Who do you listen to, who do you hear?
Have you ever done a voices audit? Noted who you have listened to over the course of an hour or a day? And who you chose to ignore, for any reason? It doesn’t have to be really detailed, but it can be instructive. Are you always listening to the naturally authoritative nice-sounding white, (presumably cis-het) males, or do you listen to others as well?
For example, do you really hear the voices of those that society marginalises? The children and young people, or those adults who are not of the majority heritage in your church? Do you hear the hesitant voices, the stammerers, the angry voices, the hurting voices? Do you listen to the voices from the edges – the ones who are the most difficult to hear, that might attack, that may dismiss you?
Jesus listened to all the voices, but he didn’t necessarily act on those whom you might expect from a young preacher and teacher. At 12/13, he listened to the Scribes and Teachers of the Torah, (Luke’s gospel), but he argued back, and astonished those who heard him. As he went about his ministry, he listened to the Tax Collectors for the Romans (Zacchaeus and Levi/Matthew) who would be considered quite powerful, but he heard them at a fundamental level, and even told parables (The two sons) about the ones who returned from working with pigs (i.e. Roman/Gentile areas) to being embraced by their communities.
He listened to the Pharisees, particularly in John’s Gospel, a group of Jews who promoted social and practical holiness in much the same way that a Methodist Local Preacher might today. Again, he heard them as people, answering questions posed by Nicodemus with more than a little humour and wordplay. At the end of the gospel, it is a Pharisee who approaches Pilate and asks for the body of Jesus, after he is crucified.
And he listened to people we might call “cranks”, in order to refute them fully. In Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 5, he cites hearsay “you have heard it said you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy” – which is not actually a saying of the time in Jewish recollection (cite: Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus, and Levine, ed. Jewish Annotated New Testament). He takes this message of hatred and turns it on its head into a message of active Love.
Actively listening is a skill that has to be learnt, especially learning to listen to those that challenge us. The Syro-phoenician woman changes Jesus’ mind, and challenges him when he is vulnerable and in enemy territory.
If we want to seek, serve and share Christ, we need to hear what is being said in the world, and how it is being said, to take that message and transform it into one that spreads the radical gospel of Christ. That doesn’t mean we adopt the values of the world, but the language of the world, in order for Christ to be heard.