Deacon Ray - Listen Before You Speak
Today’s first reading from Isaiah got my attention. You may remember it from Palm Sunday: it is a prophecy of the Passion of Christ. But the thing that especially caught my attention is that today, the reading starts mid-verse. The verse actually begins, “The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue.” But today, it begins “The Lord God opens my ear that I may hear.” Speaking and hearing; listening and speaking. Indeed, all of the readings today sound that same dynamic theme.
In Isaiah, the prophet declares that he has been appointed to speak because he listens first to the voice of the Lord. He has something to say, and what he says follows from what he first received with ears of faith.
In the Psalm, the psalmist marvels that the Lord hears his voice and inclines His Ear to us when we call on Him with humility and supplication. But how can the psalmist know this? Because he himself listens and waits upon the Lord, who answers him. It is the psalmist’s listening that prepares him to receive the voice and the grace of God in his distress. Listening — really listening and waiting — is an act of faith. As the psalmist marveled in another place (Ps 46:10): “Be still and know that I am God.”
In the Gospel, Peter is a shining example of listening before speaking — and of speaking before listening. Midway through the Gospel of Mark, Jesus the teacher and Rabbi springs a pop quiz on His disciples, to see how well they have been listening. The first question is easy: “Who do people say that I am?” His disciples give many different replies, reciting what they have heard others say. Their recall and their recitation is accurate, so far as it goes. But the second question is not so easy: it requires thought, analysis, insight, even inspiration: “But who do YOU say that I am?” Only Peter answers this time: “You are the Christ.” As Jesus commended him in the parallel account in Matthew, Jesus said that Peter was able to speak this truth only because he first heard it from God the Father. Peter had listened to the voice of God with ears of faith, and he had taken it to heart.
But only three verses later, Peter also proved how hard it is to keep our ears attuned to God’s voice. No sooner had Christ taught them that He must die, than did Peter — speaking impetuously — rebuke Jesus for suggesting such a thing. In other words, Peter spoke without listening. Without really understanding what Jesus was saying, and without engaging his faith. So Jesus quickly turned the tables on Peter and rebuked him harshly. There is no middle ground: either listen to God with ears of faith, or what you say might be the voice of Satan. Ouch! At the very least, Peter gave proof to Proverbs 8:13: “Listen before you speak, otherwise is folly and disgrace.”
They say that we live in the Communications Age. But I wonder what it is that we communicate. With the pressing of a few virtual keys, our words can reach dozens, hundreds or thousands of people at nearly the speed of light! Mass media and so-called “influencers” can reach many millions. Virtually every fact is at our fingertips. But so also is every half-truth and every lie. Our words can communicate wisdom and love, if they come from the heart of God, but how often do we speak without thinking, without listening — really listening — to each other or to God?
In these last few weeks before another election, we have become well-conditioned to replying to the usual political provocations, no matter which candidate we might favor. We speak the party-line because we have become accustomed to listening through ears of partisanship, not with ears of faith. Everyone has a political opinion, which many of us share every chance we get. But of what real value are our words if they are little more than a conditioned response to stimuli or tallies on a scoreboard, where the score is everything? Even worse, what real value are our words if they are designed to sting, to wound, to humiliate, or to win at all costs? Are those things worth the cost of broken family relationships and estrangement from our neighbors, with acrimony and injustice for all? And what about the cost to our own inner peace?
Peter wanted Jesus to win. Good for him! Peter wanted heaven on earth, but the sort of heaven that he wanted was a heaven according to Peter. He could not even begin to imagine a heaven that would begin with suffering, persecution and death. That is a tall order for any of us to accept. But not for God to accept. Our way of thinking needs re-training, then, and it begins with listening to God. Accepting that God’s ways are not our ways. And holding our tongues until we have something worth saying in God’s economy of truth and love.
Finally, our Epistle today comes from the Letter of James, who had a thing or two to say about speaking and listening as well. In Chapter One, James counseled that “everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.” Wise words for a world clamoring ever louder and more ferociously to be heard. But James’ most powerful insight then follows and continues in our reading today. James encourages us to “be doers of the word, not hearers only, deluding ourselves.” Like in Isaiah, listening and speaking go hand in glove. But actions speak louder than words.
We Christians all have a prophetic office whereby we are called to listen in faith to God’s voice and then to share the truth that we hear. But what we do because of faith speaks louder than any words we might utter. Just as Jesus’s death was the exclamation mark that gave meaning to all of His teachings, so also the meaning and the testimony of our lives will be measured more by what we do than by what we say.
So in this election season, by all means, let us have our say. But first, let us listen to each other, and listen to God, with ears of faith. And let’s not stop there. Let’s work to make the world a better place, a kinder place, where God’s goodness is proclaimed and enacted with such faith and with such love that it feels just a bit more like heaven.
