptations to want to get his point across before listening to others.  He understood how frustrating it was to listen.  He understood how easy it could be to go against what God wanted and get sucked into what the world said was ok behavior.

But Christ humbled himself before God.  He humbled himself before others.  He listened intently.  He loved others even though they went against God.  He relied on God throughout it all.  He did not just listen to God, but He did what God wanted.

   We can listen.  We can control ourselves.  Yet, we rely on God to keep us humble.  We are called to not only listen, but to do something about it.  We listen to God’s Word and we are called to follow Christ’s footsteps.    

   As we listen to God’s Word, we cannot stop there.  Our listening must become doing.  We cannot be idle.  This Word of God is powerful and we have a responsibility to share God’s grace and love.  Perhaps, our doing will look differently.  It may require us to seek God’s grace and forgiveness, which humbles us.  It may cause us to take the time to honestly listen to others’ perspectives so that we can better understand who they are and what they have experienced.  Our doing may be in how we respond to them.  Maybe we can respond in prayer, or by setting up a weekly meeting, or by doing something nice for them.  Maybe our response will be creating a healthy friendship that reflects our relationship with God. 

   As I prepare for pastoral ministry, this is my prayer.  I am called to serve God and others.  I am called to listen intently.  I am called to humility. 

   This call is not permission for me to display my knowledge.  It is not an excuse to tell people what to do.  It is not a free pass to show people how wrong they are in comparison to myself. 

   This call beckons me to learn true humility.  It gets inside my head and makes me rethink my motives.  It keeps me on my toes.  Just when I think I get it, I realize I have a lot more listening to do. 

   I would like to close with a story.  When I stumbled across this, I struggled with whether or not to include it in this sermon.  Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how beautiful it was.  It is a very real and honest reflection of what it means to listen, to understand, and to love others with God’s grace. 

   Last year, you may recall the statements and actions that Chick-fil-A president and COO, Dan Cathy, made in regards to his disapproval of marriage equality due to his religious convictions.  But what we didn’t hear was the story of an unlikely friendship between him and Shane Windmeyer. 

   Shane is the founder and executive director for Campus Pride which empowers the LGBT community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) and is gay himself.  Chick-fil-A and Campus Pride pitted themselves against one another.  With no warning, Dan contacted Shane in order to hear him out and find out more about his life.  They began engaging in conversations that probably neither of them ever anticipated.  Soon, their relationship grew to the point where they were so influenced by one another.  It was less about their non-negotiables and more about learning how to treat the other with respect.

   Shane said, “Dan, in his heart, is driven by his desire to minister to others and had to choose to continue our relationship throughout this controversy. He had to both hold to his beliefs and welcome me into them. He had to face the issue of respecting my viewpoints and life even while not being able to reconcile them with his belief system. He defined this to me as "the blessing of growth." He expanded his world without abandoning it. I did, as well…Now it is all about the future, one defined, let's hope, by continued mutual respect. I will not change my views, and Dan will likely not change his, but we can continue to listen, learn and appreciate "the blessing of growth" that happens when we know each other better.”

   As we follow Christ, perhaps our first step is to seek first to understand.  Understand what God is saying to us.  Understand what Jesus is teaching us.  Understand that sometimes listening can do more than our words ever could.   

Link to Shane's article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shane-l-windmeyer/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a_b_2564379.html