|
"Seek First to Understand"
April 25, 2004
The Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson
"I'm sure she had it coming." That's the response that was given to Franklin Roosevelt one time. Franklin Roosevelt was one who was sick of having to have receiving lines all the time in the White House. He was sick of it because he often said, "No one really listens to what I say here." So as an experiment he decided to say, kind of mumbling under his breath to everyone who came by, "I murdered my grandmother today." And everyone would respond, "How wonderful!" "You're doing such a great job!" "We're proud of you!" Until, finally the last man, an ambassador, heard it. And that's what he said: "I'm sure she had it coming."
We human beings have a problem listening--really hearing what people say, and hearing what God has to say. That theme of "hearing" is throughout the Scripture. We see it in many, many places. I've chosen two Scriptures to illustrate this. One from Isaiah, and then one in Matthew. First from Isaiah 55, 1 through 3:
"Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
And from Matthew chapter 13, verses 10 through 16, reading from Eugene Peterson's The Message:
The disciples came up and asked, "Why do you tell stories?" Jesus replied, "You have been given insight into God's kingdom. You know how it works. Not everyone has this gift, this insight; it hasn't been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That's why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen 'til they're blue in the face and not get it. I don't want Isaiah's forecast repeated all over again: 'Your ears are open but you don't hear a thing. Your eyes are awake but you don't see a thing. The people are blockheads! They stick their fingers in their ears so they don't have to listen; They screw their eyes shut so they don't have to look, so they don't have to deal with me face-to-face and let me heal them.' "But you have God-blessed eyes--eyes that see! And God-blessed ears--ears that hear! A lot of people, prophets and humble believers among them, would have given anything to see what you are seeing, to hear what you are hearing, but never had a chance. . ."
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
When I first arrived here, I began a series of sermons that got interrupted by Lent and Easter and I'd like to continue it now until it ends. It is a series of sermons called "Habits of Highly Effective Christians," using loosely the book by Stephen Covey Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Today I want to use one of his habits which, I think, may be the most thoroughly Christian of the habits he comes up with--and it is to seek first to understand, then to be understood. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. It is really a skill about listening--of really listening, not just hearing words. Hearing the word spoken of the mouth and the head, but also looking into the heart.
In my experience (and it's really personal experience because I, too, have this problem of not listening) we do not do it very well. It does not seem to come naturally to us. When we are hearing someone, we have all kinds of responses. Sometimes it is to ignore--kind of like what happened to Franklin Roosevelt. Sometimes we pretend to listen ("Yeah . . . right . . . um hum . . . sure . . . yup"). Or selective listening--this happens mostly with our children, you know, when you have a toddler who strings certain words together and you hear some of it. Or it might be that you're listening to a preacher--who knows? But you listen selectively, really, to anyone. We hear, often, what we want to hear. Or even more common, perhaps, is to listen to reply. How often we simply listen to someone and as we're listening to them, we're formulating what we want to say.
Mel Brooks tells the story about how in the fifties, during Sid Caesar's television show, the writers would meet for lunch and tell jokes. And, naturally, they never listened to one another--they just simply told jokes. They were too busy trying to think up a story to top the one they just heard. One day a man came in with a little bit of gloom on his face and said, "I'm sorry. I can't stay very long. My mother has died and I need to leave to go to the funeral." And one of the colleagues jumped right up and said, "You think that's funny? Listen to this one!"
Sometimes we just don't want to listen--like the story of the telephone operator saying, "Long distance calling Mr. Jim Jones." "Hello, Jim," said the anxious voice, "this is your old pal Andy. Listen, Jim, I'm in difficulty. I need $500." "I can't hear you," said Jim, "something must be wrong with the line." "I need $500." "I still can't hear you." Just then the operator interrupted. "I can hear him fine," she said. "He wants $500." "Fine," said Jim. "You lend him the $500."
Sometimes we listen to people in order to fix them. Imagine yourself in the optometrist's office. You sit down and say, "Something's wrong with my eyes. I can't see very well." He takes off his glasses and hands them to you and says, "Here. Try these." You try them on. "Well, I can't see anything. It's blurry." The optometrist says, "It works for me. What's wrong with you?" "Well, they're your glasses. I can't see a thing out of them." "You need to think positively. You're not trying. You need to work harder. What's wrong with you? You're just ungrateful after all I've done for you."
Now, you'd think that's odd and you probably wouldn't go back to that doctor. But how often do we do that to others? A child comes to his mom and says, "Mom, something's bothering me." "What is it, honey? I really want to hear it." "Oh, mom, you'd think I'm stupid." "Oh, honey, please tell me." "OK. I want to quit school. I think it's stupid." "What? How dare you think about that! After all we've done for you! Why can't you be more like your sister? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Now, honey, I really do want to listen to you."
And on and on it goes. We have so much trouble listening. We listen to people out of our own agenda, out of our own set of rules. Sometimes we're tired. Sometimes we just simply don't want to listen. Why does that happen? I think part of it is because of a good thing. Part of it is because God has made each and every one of us to want and need to be loved and to be heard. In my experience as a pastor, everyone has a story. Everyone has, actually, multiple stories. And we are so desiring of other people to hear these stories. We want to connect. We want to be heard. We want to be accepted for who we are.
One of the things I did in Houston this past weekend (besides working on selling my house, which was a very good thing for me, of course), but I went to the Houston Presbyterian Cursillo and I was one of the spiritual advisors in this Cursillo. Now, you'll find out about me that I think Cursillo's a wonderful thing, so you'll hear a lot about it. And it was a powerful, powerful weekend. And I often wonder what's so powerful about Cursillo. It is, after all, a spiritual retreat for Christians and a lot of people go to retreats. But what's so special about this one? Well, Cursillo means "short course," and you get 15 talks about the Christian faith. That's part of it. But one of the things that happens is people are joined up with other people in a small group. Now, it's not really an "encounter group" per se, but it is a table that you sit at together for the entire weekend. And it's fun to watch, as a spiritual advisor, what happens to these people over the weekend. They really do join together. And part of what's powerful is that people begin to listen to one another--really listen to one another.
There was a man who was there who was a pastor from California. He got up as a testimony at the end and said, "I've experienced the love of God many, many times. But not the unconditional love of people many times at all. But here I have." And it was life-changing for him. So many people had their lives changed by that. And it is. It's life-changing when someone actually hears you.
But there is another reason why we don't listen that's bad. And that is, we've taken this good thing and we have twisted it. We are all egocentric--that is, self-centered. We all tend to think of ourselves first. A moment's reflection reveals that. If I were to take a Polaroid picture of this whole group and show it to you, who would you look for first? I'd look for me! I know where I stand in that. We are self-centered. We know that. But it works itself out in so many ways. We don't want to listen to others. We'd rather tell our own story. And sometimes I will play a game. Sometimes in a crowd of people, I will watch people talk to one another. It's interesting to me to see how many times in conversations, people compete. You know how it goes: "I went fishing the other day and I caught this." "Oh, let me tell you about the time I went fishing at this place!" We kind of interrupt, "Oh, let me tell you about the time I did that!"
Or golfers. I just played golf on Monday. I played terrible, but I'd like to tell you about all the good shots that I hit (not on Monday, but other times). We all want to tell our stories and we interrupt other people, we project into other people. How do we fix that? It's not easy. But I think this principle of seeking first to understand, then to be understood is a very practical principle. It's easy to remember. But it's also easy to forget, because we tend to be, again, self-centered. But think about how it could work. It is very practical. After all, a doctor ought not prescribe before he or she diagnoses. You need to listen to the problem before you tell people how to fix it. An architect wouldn't design a building until he heard the needs of the people who are wanting the building.
The same is true of other people. We need to listen to them. And I want to draw a distinction here because Covey draws it. I think it's a great one: There's a great difference between "sympathy" and "empathy." You see, a lot of times when we hear this we say, "Well, I've got all these people I could listen to, but I really don't like listening to them because I don't agree with them." There's all kinds of things like that going on. But there's a difference between "sympathy" and "empathy." We know the word "pathos." "Pathos" means "feeling." And "sympathy" means "to feel with," and it has the idea of "agreement."
I have a friend who up and announced he was going to divorce his wife. And, frankly, I still think he did it for bad reasons. But he wanted sympathy from me. He wanted me to "agree with," because the word "pathos" and "sym"--"sym" in the Greek means "with." You know. You've had that happen to you before--people don't think you support them because you don't agree with them. And "sympathy" can be a good thing, but it can be something people feed off of. They want sympathy. They want this agreement.
And what we are called to as Christians is sometimes sympathy, but most of the time, empathy. "Empathy" has that "pathos," that "feeling," but "empathy" means to almost "hurt with" someone, or "feel with" someone. It doesn't have the idea of "agreement," though. So I can listen to someone whom I am counseling and have great empathy for them. We can listen to people tell us about their feelings. We can actually hear what they have to say. We don't necessarily have to agree.
But I have come to believe that most of the time, people just want to be heard. They want for you to understand their story. I believe that many relationships could be helped if we would realize this. We can start with our marriages. Isn't that what you want from your spouse?--to be heard. But not just hearing words, but to understand the feelings that go with that. Or your friends. Or your family. Maybe the Palestinians and the Jews. Maybe the Muslims. A lot of things. We could not solve all the world's problems, but we could at least begin with ourselves.
I think part of the beginning of helping is understanding this, but I think we also need more. We need to learn to, in fact, listen more to God. You see, we do the same things to God. Often we live our lives ignoring God. We ignore Him. Or we listen selectively. Or we listen with our own agenda. You know, a lot of times prayer doesn't work for us because we're simply reciting a laundry list to God. And, by the way, God wants you to give Him your lists: "Give us this day our daily bread." It's OK. But there's not much intimacy there. It's kind of like going to Walmart and giving the clerk your list of things you need or want to buy. What intimacy is that? Part of intimacy with God and being changed by God is listening to Him, because He does hear us. He hears us, but we don't really know that because we don't hear Him. How do we do that?
I think it begins with the idea of listening to Him and seeking Him in our lives. Part of it begins here in worship on Sunday mornings. This is a place to listen to God, to get away from the clutter of our lives and to come. Part of it is to go out into the country and see nature, but I will say this: you need both. I have a lot of people say to me, "Oh, I can worship just as well out in the fishing boat as I can at church." Well, you can worship out in the fishing boat. I hope you would. (Most of the time, people are just concerned about worshiping the fish . . . but you can.) But there is a difference between "general revelation," (that is, nature), and "special revelation," (that is, what you hear in a sermon or read in the Bible).
But hear the principle: Seek first to understand. Hear what God has to say in meditating on His Word, and hearing sermons, and going to Bible studies. As we seek to understand, then we can seek to be understood. It begins with having other people first. It is the principle of love: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love others as yourself." Love means getting out of ourselves. It means putting aside our story. And here's the paradox: As we put aside our story and hear others, we will get to tell ours, too. But if we seek to simply get other people to hear our story, no one's going to listen--very few.
So I want to encourage you: Seek first to understand and then be understood. Go out and try to do that with your wife, or your children, or your husband, your friends. But begin with God. Begin with what the Lord would have to say to you.
There's a Scripture in Revelation which says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If you open, I will come in." He is not speaking to non-Christians there. He is speaking to Christians. He is speaking to us. Because so often, we close the door to God and don't hear what He has to say to us.
Seek first to understand your Lord and He will powerfully change your heart. Slowly, but He will. And you will be able to listen to others and grow in your awareness of the stories--all the wonderful stories--around you. And in the end, you will be able to also tell yours and also be listened to and be ministered to.
Let us pray together. Father, thank you for the stories that you tell us. Thank you that you love us so much and you have given us this desire to connect. Forgive us for turning it on its ear and simply making it about ourselves. We do ask forgiveness. But we want to change and we often don't know how. We pray that you would teach us. We pray that you would enter us and change us, that we may hear what you have to say and understand. And also for others as well. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson Senior Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota
[Transcribed from an audiotape of the 9:00 a.m. worship service on April 25, 2004.] |
|
|