Sunday's Sermon - Listening

Proverbs 19:2-27

James 1:19-25

 Proverbs 18:13:  “Wisdom requires a humble, earnest effort to hear what the others say and a willingness to see our world in the other’s terms.”  Other translations:

New Living Translation: Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish.

English Standard Version: If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.

We are told in today’s scriptures that listening , really listening – not answering before listening and not responding or thinking before hearing – that this is what leads to wisdom. 

But listening to one another, really listening to one another, is hard. 

In many ways we tend to avoid really listening, and instead, when someone else is talking, we spend our time thinking about how we are going to respond.  Sometimes we fail to listen in a more obvious way: we can be trying to multi task, playing on our phone while listening, checking email, or frankly doing anything other than being fully present with the person who is speaking and with whatever they are speaking about. 

I had a week which really brought all of this home for me.  It began when I had to take my daughter to an audition at the Lesher Center.  The auditions are 15 minutes, but when I arrived at the Lesher parking garage, it was clear that they were having a large event in the Center.  When there are such events, the parking in the garage goes from being a very low set fee (free for the first hour, followed by 50 cents for each hour following), to a set $3 charge.  That’s fine, except that I was only going to be there for 15 minutes.  I pulled up to the attendant and said, “I’m not here for the event.  I’m here for an audition for my daughter.”  The attendant was not listening.  She was looking straight at me, but she was not listening in any way.  She responded, “Great!  The event is $3 and it’s on the 2nd floor!”  I paid the $3 and went ahead and parked, but found myself annoyed.  I was not annoyed because I had to pay $3.  I was annoyed because she did not listen or even try to listen to what I had said.  I felt dismissed, unvalued as a human being, invisible.

At church during that week we were being harassed by a woman who wanted to argue with me about theology.  She is not a member of the church, does not come here for any reason, does not live in the housing next door, is just a random person who was demanding my attention.  I asked Sandy to tell her that during lent, meeting with her was not going to be possible.  There was simply too much going on between extra services, mission activities, and people in our congregation needing pastoral care.  But she did not listen and would call the office 3 or 4 times a day insisting that I meet with her so she could set me straight.  Again, so busy talking that she could not hear what any one else had to say.

That same week I had a meeting with a small group of folk at a restaurant.  When I arrived (the first one there), I told the waiter that I needed a table for three of us.  He tried to sit me at a table for two.  I held up three fingers and said again we needed a table for three of us.  He moved me but then said, “Will this then be just for one?” as he handed me a single menu. I was flabbergasted.

When the other two people arrived, I was feeling frustrated and unhappy about all of this, so when they asked me why I was upset, I shared with them my struggles with how little we actually listen to one another.  At that point, one of the other two folk I was with took out his phone and began reading his email and checking Facebook.  He was doing this AS I was complaining that people don’t really listen to one another! 

I’m reminded of the story I have told before of the little girl who was talking to her mother while she was washing dishes.  The little girl insisted that the mother stop and listen to her.  The mom said, “But honey, I AM listening to you!” To which the little girl replied, “I need you to listen with your EYES.”  Really listening to one another requires giving others our full attention, with all of who we are.

As you know, many of us in the congregation have been reading the book Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande (New York: Picador, 2014).  At one point Gawande is describing the two neurosurgeons that his father visited when he had a fatal brain tumor.  One of the doctors was short with Gawande’s father.  He didn’t want to answer his questions and he basically said he was the best person for the job and Gawande’s father could take it or leave it.  But the doctor at the Cleveland Clinic behaved differently.  Gawande wrote this:

The Cleveland Clinic neurosurgeon, Edward Benzel, exuded no less confidence.  But he recognized that my father’s questions came from fear.  So he took the time to answer them, even the annoying ones.  Along the way, he probed my father, too.  He said that it sounded like he was more worried about what the operation might do to him than what the tumor would. … The surgeon said that he might feel the same way himself in my father’s shoes.  Benzel had a way of looking at people that let them know he was really looking at them.  He was several inches taller than my parents, but he made sure to sit at eye level.  He turned his seat away from the computer and planted himself directly in front of them.  He did not twitch or fidget or even react when my father talked.  He had that midwesterner’s habit of waiting a beat after people have spoken before speaking himself, in order to see if they are really done….Benzel had made the effort to understand what my father cared about most, and to my father that counted for a lot. (p198-199)

As I read this, I was struck by a couple of things.  First, what Gawande said about the doctor really looking at his parents was actually about really listening to his parents.  The doctor took the time to fully listen and care about what the other, in this case Gawande’s parents, were saying. It also resonated with me what he said about the “midwesterner’s habit of waiting a beat after people have spoken to speak themselves.”  I experienced this when I lived in Ohio.  However,  my experience of this pause was not so much that people were waiting to see if you were done talking as it was that people there listen to what you are saying and then take a minute to formulate their response.  They are not spending the time when they should be listening in planning or forming what they will say next.    

Sometimes those differences in the way we listen and hear cause problems.  One of the challenges that David and I have been working through is this very different way of listening.  I grew up here, I have spent the large majority of my life here.  I am used to the way people here “listen” which is to say, I’m used to people NOT listening, but using the time that others are speaking to decide what they are going to say.  We tend to talk then in a very quick succession in conversations.  There are no pauses between speakers.  The result is that often in a group it can be very difficult for everyone to be able to have their say.  If you can’t manage to be the first one to squeak out your words in following someone else’s speech, you won’t be heard at all.  People often talk over each other. 

When I was back in Cleveland, I tried to adjust to their different way of speaking.  I tried hard to honor the pause between speakers.  I have to say it wasn’t easy and many people made the comment that I was very “high energy” by which they meant I spoke quickly and jumped from one thing to another rapidly.  But coming back to the Bay Area, the rhythm, while very hurried and rushed, is more comfortable, or natural for me.  It’s what I’m used to.

David, on the other hand, is mostly a Clevelander.  That means that he actually listens while a person is talking, and then pauses while he is taking time to consider what he wants to say in response.  Unfortunately for him, this has caused problems as I have taken the silence to mean that he has nothing to say.  I’ll jump in again into the silence, “not giving him a chance to speak” he says.  In reality, I’m not giving him a chance to LISTEN because we just don’t listen here.

Who is the loser in this game?  Well, we all are.  But I think the people who lose the most in this are we who fail to take the time to really hear one another.  As today’s scriptures say, “Wisdom requires a humble, earnest effort to hear what others say and a willingness to see our world in the other’s terms.”   We lose the chance to grow in wisdom, in understanding when we fail to take the time to listen.

I think about what we did last Sunday afternoon with our “Crossing our Differences” conversations.  For those of you who came, how hard was it to just give a 30 second pause between speakers?  Did that feel like wasted time?  Did that feel like we didn’t need the time because we already knew what we thought, having spent the time while the speaker spoke to listen to our own thoughts rather than their words? 

This is especially hard when we disagree with one another.  We don’t WANT to hear what the other has to say.  We don’t want our thoughts to be challenged.  We don’t want to have to listen deeply enough to care about another point of view.  BUT I find again and again that when people think they disagree, when they actually choose to really listen to one another, they can find a whole lot more common ground than what they might believe they share.  Maybe we don’t want to see that.  Maybe we don’t really want to know that we have more in common than we would think.  But the dangerous truth is that when we start listening with our ears, we may find that we are also learning to listen with our hearts.  And while that may not be comfortable, it is important to try to do.  It helps us build bridges, it helps us grow, it helps us learn.

So how do we begin this journey towards listening?

The first thing is to be intentional about listening to people with all of our being.  In other words put down our phones and our chores and our activities when someone else is talking and really be present with them. 

The second thing is to intentionally take a minute after a person speaks to think about your answer.  If you know that you will give yourself that time when they are finished talking to formulate your response, you can just be listening when the other person is talking and wait to think through your answer after they are done.

The third is to take time to ask clarifying questions, or to repeat back what you think you are hearing so you are sure you are hearing correctly.

Fourth, just remind yourself that it is in listening that we grow and learn, not in talking.  Choosing to listen means choosing to take the better part.

One of the other things we are told in this passage from Proverbs is that Wisdom is gained in community.  In other words, when it is hard to hear one another, the community can help us.  When we are not growing, not gaining the knowledge that can lead to wisdom, the community is there to aid in that process.  And also, one of the true gifts of a faith community that talks together, prays together, and studies together is wisdom, when we choose to really hear one another.

The same is true with God.  I think most of us spend our prayer time talking at God.  And that’s important.  It’s really important to share with God our thoughts and feelings and what is going on with us.  But what I would suggest to you today is that it is MORE important for us to listen.  And then to check in with God about what we think we are hearing.  “Am I hearing you right, God?  Are you really telling me to love that person over THERE??!!  Are you really telling me to speak out about x, y or z?”  Whatever it is, reflect back to God.  Ask God if you are hearing correctly and then listen some more.  God does speak to us in many, many ways: through our experiences, through other people, through nature, through art; through scripture and stories and songs.  But all of it requires taking the time to listen.  Learning to hear God requires intentionally taking time out, daily, to listen.

The good news is that God is there both to listen to us, and to share with us when we are ready to hear wisdom.  That is the good news.  Today and every day.