Listening to Each Other
Bob Wickizer
Acts 5:27-32
How many times each week do you find yourself listening to someone and thinking about something else? Has it become a national epidemic? Our children will typically listen for about the length of a television commercial possibly longer if you can tell an engaging story. Our spouses are famous for tuning out the other party if for no other reason than after decades of marriage, of course one's spouse already knows what you are thinking.
We've all had those moments. Our spouse waxes on passionately about a topic he or she is closely following. The receiving spouse smiles and nods at the appropriate moment and then there is this big thud in the monologue. The talker stops and says to the listener, ''Are you hearing what I am saying? ... Are you even listening to me? ... Hello in there.'' It's like when you drive through one of those cell phone blackout zones and you keep talking when the line is dead.
But a faith community listens to each other in love and trust. Real listening is hard work because it requires that for a moment we set aside who we are with our bias, prejudice, background, social location and emotional baggage. Real listening requires that we willingly step into the other person's shoes for a minute and walk in those shoes. Real listening is never about interpreting what you hear based upon your own situation in life; instead it is about understanding, literally standing under, the other person.
Real listening demands that we hang in there. Sometimes we are going to hear things that are uncomfortable or challenging. Before slavery was abolished first in England and later in the United States, Anglican and Episcopal priests taught and preached pro-slavery sermons to their churches for over a century. Their interpretation of the Bible was all based upon a slave-owning, slavery-is-ok point of view so of course they used the Bible to justify everything about slavery. When slavery was abolish ...
Bob Wickizer
Acts 5:27-32
How many times each week do you find yourself listening to someone and thinking about something else? Has it become a national epidemic? Our children will typically listen for about the length of a television commercial possibly longer if you can tell an engaging story. Our spouses are famous for tuning out the other party if for no other reason than after decades of marriage, of course one's spouse already knows what you are thinking.
We've all had those moments. Our spouse waxes on passionately about a topic he or she is closely following. The receiving spouse smiles and nods at the appropriate moment and then there is this big thud in the monologue. The talker stops and says to the listener, ''Are you hearing what I am saying? ... Are you even listening to me? ... Hello in there.'' It's like when you drive through one of those cell phone blackout zones and you keep talking when the line is dead.
But a faith community listens to each other in love and trust. Real listening is hard work because it requires that for a moment we set aside who we are with our bias, prejudice, background, social location and emotional baggage. Real listening requires that we willingly step into the other person's shoes for a minute and walk in those shoes. Real listening is never about interpreting what you hear based upon your own situation in life; instead it is about understanding, literally standing under, the other person.
Real listening demands that we hang in there. Sometimes we are going to hear things that are uncomfortable or challenging. Before slavery was abolished first in England and later in the United States, Anglican and Episcopal priests taught and preached pro-slavery sermons to their churches for over a century. Their interpretation of the Bible was all based upon a slave-owning, slavery-is-ok point of view so of course they used the Bible to justify everything about slavery. When slavery was abolish ...
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