Daring to Listen

Daring to Listen--September 28, 2017

"The Lord GOD has given me

    the tongue of a teacher,

 that I may know how to sustain

    the weary with a word.

 Morning by morning he wakens--

    wakens my ear

    to listen as thought who are taught.

 The Lord GOD has opened my ear,

    and I was not rebellious,

    I did not turn backward.

I gave my back to those who struck me,

    and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;

 I did not hide my face

   from insult and spitting.

The Lord GOD helps me;

   therefore I have not been disgraced;

therefore I have sent my face like flint,

    and I know that I shall not be put to shame..." [Isaiah 50:4-7]

Listening isn't really done until you have acted in response to what you have heard.

Let's put this in the category of things that should be obvious, but sadly are probably not.  I'll say it again for clarity's sake: genuine listening isn't really complete until the hearer processes what someone else has said and... does something with it. 

You might disagree with what the other person has said and simply made the mental determination that you do not agree, which might prompt you to ask more from the other person about how they have come to the conclusion to which they have come.  You might agree with the point someone else has made and find yourself almost unconsciously nodding in affirmation.

You might hear someone's out-of-the-blue request for help and find yourself compelled to help them get shelter for the night, or you might bristle with revulsion at overhearing someone's ignorantly self-absorbed comment in a conversation at another table in a restaurant. 

The responses are different, of course, but in a sense, they all reveal that listening isn't really "done" until the message we have heard awakens something in us.  And of course, what is awakened--whether disgust or delight, obedience or aversion--depends on to whom we are listening, and what is being said.

So, here is a question for us, folks who say that we are among the people of God: what is the right response when listening... to God?

If listening is only truly "listening" and not merely "hearing" if we are stirred up to response to what has been said, what is the right response when God speaks?  Is God's opinion something we are free to take or leave, depending on whether it "fits" with our politics?  Is God's repeated call, for example, to welcome the stranger, or to care for the hungry, the sick, and imprisoned, is that sort of thing optional, depending on whether we decide separately that these people are worthy of our time, care, and effort?  What about when Jesus requires his followers to love our enemies and to do good to those who will never pay us back or say thank you?  Do we get to claim we are really listening to the divine voice if we hear the words, and then decide, complacently, "Naaaah, that doesn't really suit me right now.  That doesn't apply to me. That doesn't fit with my common sense."

All of that is to say, if I am listening to God with excuses at the ready (perhaps polite and reverent excuses, but excuses nonetheless), am I really listening to God?

The 20th century martyr/pastor/theologian/Nazi-resistor Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously says in his brilliant and challenging work, The Cost of Discipleship, that we cannot really say we "believe" in Jesus (or are listening to God, I think he might add) if we are not prepared to be "obedient" to Jesus.  That is to say, if I say I believe Jesus is the Lord, the Son of God, and that I trust in the living Christ, but then do not actually do what this same Lord directs me to do, I am revealing to the world that I don't really trust Jesus to know what he is talking about.  And conversely, Bonhoeffer says, the moment I step out and do what Jesus calls me to do, even if I do it questioning how it will work out or why I should, in that instant I have moved from merely memorizing facts about Jesus to actually trusting the One I confess as Christ and Lord.  You only really know you believe, Bonhoeffer says, when you obey.  We have only really listened to God, we might say, when we let God's word awaken action within

us in response.

We have had to start there because of the connection here in these ancient words from the compiled words, poems, songs, and oracles that we call the book of Isaiah.  What we know as Isaiah 50 makes a connection between "listening to God" and then a response of willful surrender and suffering love.  "Morning by morning God wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught," says the prophet, singing about God's chosen servant.  And then the very next thought is this listening servant offering up his back, his face, and his reputation to those who were his enemies.  The servant of Isaiah 50's song here listens--you know he is listening to God, because he responds in a way that fits with the character of God's own suffering, self-giving love.

Now, for the last two thousand years, Christians have been reading Isaiah 50 and having a "Jesus moment" with this passage.  That is to say, we hear this business about offering a back up those who strike and hit, offering up one's face to spitting and insult, and we cannot help but hear echoes of the Passion of Jesus--his trial and torture by the Romans, his rejection by the crowds, and his expedited death at the hands of imperial cowards who hid behind their big talk and brute force.  And I dare say that is a fair move to make--while the prophet himself might not have been picturing a Roman crucifixion or the name Jesus, it is certainly fair to say that Jesus himself understood his life, his calling, and his mission in these "servant songs" of Isaiah and other passages from Israel's Scriptures.  But I don't believe that Jesus saw these passages merely as predictions.  To read the Gospels, one sees that Jesus himself appears to be convinced that suffering love, love that does not return violence for violence or evil for evil, love that is willing to do good even when it is not returned, that this kind of suffering love is at the heart of who God is.  And therefore because that is how Israel's God loves the world, of course that is how the servants of this God will act in the world.

Jesus chooses the way of suffering love because he listens to the Father. And because of who God is, God's own character is the path of suffering, self-giving love.  The suffering of the Messiah, the Christ, is not a random fluke nor a unique and unlikely event--but rather, it is exactly what you would expect from a God whose own way of engaging the world is self-giving love.  Jesus suffers at the hands of angry, hateful people, not because God the Father needs to get a pound of flesh or needs to mete out some kind of punishment to balance the cosmic scales of justice.  But rather, Jesus chooses the path of suffering love because that is the heart of the living God, and when that God speaks, Jesus listens all the way--he acts in response to what he has heard.

The connection is the same for us.  If we are going to claim to be people who listen to God's Word, or who listen to Jesus, or who listen to the Scriptures, we should be clear from the outset that acting in response to what we hear is not an option.  We cannot hear the One who says, "Blessed are the poor" and then continue to act as though merely getting more money is a worthy goal for life, or for society.   We cannot hear the One who says, "Do good to those who hate you" and then continue baptizing our pet hatreds and prejudices.  We cannot claim to be listening to the One who was a childhood refugee in Egypt, a convicted criminal of the most respected justice system of his day at his death, a regular table guest of outcasts and notorious "unacceptables," and who regularly knelt down to stand in solidarity with lepers and contagious strangers and women accused of adultery on the days in between... and then not act in accordance with way of that same Jesus. We do not get to edit out the parts of Jesus' life, actions, story, or love that push us beyond our comfort zones--not at least if we want to claim to be listening to him.

Today, as a new day opens up in front of us, what will we do as we hear the voice of the divine calling us again?  We still certainly have the old option of selectively hearing only the parts we like, and then patting ourselves on the back for being good little religious boys and girls.  But Jesus himself calls us to something more.  He intends to awaken us.  He intends, morning by morning, to waken us to a response that looks like his cross-shaped love.

Dare we listen today?

We dare.

Lord Jesus, speak and make us to listen... and to respond as you speak and your word shapes these hearts.