|
Dr. George A. Purnell
January 10, 2010
“Did You Hear That?”
Isaiah 43:1-7
We’ve all been situations when we were telling someone something and it was obvious that the person to whom we were speaking was just waiting for us to be quiet so they could talk. And, sure enough, as soon as we were done talking, they told us a story about themselves that was similar to what you just shared with them, only better. And we felt as though we had not really been heard at all…
Everyone has a need to be heard. We all have stories that we want to share with others, indeed, that we need to share. There is a wisdom saying to this affect. “A joy shared is a joy doubled and a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.”
A man who mentored me in ministry told me something years ago that has helped me ever since. He told me to open conversations with people who came to see me with the words – “tell me a little something about you.” And then just sit patiently and say nothing. Don’t interrupt…don’t fidget or look at your watch or otherwise act distracted (today we would add, turn off your cell phone).
One key to being a good counselor is the ability to ask questions that draw people out – to get them to reveal how they feel – and to then listen. While it might be tempting to interrupt them and offer the “answer,” the objective is to let the person come to it on their own. We can usually arrive at the answers if someone will listen as we wrestle with the questions.
We are trained to get our word out. In school we take coursework in speech and writing. But not many of us have taken courses in how to listen effectively. Listening involves more than hearing the words spoken, because much meaning is found beyond the words. Meaning may be seen in facial expressions and body language, heard in the speakers tone and cadence, and felt in the speaker’s demeanor.
To choose to listen to another is an act of courtesy and respect. It says we value the teller; that we believe he or she is worth listening to…
Still, it’s hard for us to listen to someone tell us their story if we have heard it before,even if we love the storyteller. We listen politely, but don’t hear, because we have tuned out. “We know” the story.
There was an aged woman in a church I once served who used to tell me the same two stories every time I visited her. She was 96 when I became her pastor, and I officiated at her funeral during my seventh year in that church. Her mind was sharp to the end of her life, so the fact that she told me the same stories during my visits with her over those years was not due to dementia.
These two dates – June 29, 1910 and October 10, 1949 – were not the whole story she told me on our visits, however. Instead, these dates served as bookends, and the stories between them differed every time I visited. Since she had such a remarkable memory, and because she was an engaging storyteller, my visits with her were always enjoyable. She would tell me of her married life, about the births of her children, about the hard times of the Great Depression, the years of the Second World War, the deaths of her brother and son, and how she made a life for herself following the death of her husband.
I learned a lot as I listened to her weave together the stories that, taken together, formed the tapestry that was her rich life on this earth.
When I think of Hazel and how she framed her stories with the same bookends, I am reminded of Moses in many ways. Moses was always reminding the Hebrew people of God’s saving and mighty acts on their behalf. Throughout Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, Moses repeats the story: God liberated them from slavery in Egypt; God led them in their 40 year trek across the desert to the Promise Land; God protected and fed them along this journey; God saved (passed over) the male Hebrew children from death, when Pharaoh decided the Hebrews were becoming too many in number...
In many ways, the book of Deuteronomy is a rehearsal of everything that had been written in the books preceding it, written for a new generation. It repeats the old stories in hopes that the present generation will not make the mistakes their ancestors had made along the way.
I imagine that some of Moses’ listeners began to tune him out after a few years. I mean, come on! We’ve been traveling together for years. We already know these stories. Why do we have to listen again?
Many people who attend church think along these lines. How many sermons have you listened to about Jesus’ baptism in your years of coming to church? Probably more than you realize, because it is the prescribed gospel lesson each year for the Sunday after the Epiphany. So, when the gospel is read, you might be tempted to tune out since you “already know this story.”
All four gospels include the story of Jesus’ baptism. The story is found in chapter one of Mark and John, and in chapter three of Matthew and Luke. Yet the story is not identical in all four gospels.
For example, who heard the voice is different depending on which gospel you read. In Matthew’s account, everyone heard the voice: “and a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (3:17) John’s gospel has only John the Baptist hearing the voice: “the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’” (1:33) Mark andLuke bothhave only Jesus hearing the voice: “And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” (Mark. 1:11; Luke 3:22)
Who heard the voice is significant. If only Jesus was privy to this status…or if only John the Baptist was…or if everyone heard the voice…makes a difference as the story unfolds.
Luke’s version of this story is distinctive in at least three ways. For one, only Luke has Jesus waiting, as one of the crowd, to be baptized. According to Luke, John the Baptist has the crowd “filled with expectation” to meet the one who is coming; the One about whom John says, “I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.” And then he comes to the riverbank, and humbly waits his turn with the others in the crowd, and, after being baptized, is praying.
And as he was praying, we read, the heavens open and “the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.” These are two other ways that Luke’s version differs from the other gospels. Only Luke writes that Jesus was praying after his baptism. This emphasis on prayer, seeking God’s help in clarifying and understanding his calling, is characteristic of Jesus in Luke’s story. And only Luke says that the Holy Spirit came in “bodily form.” The other three gospel writers all report that the Spirit descended “like” a dove.
So, for Luke the Holy Spirit’s descent was an objective reality, whereas the other gospel writers describe the Spirit’s descent metaphorically.
The story of Jesus’ baptism is similar, then, but not identical. Hearing the story read from Luke this morning could find you missing a part of it that you have not heard in the other accounts, if you decide not to listen further since you “have heard it before.”
Just as listening to an old woman frame the parameters of her life – using bookends you have heard time after time over many years of visiting her – could find you daydreaming, because you think “I’ve heard this one before.” But you haven’t. In between those dates of June 29, 1910 and October 10, 1949 rest many stories.
Jews place particular emphasis on the Torah, the books of Moses, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, in much the way we Christian place special emphasis on the four gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. The stories of Moses are told and retold – and these stories about how God saved the Hebrew people take on new meaning each time – because the stories living within the borders of these events are not the same. There are many stories within the larger story.
Isaiah heard a word from God and spoke it to the people of Israel in the latter part of their exilic period; when they were a people who had wandered the world for years without a homeland, and must have wondered if God still remembered them.
The prophet writes: Yes, God remembers you! More than that, God calls you by name!
“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you…he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’”
Isaiah then tells the people they can trust that God is with them when they face the hardest of times: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”
Why? “Because,” God says, “you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”
Isaiah does not say - ‘if you pass through waters…if you walk through fire.’ He says when. None of us knows what is going to happen next in life, yet we can know for certain that God will be with us. And we can know that we are God’s Beloved.
We can know this by listening closely. Because in those very moments when our world is spinning out of control…when it seems that we are alone, that God has forgotten us…we hear God say: I know your name, Amanda…I know your name, Bob…you are precious to me. You are my Beloved. I am pleased with you.
God did not stop speaking when the Bible was finished. You can hear this voice today, just as Isaiah and Jesus did in our lessons today; because God created us and lives within us, and God will be with us to the end of the age. Amen.
|
||||
 |
||||