Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfilment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
(James 1:17-27)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
How many of you were paying attention over the last couple of weeks to the tensions on the Korean Peninsula between North and South Korea? Bill Clinton once described the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas as the “scariest place on the face of the earth,” or words to that effect. Two nations (three, really, if you count the United States, which has thousands of troops stationed in Korea) who often seem ready and willing to restart a war that ended over 60 years ago except that it never really ended. Things heated up in Korea again over the last little while - and a lot of the renewed tensions had to do with loudspeakers. North Korea began to threaten to go to war because South Korea was blasting anti-North Korea propaganda over loudspeakers set up along the border. There were a few shots fired and it actually did seem as if loudspeakers were going to cause the Korean Peninsula to erupt again, this time featuring a North Korea that has at least a few nuclear weapons, along with a United States that has enough nuclear weapons to blow up the earth many times over. Loudspeakers. It sounds ridiculous. And for all the turmoil and threats and propaganda being blasted back and forth across the border, representatives of North and South Korea finally decided to get together, and in less than 24 hours they had resolved the issues that had almost brought them to war. All it took was for them to be willing to sit down and actually listen to each other. Listening can solve a lot of problems; listening can resolve a lot of conflicts. Undoubtedly that’s why James wrote, “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” If we are quick to listen to those around us, then we will be slow to speak, and we’ll be even slower to anger. Then, perhaps, we have the possibility of producing God’s righteousness through our encounters with each other instead of misunderstanding, anger and conflict.
Unfortunately, all too often we don’t do that. Stephen Covey, the author of “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People,” wrote that “most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” What he means by that is that most people are spoiling for a fight. When people speak to us, we’re too often defensive, and rather than listening to what they’re saying with a goal of understanding them, we’re looking for openings to shoot back. If you could bring yourself to watch it on a warm summer night, our so-called election debate a couple of weeks ago was a prime example of that. Do you really think that Stephen Harper, Tom Mulcair, Justin Trudeau and Elizabeth May were trying to understand each other? Of course not. They were looking for openings; hoping for opportunities to score points at the expense of each other. Of course, it’s easy to take on the politicians. the problem is that it happens elsewhere. When there’s conflict within families, when there’s conflict within churches - wherever there’s conflict, it’s often because people refuse to listen and engage each other. Instead they simply end up speaking at each other instead of with each other, and ultimately they end up spreading the conflict by speaking past each other to whatever audience there is, and by doing that they drag more people into the conflict. How often have I seen that happen over the years? Frankly - too often. When we decide to speak without taking the time to think about what’s happening we either get into a fight or we end up looking silly.
Earlier in our service, we heard the story of the transfiguration. It’s a mysterious story indeed. It doesn’t usually get read at this time of year, but today I thought it was a great example of what I’m talking about. Peter saw this incredible sight before him - Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah, Jesus turning a dazzling white, and Peter was speechless - or, perhaps it’s better to say that Peter should have remained speechless, because what he said just frankly didn’t make a lot of sense. “Um. Why don’t I build a place for you three to sit down in?” There was no thought behind his words, and as the text honestly noted, “he didn’t know what to say.” Well, no major fight broke out over this little incident, but fights can erupt when we respond to something without thinking, and the advice that God gave in response to Peter’s unthinking outburst was good advice to follow today: “This is my Son. Listen to him.” Listening is key. Listening to Jesus, and listening to those around us.
James put it well: “... be quick to listen …” Listening, as I said, is key. We have to listen to each other; we have to hear each other - and our motives in doing so have to be good. It’s exactly as Stephen Covey notes - the purpose of listening to someone should be to understand them, not to respond to them. Listening - real listening - is a show of respect to your partner in the conversation. It demonstrates that whether or not you agree with them, their views are important to you. People want to know that. My experience is that most people don’t mind you disagreeing with them, but they are offended if you won’t even listen to what they have to say. It would do our society, our politics and our churches well if we could learn to talk less and to listen more, which is surely why James goes on to say,
“... be slow to speak …” You don’t have to jump into a conversation with someone everytime they pause to take a breath. You don’t have to try to talk over those who are expressing different viewpoints. Even if you’re convinced that you’re right, you can afford to let alternative viewpoints be expressed. I’ve often told people that just because I know I’m right it doesn’t mean that I always have to tell you that I’m right. Life doesn’t have to be a never ending exercise in trying to win every argument or to come out on top of every debate or to have the last word in every conversation. There will always be disagreements between people. There should be. Let’s be honest - if we all agreed on everything, we’d have a pretty boring world indeed! But sometimes, the best strategy is to just step back, take a deep breath, let others talk and, frankly, keep our mouths shut - because feeling the need to have the last word on every subject only leads to one outcome, and that’s why James concluded this little piece of advice by saying that we should be:
“... slow to anger.” I would make it just a little stronger for emphasis - be even slower to anger, because being slower to anger will be the result of listening rather than speaking. If we actually start to listen to those we disagree with we’ll probably discover that for the most part they’re pretty OK people. The truth is that when anger flares up, the conflict is often over something that’s just not that important. In churches over the years I’ve discovered that most church fights have erupted over what are actually rather silly little things, and even those church fights that erupt over more important issues get blown out of proportion because we won’t really listen to those we disagree with, we just choose to express our disagreement.
I like the first part of James’ three-part advice, and I think it’s especially relevant for the church: “be quick to listen …” That would solve a lot of problems, because it would mean we’d be talking less and perhaps having the time to find out that those we disagree with are usually very good people with very deep faith in Jesus. They just have different ideas - and those we can generally leave to God to sort out. If, as James suggests, anger does not produce God’s righteousness, then perhaps we should think about the possibility that listening just might produce God’s righteousness!
No comments:
Post a Comment