As part of my devotional reading for this year I am reading excerpts from the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian who was martyred by the Nazis in the closing days of World War II. Bonhoeffer was just 39 years old when he died. He had spent some time teaching in the States and could have stayed and avoided going back to war-torn Germany, but felt compelled to return to help his fellow Christians and Germans live faithfully through the nightmare that was The Third Reich. He wrote much on what it means to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus. His powerful attack on “cheap grace” – that is, professed faith in Christ that fails to understand and live out the radical claims of the Gospel, is a message that needs to be heard again and again, especially in our Gospel-weak and highly culturally-adapted understanding what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
In his little book, Life Togethe, Bonhoeffer shares some practical advice on what it means to live in Christian fellowship. In one section he talks about “The Ministry of Listening.” I was struck by this passage:
The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, so the beginning of love for other believers is learning to listen to them. God's love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear. We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially ministers, think that their only service is always to have to “offer” something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.
Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking when they should be listening. But Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension which chokes on pious words. Those who cannot listen long and patiently will always be talking past others, and finally no longer will even notice it. Those who think that their time is too valuable to spend listening will eventually have no time for God and others, but only for themselves and for their own words and plans.
…But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been entrusted to them by the one who is indeed the great listener and in whose work they are to participate. We should listen with the ears of God, so that we can speak with the Word of God. (pp. 97-99 adapted)
I suppose these words struck me because I have seen in others and in myself the absence of the ministry of listening. We speak too much. Or we listen, as Bonhoeffer also said, with “half an ear.” That is, impatient, inattentive listening. We already know what the other person is going to say, or we are only waiting for them to finish so that we can speak. No real listening here.
I have been trying to work on this. I try to listen to the store clerk or the tired service manager at the auto shop or the post office employee or the person waiting in line with me or the person in the pew next to me. People are hungry for someone to listen to them. And unfortunately, we Christians, often don’t do a very good job at listening.
I remember watching the TV series “Cheers” and sometimes feeling that there is often more of a ministry of listening in a bar than there is in the church. Ouch!
Several years ago one of our Seminary professors often started his classes with reflective, meditative readings. During one of those readings I was introduced Michael Quoist. Michael Quoist was a Roman Catholic priest and writer who worked mostly in the inner city and among young people. In 1954 he published a book of contemporary prayers that refreshingly showed God’s interest in all areas of life. One of the prayers is called “The Telephone”.
The Telephone
I have just hung up; why did he telephone?
I don’t know….Oh! I get it….
I talked a lot and listened very little.
Forgive me, Lord; it was a monologue and not a dialogue.
I explained my idea and did not get his;
Since I didn’t listen, I learned nothing,
Since I didn’t listen, I didn’t help,
Since I didn’t listen, we didn’t commune.
Forgive me, Lord, for we were connected,
And Now we are cut off.
This is a sad prayer reminding us that so often we miss a real opportunity to be present for another person when we fail to listen. Through our failure to listen we may have inadvertently missed an opportunity to be a healing, life-refreshing, hope-instilling presence in another’s life.
Bonhoeffer also reminds us that to fail to listen – to the other, to God – can be the beginning of the death of the spiritual life. It is easy to become so preoccupied with talking and being in control that we fail to miss what God wants to say to us and because we do, we fail to nourish that relationship that makes us more Christlike. Jesus often invited his audience to “listen”, to “hear” what God was saying through him, the world, their life experience, the Scriptures and others.
What we need is to listen with God’s ears to the sighs, the cries, the longings, the silence, as well as the words of those around us. And if we can learn that, maybe we will be able to listen to our own deepest cries and the still, small voice of God as it speaks to us of peace and healing.
Maybe a good resolution for this year is to heed the words of the Book of James: “be quick to listen, slow to speak.” (James 1:19).
