The Patience to Listen--December 20, 2022

The Patience to Listen--December 20, 2022

"When [Jesus'] mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.  But when he had resolved do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit...." [Matthew 1:18-20]

It amazes me, now that I think of it, how much the whole divine plan to save humanity hangs on two people being patient enough to listen.

Mary, of course, is one of them.  And when the angel comes to her with an outlandish notion that she bear the long-awaited savior, she is befuddled at how it will happen.  She knows enough about where babies come from to know that she shouldn't be able to be pregnant yet... but she listens.  And even though some part of her has to be increasingly worried about "what the neighbors will say" and how it will affect her reputation to be expecting a baby before the wedding invitations have been sent out, she is careful and thoughtful enough to consider everything the angel says.  And after listening, thinking, and pondering the choice to trust God even when she can't see how it will all work out, Mary says "Yes."  We're so quick to jump ahead to the scene with the manger and the shepherds that we often forget the power of that momentous conversation beforehand where Mary is clearly thinking things out and resisting the urge to panic by patiently letting herself soak in the words of the heavenly messenger.  She isn't rash.  She doesn't blurt out that it's impossible.  And she doesn't rush to answer with her initial gut-reaction that she can't be the mother of the Messiah... because she knows she can't be a mother at all, yet.  There is a deliberate pace, a slowness to respond, that makes all the difference.  And if you think about it, it's exactly because Mary is willing to mull this whole thing over that the plan unfolds as God intends.  It's because Mary thinks it over, listens to the angel's answers, and then says, "Yes," that the birth of the child proceeds the way it does.  Her patience allows the breathing space for the Christ-child to be born.

Joseph, too, plays his role in the great salvation story by being willing to be slow enough to listen, rather than rashly shutting everything down. Matthew tells us that when Joseph first finds out that Mary is expecting, he draws the only logical conclusion there is--Mary has been involved with another man.  And whether out of feelings of betrayal at what he assumes is unfaithfulness, or because he doesn't want to keep her from someone else she might truly love, or all of the above, Joseph's initial plan is just to break everything off.  He doesn't want to make a big public spectacle of things, although a stickler for the Mosaic law could insist that there be a public trial and a stoning.  He just wants to break things off quietly and move on with his life.  But again--Joseph is willing to consider things over.  He is willing to be patient enough to listen when the angel comes to him in a dream.

And when the angel tells him it is OK to marry his betrothed, and that the child isn't the result of anybody being unfaithful to anybody, but rather of Mary being faithful to God and God being faithful to the ancient covenant promises, he is willing to let that new information change his mind and his plan of action.  This really is an amazing turn in the story, if you think about it.  Joseph had a plan, once which was decently thought out and reasonable given the circumstances and the data available to him, but he remains open enough to consider new information... and patient enough not to rush to judgment without listening to it.  This isn't a story of a dramatic 180-degree turn from wicked or foolish choices toward wise and noble choices; it's not a matter of needing to "repent" from a sinful course toward a virtuous one, either. It's simply a matter of having enough openness and composure not to react rashly in a shoot-from-the-hip kind of way.  Joseph is thoughtful, reasonable, and open to a fuller picture than what he had before going to bed the night before.  And that willingness to listen--the humility to consider that maybe there was more to the story that needed to be factored in when someone presented it to him--is what leads Joseph to be the one to raise Jesus as his adoptive father.

I have to be honest here:  people of faith are not always known for their ability to sit down and calmly listen to new information.  We are not known in the wider culture for being open to hearing more to the story and letting it change our course of action.  We are not often known for being patient enough to listen.  Rather, a lot of times we Respectable Religious People have made Certainty into an idol, as though any openness to consider new information is a damnable sign of moral relativism and a perilously slippery slope to sin.  A lot of the loud voices of pop religion in our day can only see things their own way and to even allow the possibility that there might be more to consider feels to them like they are losing a battle to the side of evil.  Ours is a time when many think that the surest posture of faith is to dig your heels in and clench your first, rather than to sit with open ears and an open mind to new information.  But Joseph offers us an example of the power of patient listening, and he shows us that sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is to stop and say, "Maybe I don't have all the facts yet--let me consider what this other voice has to say."

Of course, to take Joseph's approach means choosing not to let ourselves be rushed through life or forced to make hasty decisions.  It means that certainty is not always a sign of true faith, nor of being correct.  And it means nurturing that uncomfortable virtue of humility--of admitting none of us have all the answers, and being open to being corrected, redirected, or given more information.  Since so many people have only experienced Christians as "people who are always shouting their answers" rather than "people who are willing to share tough questions together," it is indeed a hard path to walk by following after Joseph's way.  But my goodness, his story shows us just how much difference it can make to be patient enough to listen.  As theologian Paul Tillich put it, "the first duty of love is to listen." 

So today, perhaps our calling is to be like Joseph in that way, and to learn how to love more deeply by slowing ourselves down enough to listen to others first before telling them whatever it is we have burning inside of us to say.  Perhaps especially for us who name the name of Jesus--and who are so easily tempted to tell the world, "I have all the answers!"--it is all the more important for us to hold off on rushing to certainty or heel-digging or fist-clenching.  And perhaps the way we are called to grow in love is to take the time to listen to someone else today, yes, even at the risk of letting what they share with you change the way you think, speak, or act in the world.  That might not be a sign of weakness or wobbly faith, after all, but rather of love and faith that are sturdy enough to grow in new directions.

Lord God, whether you are sending angels our way or the life story of someone else whose experience is different from our own, give us the courageous ears to listen, and the patient love to take the time to hear them out.