Do You Hear What I Hear?

"Stay where you're to, 'til I come where you're at.

(East-coast saying quoted in recent CBC news article)

Pardon?!

Could you say that again please? While on a trip to Newfoundland I had an experience in which I heard someone speaking English, but I did not have a clue as to what they were saying. I was in a little cafe having pie and coffee and had just asked my waiter for directions to a nearby home for sale. The fellow politely answered... but I had no idea what he'd said. "Pardon me," I said, "could you say that again please?" He actually repeated himself two more times before I simply said thank you and acknowledged defeat. My friend sharing pie and coffee with me was as clueless as I regarding any useful translation of the "Newfie-isms" we'd just heard. The waiter knew what he was saying, but we could not penetrate the fog of his accent.

"Whoever has ears, let them hear"

(Matthew 11.15)

Perhaps it is sometimes this way with Jesus' words. He speaks but I don't always hear what he is saying and I say, "pardon?" and He says it again, and I still don't understand. You see, the culture in which I'm embedded does not really comprehend "love your enemy" and "this is my commandment that you love one another" and "forgive." Consequently my ears have difficulty with the compassion-accent and the faith-in-God accent that colors Jesus' voice. He is saying things that have the potential to radically change how I live my life, but what He says is in contradiction to the language that I have learned from our media, our social conventions and the norms of our North American lifestyle.

If I was to truly hear Jesus' most basic message of faith in God, kindness to our neighbor, and love to those who have forgotten that they were created as a gift of love - if I really heard this and lived it out, and we all lived it out - something crazy would happen on this earth. We might just begin to see that we are beautifully sculpted in God's image; we might discover the potential woven into us at Creation by our Creator. If we could only HEAR Jesus perhaps we would be able to address the poverty and war and violence of our deaf world. 

Alas for our un-hearing ears. 

Yet, sometimes our ears do hear, albeit a muffled sound, the sweet ringing of the Christ's voice. Kindness breaks out unexpectedly; racism is overcome; healing and forgiveness blossom; the hungry eat. There is hope for us, and that hope is grounded in God's patience and Christ's Spirit of gentleness. Jesus will keep speaking so that we can listen again and again saying, "pardon, I didn't quite catch that."

I leave the last word to the Master speaker:

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine 

and puts them into practice

is like a wise man who built his house on the rock."

(Matthew 7.24)

Pax

Pastor Bill

Listen

Be still

a voice

whispers

love

and

be loved

Breathe

deeply

and

hear

Love's

voice

[First published September 26, 2012]