I Often Get It Wrong

     I was thinking this morning about how many times I have misunderstood the nuance of what someone is saying to me.  I think all people do this.  I think neuro-atypical people undoubtedly do it more often. But it's something I work on, and as a result, it catches me by surprise when I've once again missed the nuance.  

    Interestingly, it happens in both directions.  What I mean is that there are times when I hear a "slight" in what someone has said to me that they did not intend.  This probably is a result of the "rejection sensitivity dysphoria" that I carry with me: people with rejection sensitivity dysphoria do tend to hear rejection or dismissal more than others do, even when it was not intended.  But there are also times when I hear something as a compliment that wasn't meant to be so.  This is much rarer, but it does happen.  And again, it's usually only afterwards, sometimes by a long time, when I finally catch up and realize that wasn't actually how their comment was meant.  

    Today I realized that when someone said to me at a memorial service where I officiated three years ago, "I really wish we'd been able to hear more from you in the service," that it wasn't meant as a compliment to what I might have said.  I explained at the time that the spouse of the person who had died was very clear that he did not want a homily or pastoral words during the service.  But still, I also said, "Thank you," since I heard it as "I wanted to hear more what you would have said."  And this morning I suddenly woke up realizing that it had nothing to do with me.  The man who said it wanted a homily.  That was all.  Didn't matter who it was who was officiating.  He was complaining about the lack of a pastoral message in the service.  He was not saying he liked what I had to say and wished I'd said more.  Huh.  

    Still, as I think about the times that I have mistakenly heard a comment as a compliment, I realize that it has never been a bad thing and has often led to a positive outcome even though I had mistaken the nuance.  For example, the time when someone said, "Wow you are really intense" and I laughed because indeed, I really am, rather than getting offended.  It changed the trajectory of the conversation from one that might have become defensive, to one that was amiable and positive.  In the situation I shared above, my saying "thank you" and again, hearing it as a compliment rather than as a complaint meant that I was able to explain the situation in a positive way, rather than a defensive one.  

    My point?  Personally, I want to do better at erring towards hearing things in a positive light since I don't find negative outcomes as a result of doing so.  In contrast, when I do become hurt or defensive in response to something someone has said, it never goes well.  So my point is also for all of us to try to work harder to see the good: to see the good in one another, to hear the good in what people say, to look for God (to put in theologically) in every interaction.  And then to respond in that way: to what is good, to what is kind, to what is God's leading, God's caring, God's light shining from the person in front of us.  I know, all too well, that this is not easy.  But it is a gift to all of us when we do that.

You Are What You See

               "You are what you see."  This is a quote that I was told came originally from Thick Nhat Hanh but as I tried to clarify this online, it seems many people have said this, and with good reason.  Psychologists say that what we internalize through life, media or other parts of life can deeply affect who we are, what we believe, and how we function in this life time.  I read an article in Psychology Today that named the deep effects on a person's psyche of watching too much negative news.  Watching negative news can lessen our sense of joy, increase anxiety, and lead to deep depression. Similarly, there are numerous studies that show watching too much violent TV or engaging in violent video games encourages children and adults to act out that violence in their lives.  Considering how much time people spend watching violent TV or playing violent video games, is the increasing rage and violence in our country surprising?

           There is a common misperception that if you are feeling angry, you can dispel those feelings by acting out violence towards non-human targets (punching bags, pillows, shooting images through a video game).  In fact, the opposite has been found to be true.  Once you begin to act out violence towards ANYTHING, the possibility of becoming violent towards the living beings around you increases. That is a consistent finding.  Psychologists knew this 40 years ago (I remember learning it in my psychology classes in college) and studies continue to bear out this finding, yet people still claim they are "getting OUT their anger" through violence when instead their behaviors increase those feelings and violent tendencies. When we see, feel, hear or act out violence, even if it is aimed at inanimate or video objects, we increase the violence of our own beings and our own tendencies to harm others.

            This also manifests in what news we watch.  While we choose our news channels based on our beliefs, at the same time it becomes circular in that the stories we hear and see reinforce and tend to cement us into the beliefs we already had.  They make us who we are as much as we choose them because of who we are.

            Still, today I heard the phrase, "you are what you see" differently.  While I believe that what we see, what we engage with our eyes, our ears and our actions (such as playing violent video games) does change how we interact with the world, I also heard and understood this phrase at a deeper level.  We have choices about how we see the events around us.  We make decisions about how we interpret events.  As I have shared before, I knew someone who regularly said that every action of every person was a play for power.  I don't agree with her that this is true of everyone.  I do see that it is true of her own behaviors.  She projected onto the world her own internal reality.  She chose to see the world through the lens of others' playing for power and as a result, this "sight" of hers effected everything that she did as well and encouraged her choices to continue to be plays for power. 

    I am very close to a few people who have a condition that is a common part of ADHD called Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria.  Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria affects the way in which they see the world in that they experience perceived slights as rejection.  This may sound familiar to some of you who may experience this in your own lives as well.  Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria means that if someone forgot to invite you to something, or didn't look at you while they were speaking, or said something in a way that could have been perceived as a slight, even if that was never the intention, you assume you are being rejected, you assume you aren't liked and aren't valued.  While this is a common part of ADHD, there is still some choice in this.  There are activities that encourage those with this condition to consider other possibilities for the behavior they saw as rejection.  If these activities are practiced with regularity, they can change the way the person sees and interacts with the world.  

       Another example: Once a person starts seeing the world as divided into "good" and "bad" it is easy to see that mirrored in the world.  By "easy," I mean just that.  Considering why a person or group of people behave in a certain way takes effort, it takes work to refrain from casting certain people or groups of people as "bad guys."  It also usually means a person has to be more self-reflective and look at their contributions to the negative behaviors in the world, and that can be very painful.  But that effort, that work is deeply worthwhile as we strive to heal the world, bring peace to the world, create a better world, and become more whole people ourselves.

       What do we choose to engage in with our eyes, our ears, our time?  Do we choose to invite into our beings the violence that is so prevalent on TV or in video games, or even in the news?  Do we try to balance the negative news we hear with positive news, reminding ourselves that there still is good in humanity and in the world?  (Because that is the solution here: ignoring the news is not a good option.  Choosing to balance it out with positive stories is more effective as well as healthier.) But more, how do we choose to see the world?  And can we choose to see with eyes of grace, compassion and love?  If we make that choice, how will our behaviors, and our very souls be impacted and effected?  I believe this choice would change each of us, and in doing so, has the potential to change the world for the better.  

Listening

 Listening

Last week I sent an email attempting to schedule a meeting with a group that meets fairly regularly that I’m a part of (not one at church).  I said very clearly in the email, “The only day that consistently does NOT work for me is Thursday.”  The first person to respond wrote back immediately with, “Great!  Thursday is perfect for me!”  Grrr.  They clearly had not actually read my email.  Later in the same day I had a similar situation happen with a second email.  I said something that I felt was very clear and the response made it equally clear that the person who responded had not actually read the email but instead had just answered quickly and automatically to what they assumed I had written.  Equally frustrating.  A little while later it happened again, this time with a text message.  

I believe that we are listening less and less clearly to one another.  Part of this is the frantic pace at which we now move.  Part of this is the need to “get things done!” that means we zoom through emails and texts as things that need to be checked off, finished, addressed quickly so we can move on to the next thing.  Perhaps another part of it is that we are all so stressed with the anxiety of COVID and the problems in our lives and in our world that we simply don’t feel we have the energy to attend very clearly to that which is in front of us.  

At the same time, I think each of us has a deep need, in the face of this frantic disconnection from one another, to BE heard at more depth, with more intention, and with more genuine care.  We are isolated and alienated from one another, what with COVID and with our most common means of communication being through texting, emails, and even the phone, but less and less in person.  We have been created to connect.  We have been created to be in relationship with each other.  We need each other, we need relationships, and we need, deeply and desperately, to be heard.  So when we only communicate in these quick, disconnecting emails and texts, our isolation can be intensified, and along with it the desperate need to be truly heard.  The solution to this has to start with each of us, individually.

I would like to challenge all of us, then, to be willing to take a little more time, to be willing to “get less done” for the sake of deeply and truly listen to one another. Even if it is just a scheduling email or text, the need to be heard remains. I invite all of us to “put on the ears of God” or to strive to  be the ears of God in our listening.  How would God listen?  With all presence and with all fullness.  How are we called to listen?  Similarly with all presence and all fullness.  That will take more from us.  We will actually have to read the emails, texts and listen to the phone conversations or in person conversations with more attention, with more commitment of time and with a deeper intentionality.  But my guess is that we will be blessed by the choice to listen more fully and more deeply.  My guess is that we will find ourselves gifted in the listening through seeing deeper into one another, and maybe even seeing God more fully in one another.  The promise is that when we respond to the call of God, we will be enriched.  Listening deeply to one another is another way to love one another.  And we will find ourselves more deeply heard and understood as well.

Thanks be to God for the lives that touch ours, interact with ours and share with us their thoughts, feelings and ideas as well.  In connecting truly with others and in listening deeply to others, we will in turn find ourselves more deeply heard.  

We just plain don't hear one another.

       We don't really hear each other.  I think the older I get the more aware I am of the truth in this.  

    Of course we see this most clearly with little things.  For example, I asked my husband to please take the trash from our bathroom outside and instead he moved the trash from our room to the kitchen.  When I asked him why, he said "Oh, I didn't understand what you said!"  Okay.  Actually I think he just didn't hear me.  Not really.  I had been careful to use the word "outside" to make it clear that I wanted it to go all the way out, but he didn't hear it.  He undoubtedly heard what he wanted to hear, but it wasn't what I meant and it wasn't what I said.

    Other times, we hear the words but we make assumptions about what they really mean.  I told Middle I thought he should look at other colleges since he seems to be changing his idea about what he wants to study.  Later he told me that since he was just going to community college next year it would save us a bundle.  I asked, "What do you mean?" To which he responded, "Didn't you tell me I shouldn't go to the colleges I've been accepted into already?"  No, that's not at all what I said, and it certainly wasn't what I meant to communicate.  I just said he should look at other colleges to see if there is a better match for what he is wanting to do.  But he assumed I meant something else.  He took what I said and expanded it to mean something different.  In this case he heard what he expected to hear.

    But I think there are other, much more profound ways in which we do not hear one another.  I cannot count the times I've thought that I've said one thing in a sermon only to have people respond in ways that make it clear they've heard exactly the opposite of what I was intending to communicate.  This has worked both for me and against me at various times.  I've had parishioners say, "That's exactly what I needed to hear today!" after which they have "said back" to me the exact opposite of what I thought I'd said.  I've also had parishioners say that they really disagreed with me and then explain to me a belief that I have in common with them.  When I've tried to tell them, "that's actually what I just said" usually their response is to argue... (sigh).  I'm not alone in this.  My pastor friends talk about this happening to them pretty regularly and I remember one time when I was able to witness it first hand.  I was standing with a pastor friend of mine and one of his parishioners.  His parishioner was telling him very excitedly that she was going to see the replica of Noah's ark in Kentucky.  She said that this proved the ark had been real and she couldn't wait to see it.  He responded, "Well, actually, I don't really believe that."  She said, "Oh, I know.  People shouldn't really have to see the replica in order to know that it historically happened!"  It was beyond her vision, her understanding, and her comprehension to believe that a pastor, her own pastor, especially, might not believe in the historicity of Noah's ark.  So even when he told her that he didn't, she morphed what he said into something that made sense to her.  In these cases, I think people are hearing what they've heard others say who are in similar roles or positions, so they are transferring others' thoughts and ideas onto another, usually because of the role or position that person has.  They have expectations or assumptions about others' beliefs and they can't hear otherwise.  

    Finally, there are times when a person will hear something, they'll be able to repeat it back, but within a week or so they've forgotten it.  It will be said again, they'll again be able to repeat it back, but another week will go by and they will have forgotten it again.  I have found this to be particularly true with discussions of theology or deep self-reflection.  I have two examples of this.  I had a parishioner who really struggled against the idea of God as a man sitting in the clouds cursing some and blessing others.  We had really good conversations about why I didn't believe this either.  At the end of each talk, she would say, "Wow.  That's so helpful.  I have a much better understanding now.  And I don't feel bad anymore about not believing in that kind of God.  Thank you."  A week would go by and she would approach me again, "I don't understand how people believe in this God in the clouds who curses some and blesses others."  And again, I would take it on but try using different words.  "I don't understand that either.  That doesn't match what I believe either.  My God is not 'all powerful' but has given us free-will and interacts with us through relationships."  "Oh, that's helpful," she would say.  "You've really cleared that up!"  Another week would go by and she'd come back again, "I don't understand this image of a God who makes terrible things to happen to some but not to others..."  Around and around and around it kept happening.  I started to feel that perhaps I wasn't understanding the real issue, so I'd just ask more and more questions, trying to get underneath it.  But nothing really new or different was expressed.  Somewhere between us in this communication we were not hearing each other.

    My second example is more personal.  When we were going through our hardest time, I was seeing a wonderful therapist to help me navigate those waters.  Usually she just helped me to understand my own thoughts better, to hear my own insights more clearly.  But there was a time when I asked her point blank for her opinion about something.  She paused thoughtfully and then said to me, "I don't think that you are ready to hear what I think about this.  And my experience is that if I tell people things that they are not ready to hear, that they can't take it in; can't hear it, can't retain it, can't remember it."  This, of course, made me more curious.  So I asked her to tell me anyway.  She did so, and my memory was that I responded with, "Wow.  Well, thank you for that.  I will sit with that and really ponder it."  But I'll tell you the truth, by the end of the day I couldn't for the life of me remember what she had said.  I hadn't been able to hear it, retain it, or take it in, just as she had predicted.  I still don't remember it.  I remember only that the interaction happened.  This mirrors some early childhood parenting classes that I had taken which said that if a young child starts asking questions about things like where babies come from or other things that we feel are beyond their age of understanding, it's okay to answer them because they will only retain what they are old enough and mature enough to retain.  This was true for my own children.  They often asked huge or deep questions.  But as they grew they would ask those questions again, repeating back to me only a tiny part of what I had told them before.  Each time they would retain more as their own ability to do so grew with their age and experience.  But they could not retain the whole of what I was saying until they had matured enough to take it in.

    My point here is that sometimes we just aren't ready to hear or retain certain pieces of information.  We can't comprehend it or make it part of our understanding of the world, so we simply don't.  And this, too, greatly reduces our ability to hear one another.  

    Finally we often fail to hear one another because we are starting at different places with different values.  I was listening to some talks recently on the difference between liberals and conservatives.  One of the key findings was that liberals and conservatives start with different basic value systems.  But because we don't understand or we fail to hear those really innate, underlying differences, we continue to try to "persuade" using our own set of values.  Of course this fails, every time.  If we don't start with the same understanding we will never be able to hear with understanding those who start at a very different place with different base assumptions and values. 

    The truth is that our ability to hear one another is crucial.  Relationships are built on communication, and communication must start with hearing.  We cannot begin to understand, to relate, to truly care for one another without starting with hearing.  But obviously, hearing is not simple.  It is not easy.  There is a reason good listeners are sought out for counseling, spiritual direction, guidance, coaching.  They are sought out because most of us struggle to hear and be heard.  But perhaps that choice to really hear has to begin with us.

    So what do we do with this?  People don't hear one another for the reasons I mentioned above.  They don't hear because they hear what they want to hear, hear what they expect to hear, make assumptions,  hear what they can hear, hear what fits with their basic world views.  How can we improve hearing? With practice. We ask clarifying questions.  We repeat back what we think we have heard to see if we are really getting down to the gist of it.  We admit when we are struggling to understand.  We write down what the other has said so that we can go back to it and try to hear it again.  We ask more questions.  We try to understand where the thoughts and ideas and expressions are coming from.  We ask for clarity again.  

    In this age where we have become more and more divided, the only hope for bridging those divides will be to start with hearing, to open up to grow deeper in our understanding and our willingness to learn from each other.  It is a choice we must make to strive to listen, to close our mouths to hear more clearly and deeply.  In a world of increasing division, isolation, fear and anger,  it is essential that we make that beginning today.

Pentecost and Music

                                             Acts 2:1-21

Ezek. 37:1-14

Today we celebrate the birthday of the church.  And we do so by recalling days when the Spirit took hold of things, changed things, lit the place on fire.  Both the Ezekiel passage and the passage from Acts tell us stories of the spirit, stories in which the spirit blows in with great force and in doing so ignites the miraculous, the amazing, and the unexpected.  In Acts, when the Spirit blew in, the people could understand one another even across language barriers.  I think it’s very important here to note that it is not that the people all started speaking the same language.  They were still each speaking their own languages, though it says here that some were speaking languages they did not formerly know.  But while still speaking different languages, they were able to understand one another.  This is a miracle indeed.  For we know that even when we speak the same linguistic language, we often still don’t understand one another.  In previous Pentecost sermons I’ve shared with you personal examples of those misunderstandings.  Times when we are speaking the same language and really not understanding one another. 

One more story for you:  There was a woman in one of my congregations who spoke or understood the world completely differently from me.  I would say things that I thought were unoffensive, were kind, were reaching out: things like, “You seem a little down.  Are you okay?” And would be met with anger, “I am NOT down!  Why would you say that! I was fine until I talked with YOU!”  We just missed each other at every turn.  We both were speaking English.  But we were never speaking the same language. 

I’ve been thinking about this idea of understanding one another across languages in terms of music since today is the last Sunday the choir will sing for the summer and I’ve been especially aware of the amazing gift of music that the choir gives to us.  I think it is very appropriate that we remember the miracle of Pentecost in relationship to music, because many would say that music itself is still that language that crosses language barriers.  Would you say that’s true?  But as I’ve reflected on it, I’ve also realized that music can also sets up new barriers, new language problems, as it were, if we let it.  It isn’t just that we don’t all like the same kinds of music, at times I would say we simply cannot understand the same kinds of music.  Personally, while I enjoy many different kinds of music, I still find that there are certain types of music I simply don’t understand: for example, certain types of punk rock and the more aggressive rap music.  Also, I struggle to understand and appreciate certain kinds of music from different countries: certain types of Asian cultural music, for example, is harder for me to relate to or appreciate.  And I think that just as when we don’t understand different languages when we have not grown up around them, have not listened to them in our formative years, the same can be true of different kinds of music.  We often understand best the music we were raised with.  And while we can grow into an appreciation of other kinds of music and even an enjoyment or love of these, many times it takes long-term exposure and experience - study, I would even say, just as with different languages, to learn and understand these different types of music. 

As I continued to look at this passage in Acts, the more it seemed to me that the experience of the community in Acts, responding to the Spirit moving in such a way that people could understand each other across languages, is very similar to today’s church community responding to the Spirit moving through music.  In the story in Acts, there were people who understood each other across the different languages.  They heard the words in their own languages.  So, too, in our communities, many do experience the universal language of music.  We are moved and hear things in new pieces that touch us, that speak to us in the language of our hearts.  In the community in Acts, there were also people who didn’t like what was happening, who sneered and assumed that too much alcohol was involved.  So, too, when the Spirit speaks through new music, especially new kinds of music, there will always be other people who, hearing a piece for the first time will be uneasy, uncomfortable, assume impropriety, and so attack it.

Throughout our church history there has been controversy over what is appropriate church music.  Before the Protestant Reformation the Catholic church went through various different positions on music.  At the time of the Reformation only the priest sang in church.  One of Martin Luther’s issues with the church was that at the time worship was not a participatory event.  Everything was done in Latin and only done by the priest since the common person did not know Latin.  In response Luther invited congregational participation through singing, and singing in the language of the people, which in Luther’s community was German.  Luther took common, popular music, popular tunes of the time, the music of the youth, some have even said bar tunes, and made them into hymns.  The equivalent today would be taking hard rock, hip hop, EDM (electronic dance music), ska, rap, death metal, punk music and putting Christian words to it for worship.  Can you imagine how the people reacted?  Many felt scandalized that secular music was coming into their holy places.  It is the same reaction many in our churches have today when the popular music of our youth comes into the congregation.  Luther believed that these tunes would first attract the young people, but second, he believed in providing Christian lyrics to the tunes they already knew, filling their minds with those words when they chanced upon the tunes in other settings.  Interestingly, Luther did not allow organs or other music accompaniment in his churches and instrumentation was allowed in Lutheran churches only about 50 years after Luther had died. 

In John Calvin’s church, Calvin hired a lyricist and a composer to rework the

Psalter.  The lyricist re-wrote the psalms, and the composer set it to music.  The queen complained about these “Geneva jigs” because it, too was a departure from the Latin plainsong.  And yet again, by today’s standards, we would also see Calvin as very strict and austere.  He would only allow psalms to be sung in worship, and he insisted not only that these psalms go completely unaccompanied by instruments but that they also be sung without harmonies.  It was not until the end of the 17^th century in the Presbyterian church that some churches began to allow instrumental accompaniment.

We understand music differently.  We speak music differently.  And yet again, we are given the Pentecost story in which people continue to speak different languages, but some are speaking languages that are different from their own, and others are hearing those voices spoken in their own languages.  The Spirit brings in something new, something different, but it is always something that helps us be more connected, if we are open to it.  Literally, we begin to understand and hear in our own languages... in the languages of our community, in the languages of our media, in the languages of our music, in the languages of our children.

In the Ezekiel passage for today God promises that the very bones will be raised.  What has been declared dead will rise to new life.  This is not a comfortable or easy thought.  But again, the Spirit is not promising to be easy or comfortable.  The Spirit is promising to be alive, and to live in unexpected though glorious ways.

Today we celebrate the Spirit’s movement through music.  And I invite you to listen for the Spirit in a new way, to celebrate the new life that the Spirit can raise in all of our old bones, to live through song.  Amen.

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. 

Listening and Communication, Part II

       After I had written my blog on listening and communication, I had a very interesting experience.  Let me back up and say that I wrote the blog post on listening while I was on study leave.  I couldn't post it: I didn't have internet access so waited to publish it until I was solidly home.  But I wrote the post while I was gone at the CREDO conference.  CREDO is an amazing and wonderful conference that is given to Presbyterian Pastors (you go by invitation only) that focuses on renewal, education, intense self-reflection and creating a future plan in 5 major areas: physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, and vocational health.  Incredibly helpful, especially if there are areas you avoid or that make you uneasy.  They gave a great deal of information, but also allowed time for processing with a small group and on your own in order to look at what ways the information applied to us personally, and what we would then need to do with the information we were gathering.  At the end of the week, we were expected to have some plans for stepping forward with all the information.  As I was gathered with my small group in order to share those plans, I found myself laying out my ideas in these five areas but stating that there was absolutely no connection between any of them.  And that's when the conference took a complete 180 degree turn for me. My small group all stared at me like I was insane, and then calmly pointed out that not only was there a very clear unifying theme throughout all five of my areas, but that I'd even been using the same word over and over in each area to describe where I was and what needed to be addressed.  The group reflected back to me clarity, they challenged and deepened my thinking, they brought my scattered thoughts together into a single forward direction.
          And as I sat with this information, I had the uneasy revelation that it was not just that there had been over the last few years an increasing number of times when I have felt unheard by the people around me; it was, more seriously and more harmfully true, that I had been and still was unable to hear myself.  And THAT realization felt like a strong punch in the nose.
           I've always felt good about the fact that I am a self-reflective person.  I own my sh...  I easily apologize.  I am more than willing to do the work to figure out which pieces of a problem are my own, and which pieces I don't need to claim.  I am not afraid to ask for help with that self-reflection and to get other people's insights into what is really happening both within and without. When confronted, I take seriously what the other is saying to me and am able to be okay with owning my mistakes and the areas in which I still need growth and change. That is a core piece of my identity: I am self-reflective and willing to do the work of changing. And so, to realize that I had spent a week (and frankly, years before the week) working on specific issues and to have totally and completely missed what was actually at the base, at the root of what I was doing... well, it was a shock, to say the least.
          And it brought me back to the issue of listening.  Meditation is not just about listening to God (or the Divine or the Universe or whatever it is you listen to that is outside of yourself).  It is also about taking the space and breathing deeply enough to listen to yourself.  Training on how to listen to others can also help us to learn how to listen to ourselves.  Journaling, writing, walking, talking... all of these can help us to listen to ourselves.  But if we are not intentional about taking the time, if we are not purposeful and willing to really look deeper at things that may be uncomfortable, listening and being willing to really hear ourselves is not a given.
           I also found myself thinking that if we struggle to hear ourselves, how much are we really able to hear others?  Don't our own unexamined motivations get in the way of truly going deep into hearing what another is saying?
           Looking, then, to take this to the bigger level, I wonder if part of our increasing inability as a country, as a people, to hear one another hasn't started with the busyness of work, social media, entertainment and the blasting of the world with noise and lights that has prevented us from listening deeply, and firstly, to ourselves. It takes time and space to really hear.  It takes enough quietness that our thoughts are not drowned out by everything else going on.  It takes genuine rest and breathing in air that is not cluttered by worries, fears, anxieties, and that thing we have to do next.  If we can't make the space to learn to hear ourselves, how will we ever create a place where we are able to hear one another, especially across differences and diverse world views?
           I left the week with many goals.  But my primary goal is simply to make sure there is time and space to listen: to God, to myself and to others.  This isn't something I can learn once and then move on: it has to be a life long commitment to being in the world differently: without all the noise and distractions and fears.  One step at a time I strive to move into this.  I am grateful for the wonderful people around me who listen better than I.  I have much to learn.  I am grateful for those who have much to teach.

Listening and Communicating

         I have been in a number of situations recently in which it was clear the other person was not listening, or at least not hearing me.  An example: after being away from home for a few days I was asked how I was doing.  I responded, "I’m doing well.  However, I am an introvert and because of that I think it takes me longer to form the deep and fulfilling relationships that maybe others form quickly.  As a result, after five days of being away from home, I'm feeling a bit lonely for those people with whom I do have those deeper connections."  His response, "Oh, yeah, My wife is an introvert too, so I'm sure you must be wanting your alone time."  Huh?
        Another example:  I was looking at a map in order to find a place to hike.  A man was showing me a path by tracing his finger along a road and describing it as a hiking path, "The hiking trail you are talking about; does it run parallel to the road, or is it the road itself?  Is it an actual walking path you are describing, or is it the road itself?"  His response, "No, if you walk on the road, you could get hit by a car."  "So there is a walking path near the road?"  "No. It's a lovely walk.  Just follow the road." "So it is the road?"  "If you walk on the road, you'll get hit by a car." What?
        I wish I could say these are isolated events, but actually they aren't for me.  I run into this problem of being mis-heard, mis-understood, or having my words responded to in a way that shows they were taken to mean something other than what I meant to communicate on a fairly regular basis.  This happens often enough that I have found myself wondering  lately if it is ME that is the issue.  Do I communicate in a way that is less than clear?  Am I somehow communicating things other than what I am saying in ways I'm not even aware of?
       When I ask my friends, or those who read my blog, or those who listen to my sermons if this is the case, they all assure me it isn't.  But even if the fault is at least partly mine (and I'm sure I need to claim some fault here), I also observe that as a people, as a country, we are having a harder and harder time actually LISTENING to one another.  We impose on the speaker our own world views, our own agendas, our own expectations of what we think they will say or mean.  We transfer onto the speaker our own worries, thoughts and cares.  We don't listen.
         Of course there are exceptions.  We can learn how to listen with more honesty and truth.  We can learn how to listen without spending that hearing time trying to think of how we will respond when the other person is done talking.  We can ask questions that try to clarify what we are hearing to be sure we are truly understanding the other.  We can try to stop thinking about how what they are saying relates to ourselves, and instead listen to it for the other person's sake.  We can learn this.  Circles that focus on spiritual direction, counseling, emotional and spiritual care all focus on this intentional and deep listening to the other.  But we seem to have lost this skill in normal, every day living.  And the result is a country torn apart by misunderstandings, by an inability to hear, love, have compassion for and insight into beautifully human and wondrous beings that "others" are.  It is a problem of epidemic proportions.  One which I believe can only be answered first and foremost by a commitment to listening, deeply, and truly, without agenda or ego to one another.
        In the mean time, I am striving hard to remember that every response another person gives to words I have spoken reflects much more on that other person than it does on me anyway.  Our responses are about ourselves.  Therefore when someone does respond to something I've said, it is an opportunity for ME to practice listening as well, regardless of what it was I was trying to communicate.  That's not always easy: if I'm saying something, it usually means I'm wanting it to be heard.  But sometimes the lack of understanding on their part is an invitation, an opportunity, a plea for me to hear them.  So I will start by listening.  And perhaps, once they have felt heard, there will be more space for them to hear me as well.

Seven Gifts of the Spirit

Ezekiel 37:1-6

Revelation 5

            The play that our members performed this morning focused on seven gifts of the spirit.  While the play emphasizes that these are really Christ's gifts, I think they are also our gifts, though, as was pointed out, they look different than we might expect.   Riches, for example, as a gift from the Spirit, doesn’t look like material wealth, it looks like a wealth of spirit and a wealth of community, a wealth of faith, a wealth of trust, love, grace. 

            So while I do not believe that we should have faith based on what we hope we can gain from our faith, what we hope God will give us because we believe (that may be common theology, but it is bad theology by the way, to believe because that’s the way to manipulate God into giving you things…), I do think that Pentecost is a time to celebrate the gifts that God does give, not only to us as individuals, but to each community, to the Church as a whole, to the people. 

            We can celebrate that community is itself a gift, as are faith, the ability to love and grow, the ability to forgive, the ability to trust and to love.  These, too, are gifts of the Spirit.  We can celebrate friendships, connections, the ability to be grateful, appreciation, vision and understanding are also gifts of the Spirit.  We can celebrate that compassion, grace, insight, understanding, discernment and wisdom are also gifts of the Spirit.

            Today as we celebrate the birthday of the church, the gifts of the church, the gifts of the Spirit, we also recognize that one of the deep gifts we are given is our diversity.  On Pentecost, all voices were heard – but more, all voices, with their different languages, different cultures, different view points – all were understood.  One of the things I love about this is that people did not become something else.  They weren’t all speaking the same language, they were just understood speaking in their different languages.  We, as Pentecost people are invited to do the same – to hear and to understand one another, despite our differences.  That includes people of different ages, of different languages, cultures, different orientations and genders, and view points – we are invited to listen to their words and their ideas, and to take them seriously. 

Are there people that you have trouble understanding here?  If so, Pentecost is a great time to recommit to listening, hearing and loving one another. 

I think about one of the learning and listening experiences of our last church that actually had to do with Eldest joining the church.  When new people join the church, the session is required to “examine” them to make sure they are “fit for membership.”  Usually this just means that we ask them why they want to join and then bless that joining.  I think there is an assumption, probably based on our own experiences and our own ways of being in the world, that says that when someone joins the church, they don’t want to be pushed too hard, confronted, challenged or to feel threatened by our questions.  Eldest told me though, when she joined the church both here and first in Ohio, that she really wanted to be taken seriously enough that the interview, the examination for membership was real – not token.  Convincing the session, though, to listen and to understand that request took some work.  They had to hear in a different way in order to trust what she was saying and ask questions that had some depth in them.

I also think of a story I heard recently from a pastor who noticed one Sunday a couple women who had been fighting for years in the church huddled together in a corner, hugging and crying.  One had just lost her spouse, the other had lost a spouse years earlier.  They connected over something they both now shared that allowed them to hear and support each other despite their differences.

I served as organist/music director for a small church while attending seminary.  After I left, I received a call from the new music director who felt that the pastor's wife hated her.  Shortly following that phone call, I received a call from the pastor's wife saying she did not know what to do because everything she did was interpreted by the new music director as a slight.  While both had good intentions, while both wanted the relationship to work, both were struggling because they had trouble seeing, hearing and understanding each other.  With help from me and others, though, they were able to work through some of it to understand that they just communicated and expressed themselves differently.

           On Pentecost, we celebrate our diversity within the church.  We honor that by celebrating the gifts the Spirit gives us.  And we honor it by striving with those gifts of compassion and grace and forgiveness to really hear and understand one another.  

A Failure to Listen

Exodus 33:12-23

Matthew 22:15-22

               “Just listen”.  These are words we hear said, they are words we do say, often when we are simply in disagreement with another person.  And there is truth in them.  Sometimes when we are sure our opinion is right, we simply cannot hear any other view point.  When we know what we believe, we don’t bother to put ourselves in another’s position to hear how they see things or view things.  When we are certain we are right, why would be take the time to try to understand an opposing view?  Why would we even bother to listen?   I know I am guilty of failing to listen or seriously consider a differing view point at times, even when I try to be open-minded.  There are certain ideas that simply won’t get a hearing when run by me.  We simply fail to listen at times. 

In the children’s movie, “Brave” there is a wonderful scene about a mother and her teenage daughter.  They have just had a terrible argument, and the scene moves back and forth between each of them as they discuss the argument, separately, each with someone else.  It is a wonderful scene as each practices or envisions a conversation with the other.  But what is most relevant to today is that each one is certain that the other is simply failing to listen.  And as they practice what they will say to each other when they are next together, the scene moves back and forth between each saying repeatedly to the other, “if you would just listen!”  “I think you would understand if you could just listen!” 

               This is a familiar conversation, I think, that parents and teens experience.  Each has their own view point, and they either truly don’t listen to one another, or they are accused of not listening because they continue in their own opinions even when they do.  But as with the movie, Brave, in which the entire plot is centered around both the mother and daughter’s failures to listen, to respect or to even try to understand the opposing views, similarly, when we fail to listen, fail to hear, we tear rips in our relationships with others, we block true intimacy by blocking our ability to truly understand one another.  We can learn to disagree while still listening and helping others know that we hear and understand them, but this takes work, it takes effort.  And most of the time I think we simply choose not to really listen.

               So then when we look at the scriptures lessons for today, we can relate to the conversations that we hear, first between Moses and God, and second between Jesus and the Pharisees.  In the Exodus passage, God promises Moses that he will go with him to help him lead the people.  But Moses either doesn’t listen or doesn’t trust what God is saying.  Because right after God has promised, “I’ll go myself and I’ll help you,” Moses jumps in with “If you won’t go ….”  .  And even after God promises to do exactly what Moses has asked again, Moses pushes, “Well, show me your presence.”  He pushes and pushes, not hearing what God is agreeing to do, and failing to trust what God is saying.

               Then we come to the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees.  The Pharisees’ question to Jesus about taxes is one in a long line of questions that they have asked him with the purpose of entrapping Jesus.  They know that if Jesus answers that they shouldn’t pay this tax, he will be accused of sedition.  They also know that if he says that they should pay the taxes, he will enrage many of his followers on religious grounds because he will be going against the religious laws of the time.  They ask him a question that they believe he can’t win as they try to undermine him in any way they can.  They continually ask him questions, this one just being the last in a series, whose sole purpose is to discredit him with the people.  But the point here is that they are so focused on trying to knock him down, that they, too, are unable to listen, unable to hear what he is telling them again and again, with every sentence, with every statement, with everything that he does.  They have an agenda, and nothing will dissuade them from that.  Their ears are simply closed to any new information, to any new vision, to anything that might challenge or change the mission they have set for themselves to discredit Jesus.

               It would seem every effort God made to get Moses to listen was met with resistance.  And it seems that nothing Jesus did could help the Pharisees to hear.  What helps us to hear?  When we are entrenched in our opinions and our beliefs to the point that we are unable to listen, to be open even to God’s movement or message among us, what moves us from that place to one of hearing? 

Sometimes, someone says something that can catch us in a way that nothing else has.  I’ve shared with you before about the movie, “The Color of Fear” which is a documentary about a weekend retreat for men on the subject of racism.  I shared it in the context of opening our eyes, of seeing.  Hearing is the same: it is hard, and we are called to do it, so I’m choosing to share the story again.  Men of all backgrounds and ethnicities came to participate in this conversation about racial prejudice.  They made a commitment to be open in their conversations, to trust one another, to explore the topic of racism.  But there was one white man who quickly became the center of the conversation.  He kept insisting that there was no longer any racism in this country and that the men who were sharing their experiences of racial prejudice, were in fact, just blaming others for their problems.  Some of the men of color, having heard these accusations, left the conversation saying that it was not their job to change this man, that his ignorance made him not worth their time.  But most of the men stayed with the white man, sharing stories, telling of their own experiences.  They stayed steadfast in their commitment to justice, and their commitment to care for this one man, even in the face of his anger, his denial, his rudeness, his accusations and his blame.  They calmly and consistently shared their stories with him while he continued to say that they were hurt, ignored, passed over, and much, much worse because of their flaws, not because of racism.  But despite their care, despite their calm and simply presence, despite the stories they told again and again, this man simply could not hear them.  And nothing they did was impacting that block to listening.  Finally, towards the end of the weekend, the leader of the retreat turned to this white man and said, “What would it mean for you if the stories you are hearing are true?  What would it mean for you if we really have experienced the racial prejudice, hatred and discrimination that we are sharing with you?”

This question caught the man off guard.  He became very quiet, for the first time all weekend as he reflected on these words.  Finally, he said, very slowly, very quietly, “It would mean that the world is not as beautiful as I need to believe that it is.”  He began to cry as he continued, “and it would mean that I was part of the problem.” For this man, a question helped him to listen.  He was caught by a moment that surprised him.

But we know that it can take even more for people to learn how to listen.  Sometimes it takes “hitting bottom” for us to be able to hear, to listen and to change.   It takes experience to change.  We know that this is true with people with addictions.  Often people cannot make the choice to hear what others are telling him or her about having an addiction and needing to do something about it until they hit some kind of bottom – become so ill they have to change, or lose their jobs, or lose a relationship.  The same is true for all of us who are stuck in a place where we are unwilling to listen, even when what we might learn could make our lives better, more full.  In the movie, “Brave” which I shared about at the beginning, it took a trauma that threatened to destroy their family for both mother and daughter to finally listen and hear one another.  It literally would have been the end of life for the mother if she had not listened, and the daughter would have lost her mom if she had not listened.  While it is a story, a movie, it reflects the truth that listening is hard.  And sometimes we just would rather not do it.  For many people, prejudice of any kind – against people of different cultural backgrounds, races, ethnicities, LGBTQ folk, people of different religions – the prejudice is not overcome until we really know someone in the category of those we would dismiss: a son or a daughter or a family member is often the most able to help us change because they are people we love already.  But we also know the experience of changing our opinions, of growing, is hard; and sometimes very painful.

A rabbi lived in a rural area with his son. As the boy grew, he began to take walks each day in the woods around their home. The rabbi thought it was good for him to explore on his own in order to build his self-confidence. He noticed, though, that the boy was gone longer and longer each day. The rabbi began to worry that his son was straying too far and might get lost or encounter danger. The next morning, he talked to him about his concern. "I've noticed how much time you are spending in the woods," the rabbi said. "What do you do there?"

"Oh," said the lad, "I go into the woods to listen for the voice of God."

"Ah," smiled the Rabbi, "that is a good thing, but don't you know that God is the same everywhere?"

The boy pondered a moment and then replied, "Yes, Father, but I am not the same everywhere."

There is life in the listening.  There is healing in listening.  Finding the best way for each of us to listen is vital. There is depth in being willing to strive for understanding of another view point.  For Moses, listening to God would have created in him a sense of peace, comfort, dimmed the anxiety, given him a strength in continuing even when the people turned against him at times.  Eventually Moses did listen, despite the challenges that posed for him, and so he was able to fulfill his call to the people, to do the work God gave him to do and to exit in peace.  But it took time, time that could have brought him peace sooner.  For the Pharisees, their failure to listen meant they missed out on God right there with them.  The Pharisees were the legal faith authorities of the day, the legal leaders, the church authorities.  And yet these men, these people who had dedicated their lives to God’s law missed out on God’s presence right there with them.  I can’t think of a greater tragedy for these people than to miss out on the very thing they were striving to be part of their whole lives.  We know that for some, even hitting bottom won’t be enough to help them to change, to grow, to move.

I also want to state the obvious here, that listening does not mean agreeing.  We can listen and still come out with very different opinions and very different understandings.  However, taking the time to listen, to say to someone, “This is what I am hearing you say…”, taking time to repeat in your own words what the other is saying and only then stating your own opinion – these are choices to listen, to be in relationship, to build bridges, and deepen communication. These are choices that state that the relationship is more important than the disagreements, and it can be a huge step towards reconciliation and healing.

Where, then is the Good News in that?  We see in both of these Biblical stories that God continued to be loving and faithful, even when the people wouldn’t listen.  God remained faithful to Moses, responded to Moses, gave Moses what he wanted, even when Moses was challenging God, even when Moses was unwilling to listen.  God remained steadfast.  The tender compassion that God has for God’s children continued no matter what.   Jesus similarly does not refuse to talk to the Pharisees.  He does not ignore their question even.  He stays engaged with them, even in his anger, even as he realizes that he is being set up.  He continues to be present and he continues to try to show them a better way.  He speaks to them in a manner they don’t expect, turning the question around  in a way that might, just might, jar them into actually hearing him.  He says, give to God what is God and to Caesar what is Caesars.  And he leaves it to them to figure out what that means.  He tries to engage their higher thinking and their higher listening for a deeper answer.  What does it mean?  Caesar’s face is on the coin, but ultimately doesn’t everything, including Caesar, belong to God?  Jesus throws it back as a question, as a challenge for the Pharisees.  What really belongs to God?  What really belongs to Caesar?  Who is ultimately the one in charge of everything? 

This passage is not meant to answer the question of taxes for us.  Instead, it is a story about Jesus, and therefore about God.  It tells us that even in those hard questions, those things we struggle to understand, God chooses to be present with us.  It tells us that we are called to think through things by listening with open ears.  It calls us to be present and to engage further with our questions, our thoughts, our hopes, our doubts, and ultimately all that we are.  To listen.  And when we can’t listen, to rest in the love of a very patient and very present God who will wait for us to be able to listen, and will still be talking when we are able to open our ears.

sermon - Pentecost

Genesis 11:1-9

Acts 2:1-21

What is Pentecost?  It is the birthday of the church.  But as the two Biblical stories for today show us, Pentecost is also a reversal. It is reversing the story of the tower of Babel. So let’s review for a minute. What is the story of Babel about? What happens in the story? People start united.  They all speak the same language; they all understand each other.  But then something happens and the result is, what?  They no longer speak the same language.

Whether or not you take this story literally, there are oodles of deeper meanings here, tons of insights into the human condition through this story of the tower of Babel.  Because we still don’t speak the same language, do we?  Even here in this church, even when we are all appearing to speak English, we don’t always speak the same language. We misunderstand each other, we hurt each other, we mis-communicate, we argue, we struggle.  We don’t speak the same language.  We are torn apart in this world, in families, in cultures, in groups by our inability to hear, to speak clearly, to be understood and to understand.  

To give some funny examples: When I was pregnant with Youngest, I went in for a blood test that required fasting for the 8 hours before the test. While on my way, Eldest or Middle asked for some goldfish crackers. While handing some back to the kids, I automatically popped one in my own mouth before remembering that I was not supposed to eat anything before my exam. 

When I went in to take the test, the nurse asked me first thing, “have you eaten anything in the last 8 hours?”  “No,” I replied. But then remembering the cracker I added, “Oh, except for a spare gold fish.” Well apparently this was someone who did not have kids and was not familiar with the goldfish snack crackers. He blanched for a minute, looking a little pale, and then quickly moved away like he had just met some crazy woman who might say something else off the wall or do something even more strange. I was confused by his response at first, and I only realized as he was leaving the room that he thought I meant an actual goldfish. I’m sure hearing my hysterical laughter after he shut the door behind him did nothing to improve his image of the crazy woman behind the door. We were both speaking English, but we were not speaking the same language.

When Eldest was in kindergarten, I showed up to be a volunteer for her library time, only to discover that the kindergarten library time had been moved to another day.  When I asked Eldest why her library time had been moved, she told me in all seriousness that they had to move the library time because her library teacher had to “run up and down the stairs during her normal library time.”  “Oh,” I said, “Ms. Roby was really busy doing other work at the school.”  But no, Eldest was insistent. They changed the library time because Ms. Roby literally had to run up and down the stairs during her normal library time. I’m certain the children were told exactly what Eldest repeated to me. And little kids are literalists. If Eldest was told Ms. Roby had to run up and down the stairs, then that must literally be what Ms. Roby was doing. Our little literalists often don’t speak the same language as we do.

When I was a kid I remember being told that the world was round.  I thought we were all on the inside however, and kept looking up to see if I could see the people on the other side of the world.

A few years ago I was running an errand at Office Depot when the cashier asked to see my driver’s license.  I flipped open my wallet, showing the cashier the license through the little window in my wallet.  After looking at it for a moment, the cashier suddenly said, “Why don’t you have more tigers?”

“Excuse me?” I replied.

“Why don’t you have more tigers?” the cashier insisted.  “Every time I go to the zoo,” she continued, “I want to see the tigers and I can never see them because there just aren’t enough.  Why don’t you get more?” 

For a moment, this monologue just puzzled me until glancing down at my wallet I noticed the picture space across from my driver’s license held our Oakland Zoo membership card.  The cashier had seen the card and instead of recognizing it as a membership card, she had assumed that I was an employee at the zoo. That was an easily cleared up mistake. But for that moment at least, we were not speaking the same language. There was a gap in communication. We did not understand one another.

David, as you know, spent most of his life in Ohio.  The first time I took him to San Francisco, at one point after we had been walking through Golden Gate Park, he asked me where all the Rice-a-Roni stands were.  Childhood commercials had miscommunicated to him the belief that just as there are taco trucks in other places, in San Francisco, there were Rice-A-Roni stands on each corner.

Sometimes our failure to understand one another is not so funny, though.  Sometimes it is downright tragic.  In foreign affairs, there have been far too many wars started over miscommunication: sometimes this miscommunication is as simple as a non-intended slight or failure to recognize the necessary manners and customs of another culture.           More immediately, how many divorces are caused by failure to communicate well?  How many broken-hearted children have been punished over misunderstandings with parents or teachers?

I went to Korea while I was in seminary, with a group of students.  We had spent the semester studying Korean culture, and had been told on countless occasions that dressing up for church in Korea was extremely important.  People would feel it was disrespectful to do otherwise and would be highly offended.  None the less, one of our group failed to bring anything nicer than jeans. When we had offended and this offense was being explained to this young man, his response was, “Well, I would have known if I was being offensive!”  He failed to understand all of the communication he had been given through our readings and lectures and from the responses of the people themselves, about the differences in our cultures and what would offend and he stubbornly insisted that his way of seeing the world was the only way.

People who suffer from schizophrenia often have an incredibly difficult time being understood. They speak our languages, whatever they are. But we struggle to understand people with schizophrenia, to make sense of what they say. I had the privilege while studying in college of volunteering with an amazingly loving, intuitive, giving Chaplain to the Homeless in Berkeley. 

Alexia met people of all kinds, and she really listened and heard them in ways that were deeply profound and truly life-giving. One time when we were together, a schizophrenic homeless woman approached Alexia. Alexia and I were deep in conversation and Alexia knew that for me, people who said things I could not understand were probably the people I feared most in the world. So at first it looked like Alexia was going to put this woman off for a moment, when suddenly Janet blurted out, “I am God.” Her statement made me uncomfortable. I stood up and was ready to be on my merry fear-driven way. Here was the thing I feared most: craziness, unpredictable behavior: that which made me most uneasy, that which I did not choose to deal with, right in front of me, demanding my energy and attention, and I could not accept her. But Alexia gently indicated to me that I was to stay. She turned to Janet, “Tell me. I’ve always wanted to know...what exactly does it feel like to be God.” Janet looked straight at Alexia with relief in her face, but also urgency to speak, to tell. She sighed a big sigh, “I care and love and care and love but no one pays any attention to me.” Alexia gave me a very poignant stare as we both nodded our heads in understanding. This woman I was about to dismiss because I had no energy for her great needs, had deep needs, but also had gifts for us: gifts of insight, gifts of wisdom.  This woman felt ignored, unseen, unvalued. I am sure she was also accurate that God must feel ignored at times, too. Until she said it, I never knew the god right in front of me and present in this woman.

I learned in my psychology class shortly after that event that the ramblings of schizophrenics are not recognizably different from quotes from poetry.  No one, not even the most highly trained psychologists and psychiatrists can tell the difference between phrases of poetry and schizophrenic phrases. Schizophrenics talk in poetry. But Chaplain Alexia was a person of Pentecost. When she was faced with a person whose language seemed different, other, hard to understand, Alexia listened, asked questions, and came to understand. Though we would think Janet was speaking in a different language, for those with ears to hear, for those Pentecost people, she was speaking the language of God.

 In the story of the tower of Babel, the creating of multiple languages, the destroying of people’s ability to understand one another - this was a story about people losing power, losing strength, losing focus and the ability to be united and together!  The story of the tower of Babel tells us God created many languages so that the people could not “do anything” - could not become like gods and accomplish anything they put their mind to. 

So if the Pentecost story is the reversal of that, what does that now tell us?  God has given back to us the power to understand one another. God has given us the ability to choose to listen to what we are really saying to one another. With that power, we can do anything! We can choose once again to be united. And as a united people, we can be part of healing this earth. We can be God’s hands bringing peace to the world. We can do God’s will and love God’s people and bring the world together. It is out of this experience of unity and understanding that the church was born.  It is out of this love from God; the love that gives us the understanding and power to love and unite with others that our church has come into being.

Before I conclude I want to tell you one more story.  In this story, about a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave the Vatican. Naturally there was a big uproar from the Jewish community. The Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the Pope won, the Jews would have to leave.

The Jews realized they had no choice. They chose a middle-aged man named Moishe to represent them. Moishe asked for one addition to the debate - to make it more interesting, neither side would be allowed to talk. The Pope reluctantly agreed. The day of the great debate came. Moishe and the Pope sat opposite one another for a full minute before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moishe looked back at him and raised one finger. The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head. Moishe pointed at the ground where he sat. The Pope pulled

out a wafer and a glass of wine.  Moishe pulled out an apple. The Pope stood up and said, "I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay."

An hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope asking him what happened. The Pope said, "First I held up three fingers, representing the Trinity. He held up one finger to remind me there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my fingers around to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins.  He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything!  What could I do?" 

Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe. They also asked what had happened. "Well," said Moishe, "first he said to me that we had three days to get out. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he said the whole city would be cleared of Jews. I told him we were staying right here." "And then?" asked a woman.

"I don't know," said Moishe. "He took out his lunch and I took out mine."

So as we celebrate the birthday of the church today, do we choose to remain a people of Babel, lost in the confusion of voices and understandings?  Or do we choose to remember the miracle of Pentecost?  Do we choose to speak the same language, or rather to do the work to truly and deeply understand one another across all barriers knowing that God has given us that gift of hearing, of listening, of understanding?  Do we choose to turn from Babel and claim the new life, the birth of our church, the new way of being in this world, knowing that the reward is heaven itself? Yes! And again I pray, Yes!